Bufones de Pria

The coast around Pria is limestone riddled by water, and where sea caves have eroded upward until they broke through the clifftop, the openings act as blowholes: an incoming wave compresses air in the cave and drives it out through the hole, taking spray with it, and in a big swell the jets reach tens of metres with a deep roaring sound audible before anything is visible. Several bufones are spread across a clifftop meadow reached by a walk of about fifteen minutes from a small parking area, with grazing cattle and no fencing. They work only with sufficient swell, generally from autumn to spring, and in calm summer weather they do nothing at all. The same conditions that make them fire make the cliff edge dangerous.

What you actually see

• The blowholes - openings in the clifftop meadow firing spray upward.
• The sound - a deep roar preceding each jet.
• The clifftop meadow - grazing land running to an unfenced edge.
• The limestone coast - eroded cliffs and caves along the shore.

When to go

October to April, when Atlantic swell is most likely; calm days produce nothing. Checking a swell forecast is the only way to plan it. Summer visits are usually disappointing.

Honest expectations

There is no fencing at all and the cliff edge is undercut in places, with fatalities recorded; the very conditions that make the bufones work make standing near them hazardous. Approach is across working pasture with cattle. They frequently do nothing.

Nearby

Llanes and Gulpiyuri beach lie east; the Picos de Europa rise inland.