Since our Lenny is a four-wheel drive vehicle, we really like to stay at much more remote places. After the others had departed and traveled back to germany, we found not far away from our previews campsite this wonderful little corner. The trail we had to drive to get there you wouldn’t manage it with an ordinary car, van or Bulli. We drove about 20 minutes on narrow and bumpy dirt roads through bushes and woods. We have made a reel about that route, which you can find in our Instagram account @lennytheoverlander.

Normally we used the apps iOverlander and Park4Night to search for spots, but here we checked out the satellite view on Google Maps to find those remote roads to get to the coastline which ins in between Lapdíz and playa San Juan. We just followed the off road trail and we stumbled upon this great spot to spend the night and we liked the spot so much that we even came back for another night.

As I already mentioned wild camping is officially not allowed, but it’s mostly tolerated in northern Spain, the important thing is that it should not look like camping, but more like parking. So you should always keep all your equipment, like camping table or chairs in the car, don’t leave it outside during the night and you should also sleep inside the car or van. If you have a roof tent like we have it’s only possible to set it up in remote places. That's why we converted our Land Cruiser with a bed inside. So if we don’t find a remote place we can also sleep inside.

We have of course not only a bed inside Lenny, but under the bed we have also 2 large drawers where we have installed our "kitchen" such as gas stove, sink, water canister and a complete drawers only for supplies and kitchen utensils, where we have already prepared some great dinners.

My favorite kitchen tool is the cast iron Dutchoven with lid. Although it’s a heavy item and takes up some space, we already cooked some great and uncomplicated dishes which I often add into our meal planning during our trips.

Because of its easy handling I really like the one-pot dishes when it comes to outdoor cooking. That evening we prepared ourselves a pasta dish, which was not entirely one-pot but therefore incredibly delicious and yet simple. That’s why I would like to share with you this pasta recipe. It’s an Italian classic pasta dish and who likes seafood or mussels will be delighted. The name of the dish comes from the venus clams which are so called in Italian.

First, make an open fire and while the fire burns down you can prepare the ingredients. If the branches have already been burned into glowing chunks, then use them to prepare a bed of embers at the fireplace and place the pot directly on the embers.

SPAGHETTI VONGOLE IN CAST IRON DUTCH OVEN

You need for 2 pers.:

1 kg Vongole veraci (venus clams)

1 onion

1-2 cloves of garlic

1 bunch of parsley

400-500 g spaghetti

Salt & Pepper

8 tablespoons olive oil

40 g butter

125 ml dry white wine

200 ml vegetable broth

Preperation:

Wash the frozen clams with cold water and strain them (in Spain you can find frozen clams in every supermarket).
Wash, dry and chop the parsley.
Finely dice onion and garlic (on the Spanish mainland you can buy a fresh made parsley-garlic mixture. But everything freshly chopped tastes better)
When everything is prepared, put the pasta water in a saucepan and slowly bring to a boil (I did this on our gas stove.
In the meantime, bring the olive oil and butter to simmer in a casserole. Sauté the onions, garlic and a part of the parsley until translucent. Deglaze with white wine and cook uncovered for 2 minutes. Add veggie broth and bring to a boil.
Add clams and cook for 3 minutes. Season with salt and fresh pepper and continue cooking for 2 minutes. Drain spaghetti and mix into clams. If necessary, season again with salt and pepper and sprinkle the rest of fresh parsley and a drizzle of olive oil. Finally, you can sprinkle freshly grated Parmesan over the pasta.

That’s it!!!

You see, It's a very quick, which can be prepared "al momento“ in about 15 minutes and this recipe goes by the motto: less is more. The secret, as always, lies in the fresh ingredients of the best quality.

We spent a wonderful evening, with simple but all the more delicious food, accompanied by a good white wine and with one of the most beautiful sunsets in the most beautiful spot we had in Galicia.

After we spent 2 nights at this remote campground, we went a bit back north and we found an awesome campground directly at the "Praia de Pronzos". Although the weather was a bit cloudy and windy, we still liked this pitch. Some locals came by, who went for a walk at the beach and kindly asked us to watch out and to treat everything properly. We were just very grateful that they didn’t force us to leave or didn’t call the police. It may happen when local residents feel disturbed, which should definitely be respected. We always treat the campsites very well anyway. We never leave garbage or the small white flags in the nature. We even take the ashes from our open fire cooking with us to the next trash can. With the fire bowl of FENNEK it works perfectly. We just try to leave the places cleaner than it was. Because we would like to return a little bit of what nature gives to us.

Unfortunately the time had come to think about the route to drive slowly back towards Cadiz. We still had enough time but the way back, should be determined, so that we could set our next destinations. Since we also wanted to discover the mountains of Spain, it should go back to Asturias, in order to drive from Gijón into the mountains. But since we have heard that Galicia also has beautiful spots in the mountains, which were not far away from the seaside, we decided to start our return trip to Asturias, first to explore the jungle like forest of Galicia. No worries, I will tell you exactly what we discovered in the next post.

So stay tuned,

Katy

Pics by Daniell Bohnhof

Text by Look2 Ocean

Off-Road Paradise Galicia & Dutch-Oven Recipe

Katy