Tito Bustillo Caves and Rock Art Centre
"Are you Americans?" a man asked us in English as we were waiting for our tour. I was shocked. It was the first English I’d heard since arriving in Asturias in Spain, and it was an American accent, not British! He was equally surprised. “What are you doing here?” he said. “Visiting family?”
We explained we were merely on vacation and he introduced us to his wife, who’s from Asturias. He himself is from Houston Texas and they spend half of their time there and half of their time in Spain. We had the kind of uninhibited conversation that you start to miss when your grasp on the local language is weak.
Speaking of being bad at languages, as we headed into the Tito Bustillo cave I was grateful to hear “tour guide” Spanish, that loud and crisp voice a guide uses to be heard by the crowd. At first, I tried to translate everything in a whisper for my parents, but I still fell behind.
The cave itself was GIANT and beautiful, but we weren’t there to admire the natural splendour. Instead, the guide ushered us deeper, back toward the original cave entrance where we could hear the rushing of the subterranean river. Here, we stood agape as his flashlight crawled across the “Main Panel”. Almost 100 overlapping figures are painted onto one rock wall, created by two different paleolithic groups thousands of years apart.
No photos were allowed in the cave, so here's one from the Tito Bustillo official website:
The pre-Magdalenian art, dating from before 20,000 BC, could barely be seen. The later group, from around 17,000 to 12,000 BC, covered them with a red stain as the base for their own canvas. Nice move, guys.
The guide traced the outlines of horses and reindeer with his flashlight. The contours in the stone helped form some of the figures’ bodies and could only be seen in their proper proportions when crouched just right. The artists had painted these by the light of smokeless bone marrow lamps and even used scaffolding to reach the ceiling.
I was surprised by the detail and artistry, and saddened that we will never truly understand why they were painted here and what they represent. Their secrets had been sealed away when the cave entrance collapsed, and the cave was only rediscovered in 1968 by a group of amateur speleologists.
Since it was Wednesday, both the tour and the museum were free. Otherwise, the 45-minute tour runs 7.3 euros per person. Reservations are recommended, and I “purchased” our tickets a couple of weeks in advance online.
We visited the museum afterward, which was of surprisingly high quality. The dark rooms had geometric ceilings and modern lit-up displays, all giving the impression that you were inside a cave. The placards and videos were subtitled in English.
The coolest part was the replicas of other pieces of art inside the cave that weren’t open to the public. My favorite was the “Chamber of Vulvas”. I liked to imagine the person who originally discovered it - how long did they stare at it before shouting, “By god, it’s a bunch of female genitalia!”
Cuevona de Cuevas del Agua
Driving through manmade tunnels is common enough, but how often do you get to drive through a natural cave?
Cuevas del Agua is a small town that’s a beautiful (if narrow) 15-minute drive from the Tito Bustillo Caves. The last 300 meters of this drive is through a well-lit cavern, the Cuevona, where stalagmites, stalactites, and flowstones flew by outside our windows. For those who want to get a closer look, there’s also a pedestrian path through the cave.
Out the other end, we parked by a playground on the edge of the village. There’s not a lot here for idle tourists apart from a shop selling some food. The 15 km Ruta de los Molinos walking path also passes through here, which leads to many historical communal water mills.
Playa de Cuevas del Mar
What better way to end a day full of caves than at a beach full of sea caves? But I honestly wasn’t expecting the beach to be this beautiful.
Waves raced into the shell-shaped bay and crashed against stone arches. A stream carved fractal whorls into the sand as it made its way to the ocean. And, in the cliffs on either side, cave entrances beckoned.
The tide was halfway in, so not all the sea caves were accessible, but I poked around a few of them. None were very deep or dark, but I could imagine all the fun that could be had playing pirate or dragon’s lair here.
We sat on a bench to eat a picnic dinner and people watch. I was particularly amused by a boy hammering away at rocks like it was the most serious job in the world. And, of course, there was a herd of free-range Asturian cows nearby if the two-legged denizens weren’t cute enough.
But the biggest spectacle was the couple getting their wedding photos taken with dressed-up horses. It was clear that the groom was more comfortable with horses than his bride, so the horse handler had to step in while the photographer snapped away. Unfortunately, the handler wasn’t dressed like an elegant groomsman. He tried to hide behind the horses, his bright board shorts and bare legs peeking out.
As my mom and I walked past them on our way up the hill, we saw he was taking goofy selfies with the horses.
I had wanted to walk to the next beach over, Playa San Antolin. That’s one of the cool parts about Asturias - each beach is only a short walk or bike ride away from the next. I knew if I wasn’t careful, this could keep stringing me along from one patch of golden sand to the next. But my dad had run out of cigarettes so time was running out before he spontaneously combusted or whatever happens when a smoker goes too long without a puff.
So instead, my mom and I jogged to the top of the bluffs. As we passed the bridal couple, I gave them my congratulations. We caught the horse handler in the act of taking goofy selfies with the horses.
On top of the world, we only had a few moments to take in the view: mountains, beach, cliffs, and even a little hermitage located on a point.
Then it was back to rest and recuperate for the next day in Spain!
!steemitworldmap 43.460847 lat -5.067435 long See prehistoric cave art, drive through a cave, and step into a sea cave all in one day in Asturias. d3scr
Thanks for stopping by! As always, all words, video, and photos are mine unless otherwsie noted. Stay tuned for another On the Road next Monday!
- Katie, @therovingreader
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