Village Visit: Balboa

We took a morning to visit a village this past week. Apart from one of the kids vomiting in the back seat, it was an enjoyable morning trip. We escaped the dense fog of our valley and crossed over into the beautiful sunshine of the Ancares Mountains (which run along the northwest border of El Bierzo).

In Balboa, we had coffee in a palloza, a unique style of building common in this area. These structures are generally a circular base and wall of stone, covered with a cone shaped thatched roof. Inside there are often multiple levels to separate the living quarters from the animals’ quarters during the winter months. (There were no animals in this one, thankfully.)