On the Cat’s Back
Sometimes our reading maps onto our walks. Or vice versa. The night before I had been reading in Raymond Williams’ People of the Black Mountains how Glyn goes in search of his Taid one evening, when the older… Read More
Above the fog line
There is a world above the fog line, as we discover. Two hundred and fifty metres above sea level, we emerge into a landscape filled with colour. The sky is a cerulean blue. Like the inhabitants of Plato’s… Read More
The distant glow of somewhere
Walking along the ridge that separates Cwm Grwyne Fawr from the Vale of Ewyas, I am attentive to the details, and enter a familiar state of watchful trance. But the details are relatively few when walking in a… Read More
Dead pony, Y Fan, Grwyne Fawr
Before the sheep, there were horses. People always associate sheep with these hills, and for good reason. The sheep have been here for three thousand years, but before the sheep, there were horses. Always there were the horses,… Read More
This sleeve of land
Following the hilltop path, there is a warm patina, almost a glow, to the afternoon, despite the chill. You look down on this sleeve of land that is Cwm Grwyne Fechan. You have been walking here your entire… Read More
With Malcolm Lowry in Cuernavaca
The following is an extract from my as yet unpublished travel memoir, Ambassador of Nowhere. It concerns a trip to Mexico in 2014. Caminar en esta zona no le recomiendo: es muy peligroso, said the security guard on… Read More
Ricardo Blanco’s Blog
- The Open RoadThe sun is never so beautiful as on a day when you take to the open road. For several months, during my travels on foot around southern Europe at the tail end of the 1980s, I carried with... Read More
- A tight knot of mermerosityWhen we set out, just past Castell Dinas, we pass a dog driving a tractor. Or so it seems. The shadow of Bruno the dog is long. We see him everywhere. Every morning when I first go downstairs... Read More
- The Olchon Valley and Walter LollardThe Olchon Valley, which I only discovered recently, is a place that feels as though it shouldn’t exist. It is almost the definition of somewhere lost to the world; undiscovered, little known even to those who walk its... Read More
- Flight of the IsardI filmed this isard, or chamois, a couple of summers ago while hiking above Coma de Vaca, in the Pyrenees. I came across the clip on my computer this morning and thought I would post it. It felt... Read More
- Bruno’s last picnic (part 2)When we had finished our meal, I covered the embers of the fire with tranches of muddy turf, trod them down. We returned to the car. The lane winds down the narrow valley for six miles, between wooded... Read More
Ricardo Blanco, Citizen of Nowhere
Ricardo Blanco's Blog 