Spring Road Trip With Our Dog, Pt 1

Ever thought of traveling with your canine friend but never knew how to approach this ?

In the end of February we adopted Luna, a 3-year old border collie, from the pet shelter and one month later she was already boarding onto a camper van trip with us.

We opted for local Rumbo Tierra camper due to them being a pet friendly camper van company with pickup and drop-off point located in Madrid. In this post I will describe a 2-week itinerary.

Jerte Valley

We knew it was a blooming season of cherry trees and Jerte Valley is the most known place for blooming cherries in Spain. At that time stormy weather was passing across all Spain and exactly in Jerte Valley the weather was favorable and we didn't think twice. We made our overnight stop in Cabezuela del Valle village in a quiet parking by the river, close to the tourism office.

Garganta de Los Infiernos

It's recommended to start this hike in the early morning. Due to its popularity, the trail gets crowded very fast during the day. We had a cloudy but still a pleasant morning start walking through the forest.

We were still in the process of discovering Luna's posing skills.

Los Pilones is the most attractive spot in the trail. These are natural swimming holes cascading in layers along the curious rock formations. It must be quite refreshing in the hot summer.

I did some exploration around to find various angles for shooting and soaked my tripod generously in the river.

Luna's Photo Session

In the afternoon we found a spot with rows of cherry trees close to the village and planned our evening shooting session with Luna.

She was happily running back and forth in exchange for the treats.

Rural Hike

Our next morning in Jerte Valley we wanted to explore terraces of cherry trees and went in the opposite direction from Garganta de Los Infiernos trail. My main guide was location of the sunrise, other than that it was a very random direction choice. But as there are many rural paths in the area, you can't go wrong with them and will always encounter beautiful views.

In our walk we met elegant white horses and ... crazy beagle. Due to Luna's past, she is not very sociable with other dogs and always feels discomfort when they approach here. This beagle started with bugging me first, staring at me for a moment, then starting to bark and next thing he was attempting was pulling my pants at the ankle level (in a friendly manner).

Observing horses is more contemplative than interacting with persistent beagles. :)

Finding my soul at peace in these rural surroundings. Simple joy of the simple moments.

Nogaleas Trail

We found out about this trail in the village and decided on it for the evening hike.

It's located near Navaconsejo that also had camper van parking but we had the camper parked in Cabezuella del Valle and walked to the trail from there. It takes about 40 minutes to walk until the trail. The trail itself is mostly ascending up and has 7 waterfalls along it! It must be one of the most exciting routes we've hiked.

Leaving the trail we witnessed terraces with cherry trees once again.

Next morning all of us (including Luna) slept a lot after the long and tiring hike. The weather forecast wasn't too favorable either. In the afternoon we did however pay a visit to yet another waterfall.

Caozo Waterfall (Cascada Bonal)

The sky took a greyish tone, that always looks overexpose in the phots. The best I could attempt was bracketing the exposures to get the exposure more or less even. Metallic viewpoint construction was under maintenance and forbidden to walk on. Next time anyone of you is visiting this place, make sure to check the sign with a note before entry. There are other spots around the waterfall to enjoy the view from and no Instagram shot is worth an accidental fall.

Here we decided it was time to hit our next destination. It had to be Cáceres where we haven't been since the beginning of 2020, just before the pandemic hit the world.

When to go to Jerte Valley

The blooming of cherry trees usually falls into the period between late March and beginning of April, and continues for about 2-3 weeks.

Cáceres

We arrived at Cáceres late in the evening and it already started raining by then. Our overnight parking spot was near El Principe park. I still set my alarm for the sunrise, constantly checking weather forecast and it was supposed to stop raining within the morning blue hour window. I came with Luna to the viewpoint in Infanta Isabel park and exactly at this moment rain resumed and I couldn't even take my camera out.

It continued raining cats and dogs until afternoon. Which meant longer sleeping, chilling in the van and editing photos. In the afternoon it cleared and we even had a decent sunset. The viewpoints were The Most Beautiful Bench of Caceres (I kid you not it even had a sign saying that! ) and Cerro del Amparo.

Where to Eat in Cáceres

When not in the wild outdoors, you'd wan