The Basque language comes first here and as I mentioned yesterday, this is one of the most unique languages in the world since it’s not related to any European language. Because of the Franco dictatorship suppressing languages other than Castellan Spanish, in 1991 only around 22% of the people in Basque Country spoke Basque. Over time, the language has grown to be spoken by over 30% of the population, with the biggest group speaking the language being those 16-24 (75%). The Basque autonomous movement (not all positive) and the transition to democracy in Spain, has helped revive the language. As we were driving to the trailhead, Pam pointed out something interesting. Given the prevalences of the letters X and Z in so many Basque words, playing Scrabble in Basque would have to lead to amazing scores.

Driving through Spain, we have been using English, naturally, as the navigation language for the Maps app. That’s lead to me losing a lot of my Spanish knowledge because Apple’s Siri pronounces all the Spanish names with English sounds. When we got to Basque Country, American Siri produces only indistinct collections of sounds for Basque names, that make her sound all confused. We thought it was really funny.

Given all the “fun” we’ve had driving in Spain, we were hoping to get though the end of the trip without any more mishaps or crazy backup adventures. At least we avoided another fender bender. The one car wide road to the trailhead was blocked by a large construction truck that wasn’t moving anytime soon. That meant I got the joy of backing up over a ¼ of a mile with a rock wall on one side and a curb on the other. This wasn’t any curb, but a perfectly engineered curb about half a tire tall, so it was at maximum damage height. It was also designed to be impossible to see when you backed up. With Pam’s help, I managed to get back to a turnaround area but that was 0% fun.

We ended up parking above the entrance to the Sanctuary of Arantzazu. While this is on the list of sites to see in the area around Oñati, we took one look and decided to pass. In 1950, a group of architects/artists got the commission to build a new sanctuary. As it says in the tourism web site, “…Arantzazu stands out because it is unique testimony of the work done by a group of artists who got ahead of the artistic Avant-garde, breaking with the architectural trends of their time.” They were extreme Brutalists before brutalism was invented. I’m sorry, but I thought it was the least attractive church I’ve ever seen in Spain.

The hike started through a wonderful beech forest with a steady up. Fortunately, there was a breeze to help with cooling, so it wasn’t too bad. At the pass into the Urbia valley, the path went through what must have been the old right of way between land boundaries. The trees that lined the path were huge, all around was tree-less grazing land, making a dramatic entrance to the valley. I drove Pam a little nuts trying to capture a picture of it.

Something that’s neat about Spanish national parks, like Aizkorri-Aratz parke naturala, is that they realize people lived and worked in these places long before the park existed. That’s why you see various farms and support systems needed for them. The Urbia valley has farming enclaves scattered through it along with their animals. Grazing animals in Spain mean bells around their necks so we got to hike with that lovely sound all through the valley.

In the photo above, our route up was across the face from left to right, culminating in the little pass on the left of the Aitxuri. We’d already done a good bit of up and were about to get serious about more up.

Something we have been enjoying watching all through this trip are the vultures always overhead across the Pyrenees. These huge birds glide through the thermals looking graceful as they look for carcasses to scavenge. We are used to seeing a few on every hike, but in the Urbia valley we saw six floating across the sky lower than most. It seemed like they were fixated on a particular area, but, sadly, they never landed. After many attempts with the iPhone camera, I finally got a picture worth sharing, though it’s not great. This is a Eurasian griffon vulture, which has a wingspan between 7.5-9.2 feet.

All the way up and down the massif, I had trouble. There were so many wildflowers in bloom that I wasn’t paying attention to the views or to my footing. All the whites, yellows, pinks, purples, and other flower colors added a beauty I loved. While I’ve already shown you lots of flower pictures from earlier in the trip, I can’t resist adding another.

At about 12:30 we made the climb up to the pass. While it was breezy on the way up, as soon as we hit the pass, it was a strong wind. We went from hot and sweaty, to cold very quickly. We were prepared with fleeces and rain jackets, but it was like we went up another 5,000 feet in that pass given the temperature differences.

We’d been worried about the possibility of rain today so had hoofed the six miles to the pass without much in the way of breaks. We ducked down behind an outcropping to eat some lunch and discuss what was next. The clouds had mostly rolled in, but I think our lunch view made the walk up worth it.

We decided that with the probable rain and Pam’s worry about footing going down, we weren’t going to do the summits. We liked this hike a lot and are going to come back to this area so we can do them later.

Sorry about the X rated part.

The whole way down we were second guessing if we should have done the peaks. Given how beautiful these mountains are, it seemed we might have made the wrong decision. However, back in the Urbia valley, our caution was justified.

After finishing the hike, we thought about going to a different restaurant for dinner, but we had such a good meal last night at EtxeAundi, that we went back. This time we tried the beef cheeks and had to have that great lamb again. The waiter was great and told us we had to try the torrilla for dessert. This is a traditional dessert from the Oñati valley and is bread soaked in milk for three days. It’s then semi-dried and caramelized on top (like a crème brulé) and served with homemade vanilla ice cream. We ate it so fast we forgot to take a picture!

Epilogue

The trip is done, and we are back home with lovely memories. We are so fortunate to be able to take vacations like these so cherish everything about them, except the fender-bender in Ainsa! Overall, we loved the hiking but feel we tried to pack in too much, too far apart, so spent more time driving than we would have liked. We are going to go back to the eastern side of northern Spain again because we want to do more hiking. I think we’ll start in Burgos because we still must do half of the Museum of Human Evolution as well as a much deeper look at the Burgos Cathedral. After that we’ll stay in Ainsa, Bonansa, La Rioja, and Oñati for three or four days each to really hike the parks and peaks in those areas. We can’t wait! We’ll write about it when we do so you can come along.

Some of you have asked why I write so much. In 2017, I started taking notes during a vacation and it evolved into what you are reading now. Knowing that I will write each night keeps me focused during the day as I’m looking and thinking hard about what we are seeing and doing. The writing process is a wonderful challenge for me I love, even though I stay up way too late. Being able to find something that makes readers laugh is the best part.

Having these stories ensures we have something more than unlabeled photographs in the Photos app. Recently, I went back and read the story I wrote about our Camino Primitivo hike we did in 2019. (Those aren’t online, sorry). I was thrilled that while reading I remembered so much of what happened that I hadn’t written about. Smells, conversations, and sights not mentioned came alive again. Great vacations are about experiences and writing is capturing them to hold them forever.

We also don’t know what will happen as we age. Our health is excellent, and we are doing everything recommended to keep it that way for body and mind, but there’s always a chance of an unlucky hand. These stories are an attempt to keep memories that might be fragile.

I’d encourage you to think about taking some notes on your next vacation. Do not write over 36,000 words as I have, because that’s just a little obsessive and downright weird. Writing, that intentional act of meditation and remembrance, makes you present every moment in your vacation. You’ll also have a wonderful gift to yourself when you read it later. Trust me on this one.

Finally, to all of you reading: thank you from my soul! I need you much more than you need me. Knowing you are reading is exciting and incredibly motivating. Every one of you made our vacation exponentially better.

Until our next adventure!

My favorite of all is Salt: A World History. The chemical NaCl is ubiquitous today on our tables and roads in winter, so we don’t think much about it. That is unless your food is too salty, or the roads too slippery. Before the advent of chemically producing salt, it was the driving force for much of history. Salt was so valuable that it was used as currency, which is where we get the word salary. Trade routes were founded for salt, and wars were fought over it. I’ve recommended this book for years and to so many people. Its historical breadth is covered with a light touch that teaches and entertains at the same time. I’m sure you will love it. If you don’t, I don’t know if we can be friends. (Just kidding!)

When our tour company, Pura Aventura, suggested visiting the Valle Salado de Añana (Añana Salt Valley), I couldn’t say yes fast enough. Kurlasnky’s descriptions of how salt was mass produced before chemistry around the world is fascinating. In this little valley, salt has been made by hand continuously for over 7,000 years. Eons ago, the valley was a dried-up sea, and with the crashing of the tectonic plates created a huge salt deposit underground, which springs now run though. The brine produced is seven times saltier than the oceans. Salt farming is quite simple. Move the brine to a hot flat area, swish the water around to encourage salt concentration through evaporation, and collect the remaining salt. It’s hot and heavy work. The Valle Salado de Añana web site has a lot more information.

The other day, I lamented the on-the-ropes town of Gallipienzo which needs to find a way to harvest tourists to save the town. Early in the 20^th century, manual salt production died out and the salt works were left to rot, as was the town of Añana. In 2009, the government restored the works, build infrastructure to support tourism, and it’s a beautiful example of saving a rural area. They’ve also done a lot of historical and scientific research so the tour covers all aspects in a thoughtful way.

We started the English tour with a very good guide, and there were only eight of us on the tour, so I was looking forward to asking a lot of questions and taking photos. After she gave us the ten-minute overview and we are walking down the pathway, we heard shouting behind us. A group of 18 very corpulent and very ancient Germans are staggering down the path, led by an equally large woman, their tour guide, saying they were part of the tour. Jerk Guide forced her way through us, alternating hollering in German at the barely moving people to gather around and arguing in Spanish and English with our guide.

Our poor guide was trying to tell this woman that this was not her tour, but Jerk Guide would not leave. We are now blocked in by the living dead, so our guide has no choice. Just as Jerk Guide plants herself directly beside our guide, the very nice Scottish lady behind us says “God damn Germans, always invading!” That exquisite quip nearly caused Pam and I to blow a kidney trying to hold in laughter because we wanted that burn to fester in the air as long as possible.

Alas, Jerk Guide was impervious to shame. Our guide is resigned to our fate, so she says the next sentence and Jerk Guide interrupts her to translate what she said in German. Jerk Guide is speaking into a wireless microphone to the earpieces of the nearly comatose group, at twice the volume of our tour guide. At this, our tour guide has had it and sharply tells her to not interrupt her anymore. The three French, two Scots, and two Americans of the original group are now allies and are now glaring at all the somnolent Germans. We silently agree to close ranks and keep a protective blockade around our tour guide.

Jerk Guide is oblivious to the brewing storm, but one perceptive tottering German realizes they have a problem. Some words go back and forth in German and Jerk Guide tones it down for the rest of the tour. Our guide still did a wonderful job, but it meant that I didn’t have time to take decently composed pictures. If I had stopped an unsteady oldster would have surely bump into me and knocked me into the weirdly fragile brine channel system bringing ruin to everything the site offers. Thus, I was unwilling to potentially cause an international incident.

Pam did receive a shock in the middle of the tour. When our guide asked for a volunteer, your intrepid reported jumped at the chance. My thinking was if we let one of the shuffling Germans do it, we’d still be waiting in the valley for them to get there, with us slowly turning to salt. In truth, I was really interested in the process after Kurlansky’s book, so wanted to do anything they would let me do.

After the tour, we had a nice time talking to Celia and her husband. They are retired educators and are spending the next six months caravaning around Europe. They are paying an average of €20-€25 for most of their sites, which is far cheaper than the US. Also, caravans in Europe, trailers to us Yanks, are relatively small. Tongue in cheek, I estimate that three caravans would fit into your average American camping trailer.

After the tour and chat, we headed to Oñati, a town deep in the middle of the highest mountains in Basque Country. We’d arrived after 2:00 PM, so the siesta time was in full swing, which meant our hotel wasn’t open, and we hadn’t really scouted out any hikes. Deciding we could use some tapas we head to the city center and walk around. Finding a restaurant with outdoor seating, we were fortunate to sit down at a table next to who we called “Los acaldes de este calle” (the mayors of this street).

These two older gentlemen squared us away on how to get our order in as the restaurant was about to close and they didn’t want us to go hungry. They knew every single person who walked by, and everyone came over to pay their respects in both Basque and Castellan. When we got our drinks, I toasted their health and they both quietly nodded. Between the constant deference of the passersby and the way they nodded at me, it felt like we were under the protection of the “made” men. They weren’t gangsters but maybe the beer got to me this afternoon.

Side note: Castellan is the main dialect of Spanish across Spain and what we speak in the Americas. Other dialects of Spanish are Catalan and Gallego. Basque is well, Basque. Its the only Paleo-European language spoken in Europe and is not related to any other modern language, which are Indio-European in the language family taxonomy. If you want to know more about these fascinating people and their language, I highly recommend Mark Kurlansky’s The Basque History of the World: The Story of a Nation. Kurlansky is one prolific, and excellent, author!

We could see that Oñati was a decent size town, so we decided to walk around and make that our hike. Passing an old large building, we saw a door to the courtyard was open, so we poked our head in. It turned out to be the Sancti Spiritus Unibertsitatea (Universidad del Espíritu Santo), started by a papal bull in 1540.  The building itself is one of the most notable Renaissance buildings in Basque Country.

The above photo is disturbing. It’s some form of goat dragon and I’d love to know the real meaning. Since this is on the university building maybe it’s a warning to slacker students that this is your fate if you don’t study? The curly pig tail is weird as well. Maybe this is just nightmare fuel?

We meandered over to the tourism office and on the window of the building was a map of the town. Concentrating on the map and the significant buildings listed, Pam and I are bent over close to it, when we have the bejesus scared out of us. A lady from the tourist office had opened the door to our left and said, “You can come in, we are open.” She immediately felt bad, but we thought it was hysterical. Since it was the middle of siesta time, we never thought to see if the door was unlocked.

As we laughed our way into the office, the other lady behind the desk said, “Welcome to Basque Country. Our traditional way of greeting people is to scare them.” We got a wonderful overview of Oñati and lots of advice on where to go and what to see. She had brochures and websites for everything. The most interesting factoid I’ll relate is that Oñati is the first non-tourist town we have stayed in. It’s a manufacturing hub, so most people work in industry, with tourism second. This was surprising because Oñati is surrounded by beautiful mountains and streams.

The first place we wanted to visit was the Monasterio de Santa Clara de Bidaurreta, an active monastery for the nuns of Poor Clares (Order of Saint Clare), a Franciscan branch. They give tours, but at the tourist office we were told that the nuns “seem to run on their own schedule so either they are open or not.” We walked up and it turned out to be an “or not” day so we didn’t get to see anything other than the outside and the entry way.

The second key place we had to go was the chocolate museum. If Purple Crayon members learned that Pam had been to a city with a chocolate museum and didn’t go, they would drum her out of PC very quickly. The museum opened at 5:00 PM (the end of siesta time), and we were there five minutes before it opened, natch.

Back in the 17^th century, people with connections to Oñati in the New World, sent back cocoa seeds to the city and they started making chocolate. As business grew, more chocolate factories started until in the 1950’s there were 60 chocolate factories in the city. Not bad for a city of between 7,000 and 8,000 people at that time. Today, there is only one chocolate factory that doesn’t offer tours. The museum itself is a single room, but we enjoyed it and now have a large bag of chocolate bars. Real Basque chocolate is less sweet than American chocolate and isn’t engineered to keep you eating it even though you don’t want to. I like it very much.

We poked around a little more and bought groceries for a hike tomorrow, but decided that since it was after 6:00 PM, we would hang out at the hotel, EtxeAundi, a mile outside of town. It’s a nice place and we’d stay there again. It’s rated a two-star hotel, which is set by the government. Here’s an explanation to the star differences for Andalucia, but those are the standard across Spain. It all has to do with corridor sizes, parking, reception hours, and so on.

As the hotel and restaurant has an excellent 4.6-star rating on the internet rating sites, we opted to eat there. The server was great and the food even better. Vegetarians beware: they had roasted suckling lamb thigh on the menu so there was no way I was passing that up!

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to write about our days!

Pam woke up tired and not feeling well. She doesn’t have a cold but is having a queasy belly. I know she’s not 100% because she didn’t eat much of the great breakfast. As our morning was dedicated to a cultural event pertaining to a form of ingestion that is very important to the valley shared between Navarre and La Rioja we are in: a wine tasting. She was not about to miss that.

We visited the Luis Cañas Winery where on the ¼ mile walk we went from modern to traditional. The others on the tour were a nice couple from Holland, and a group of hilarious Australians. Of course, if an Australian is not funny, the government strips them of their citizenship and they are banished from the country in everlasting shame. While you would think a wine tasting would be the same no matter what continent, even the Australians had to agree, the wine flows far more freely in Spain. We drank a lot of great wine. I’m sure we paid for it, but Pura Aventura included it in the overall cost, so we have no idea. The most important fact we learned was that grapes are a fruit, so it is perfectly fine to drink wine in the morning.

A couple of interesting things stood out to me from the tour. In the wine growing valley, one of the most famous in Spain, there’s over 600 wineries. In other words, if you go on multiple wine tours across the region over several days, your liver will hurt. Something they do differently is instead of single variety vineyards, they intermix reds and whites, of all varietals. If you see a trellises in a field here, it’s a single type of grape. Part of the reason for the mixing is to take advantage of various locations and climate. We saw a beautiful picture of what the fields look like in November where they are awash in various fall colors between the white and red grape leaves intermixed in the fields.

The last part of the tour was charming as they seated us in a nicely covered area, where each table had small tapas of imberico jámon, local sausage, and made just around the corner cheese. More importantly they brought out a Reserva that was smooth as silk. As the Australian group had to go, they were leaving some of their open wine, so I asked for a little pour as they didn’t want to see it go to waste. An Aussie poured me a full glass as I kept telling him to stop. When he finally did, I told him he was my new best friend. He told me I sold myself cheap. I guess this is a location story (you had to be there), but it was quite funny.

Pam was feeling better, but not 100% so she encouraged me to go on a walk by myself. She lounged around and read books all afternoon. Those of you in the Purple Crayon book club watch out for the next meeting because she’s done and very prepared to talk about it.

Picking a hike with up, I headed to the starting point at Ábalos. As soon as I started walking, it felt weird. Pam wasn’t there. When we lived in New Hampshire, I hiked most of the 48  White Mountain 4,000 footers by myself and Pam going with me on the rest. In the intervening 18 years, I’ve always hiked with Pam. I missed her. However, it reminded me of those days walking alone so it was like an old, pleasant memory returned.

Walking through town two abuelitas (grandmas, in this case great grandmas) were sitting outside chatting and one yelled out that I needed to get a coat on. It was in the 50s and the wind was blowing well. I told them I was out for a hike and would warm up soon. She still said I still needed to put a coat on. The other asked if I was going to climb the mountain, which is exactly what I was going to do. One said “Ah, to be young again!” I laughed and pulled off my hat and pointed to my grey hair and said, “¡Soy anciano!” (I’m elderly!). They laughed and said, “Shut up, child!” and wished me luck. No matter where you are in the world, the abuelitas are always looking out for you.

The trail was a relentless up, but that’s what it takes to get to the top. It was on maintained dirt roads, and had a stretch along, for Spain, a main road. I was worried that in my haste to get started I had picked a mountain biking trail instead of a hiking trail. At a pass, the trail appeared, and after even more up, the following filled my vision.

The price of admission (all that up) was worth the view. At the top, the wind was blowing hard, and it was cold, so I followed the abuelitas advice and got my coat on. Fortunately, I was able to hunker down behind a small building as part of the radio tower on top, so I got to sit out of the wind and gaze at this stunning valley split between La Rioja on the right side, and Navarre on the left. What’s astounding is that nearly every green field you see there is a vineyard. That’s how this valley supports 600 wineries, and you’re only seeing a small sliver of the whole.

The mountain range that San León is made up of those dramatic limestone peaks that dominate the north side of the valley. In the picture above, the lower left corner by the radio tower shows a small example. (That radio tower is well below the peak.) Sadly, leaving my perch with a view, I looked to follow the path down the range. Given my well documented fear of heights, the maps show a trail that follows the spine of these knife edge peaks, I gulp hard. I see the trail goes literally across a two-foot-wide knife edge of limestone completely exposed to the crazy strong wind, and I’m thinking I’m going to have to turn back. In the most gingerly way possible, I go forward, and I realize that’s just the trail to an abandoned radio tower. The actual trail slides down to the right below the peaks, and it’s through an impressive European beech forest.

Right now, you are looking at the above photo and wondering why I would include such a boring picture. As I was walking along this path, the ground was thankfully dry because if it was raining it would have been nasty mud but in the dry it was fabulous walking. Weirdly, the forest was absolutely dead silent, the only sounds were the rhythm of my footsteps with a slight accompaniment of water sloshing in a partially empty water bottle in my pack. I’m walking along just focused on the sounds I’m making. After ten minutes of this, something happened that I have spent so much of my life trying to achieve: a meditative state. It was so beautiful!

Me trying mediation is like asking the wildest, craziest bar on the planet to calm down. I thought this was normal for everyone and could never understand how mediation worked. Over the years I have read numerous books and tried apps that show how to do mediation. I’ve always wanted the benefits meditation provides, but never could get my brain past the first step. As I’ve gotten older, that ability to focus got harder to the point I was asking my doctors for help. They’d tell me that it’s normal as you age, or I just need to develop a routine but ignored me when I said it wasn’t that.

That all changed in 2021 when my focus problems got so bad I had to drop out of UNCA because I was spending 30 hours to do homework that should have take 3-5 hours. I couldn’t keep up. I’d recently switch doctors and out of desperation I asked for help because there was no way this was normal. As you probably guessed, all my life I’ve had a raging case of untreated ADHD. Thanks to my new doctor, who has the same issues, and who actually listened to me, we got the right prescriptions working and it has been a life changing event (ask Pam!). While I’ve done OK in life with my own hard learned coping mechanisms, I can’t help but wonder how much more I could have done if doctors had listened to me earlier.

Even with getting everything diagnosed and dosed, I’ve still had a lot of trouble meditating and had given up trying. To have it sneak up on me like that was a surprise I was not expecting. I have my doubts that I’ll ever have that again but to feel it once made me feel normal and that was all worth it. Thanks, San León trail!

Down the trail was another small peak and in my moment of Zen, I thought about skipping it but I’m so glad I didn’t. At the top was something amusing. A Basque mountaineering club puts objects at the peaks of the mountains in this area. On the top of San León was a plaque, but on Cerrelunca was this beautiful object.

The front is a little door that you open and inside people have written little notes from their climbers. My favorite was “Soy Carlos, edad 7, mi primera montaña.” (I’m Carlos, 7 years old, my first mountain). My love of the outdoors is completely from my parents (Hi Mom!) exposing me to the fun of hiking, canoeing, camping, and just experiencing everything the outdoors offers. My sister Deb and I were so lucky to grow up that way. So is Carlos.

Heading down the mountain, I saw some deer tracks but figured my odds of seeing an actual wild animal in Spain was less than the lottery. Of course, 20 minutes later I see something moving and it’s a Spanish red deer. It’s not a great photo but it’s proof! Two second later it was gone, but it barked at me for the next five minutes.

Real ruins in Spain are hard to find. Over the years some government or town always tries a reconstruction effort. That’s not the case with Ermita de Nuestra Señora de la Rosa. I haven’t been able to find anything about the place, which makes me even more curious. Were they on the losing side of some pointless schism about the number of angels that could dance on the head of a pin? Were they attacked and destroyed by enemies of La Rioja? Was it just abandoned, and no one cared? The mystery remains.

Also, I couldn’t see why they would build a hermitage in such an isolated place until the goat herd wandering around the place pointed out why, by running away. About 50 feet behind the wall with the three holes was the reason. The views we sweet and didn’t require climbing all the way to San León.

After finishing the walk, I poked around the town of Ábalos because I’m like a fly to honey for a giant church. In the tiny town I kept seeing these large yarn designs on the sides of buildings, in windows, and on fences. They were everywhere in town.

Spanish towns must know I’m interested in them because all the residents hide. I saw no one in 30 minutes I spent poking around. This is the only town where I’ve seen anything like these yarn figures and was really curios as to why. I finally saw an abuelita taking bags to the trash and she looked a little askance as to why this very smelly, sweaty guy with a backpack was quickly approaching her.

She was all confused as to what I was asking about the yarn figures until I showed her a picture. I wanted to know why this one Spanish town had these and no other I’d ever seen. What was the significance? Were they good luck symbols? She laughed and laughed. They were something in the women in town did to make their houses more pretty, that’s all. So, I asked, “Art for art’s sake?” and she said “¡Exacto!” Mystery solved. I asked if she needed help carrying her bags to the trash and “I don’t need help, child.” I laughed hysterically and so did she. Full circle.

Pam was feeling much better when I got back. We wanted to try a restaurant in town, but it was closed so we ended up back at Hotel Viura for dinner. The braised beef cheeks were to die for. You must have to try them in Spain.

You reading these makes me so happy. Thank you!

Something struck me at breakfast thinking about Rosalind’s wonderful tour of Burgos Cathedral yesterday. While she talked about the art, especially the Flemish influence on Spain, much of the tour talked about chapels, and in some cases, cathedrals, on the sides and behind the altar of the main cathedral. These all have names like Chapel of Saint Henry, Chapel of Saint Anne or of the Conception, or Chapel of the Constable, which seem and sound like they are dedicated to the individual saints. The subversive part of Rosalind’s tour was that she concentrated on the individual(s) buried in the middle of each of these chapels.

The picture above is the overly rich guy (it’s always a guy), who paid for the initial refurbishment and construction of the Burgos Cathedral we see today. I can’t remember the name of this person, and, honestly, it’s not worth knowing. This dude’s “chapel” off the main part of the church is extravagant beyond belief with altars and pulpits so Mass must be performed in perpetuity with the mortal remains of whoever this is at the center of everything, so anyone attending Mass must pray for the soul of Mr. Rich Dude. You can see from the headgear, this isn’t a priest, cannon, or bishop. This is just a billionaire of the day who feels they deserve being the center of attention forever, solely because they are rich. Most of the other chapels were paid for by members of the clergy, who are supposed to serve the poor, but somehow they have far more money than Croesus.

The iconography of the time was all about showing the “piousness and goodliness” of these stupidly rich people. They are prudent, wise, and didn’t succumb to the seven deadly sins. While an atheist, I had to laugh because the seven deadly sins are quite clear. Lust: the desire for money or power. Gluttony: overconsumption of anything to the point of waste. Greed: duh! Envy: how dare they have a better chapel than me. Pride: hubris in bucket loads. Pride: in spades. Wrath is a little harder to pinpoint, but the anger to make my chapel more glorious than yours is worth at least half a point. I will concede that these people did not have Sloth. Final tally: 5.5 of the seven deadly sins are permanently on display in these chapels. No worries, these hypocrites thought, I have so much money that I’ll buy enough indulgences that it doesn’t matter, and I shall be quickly led to heaven with choirs singing, because I bought a first-class ticket.

The sign of a great guide is that they make you think and wonder. Rosalind did that because I’m still processing her tour the next day and will be for a while. If you ever visit Burgos, let me know and I’ll give you her contact information. You will learn a great deal and she’ll force you to think about things in a different way. Kudos to Rosalind!

When I explained my theories about Rosalind’s tour to Pam at breakfast, she summed all the profligate displays in Burgos Cathedral or any small town in Spain better than I could in 500 words: my tiny peepee is bigger than your tiny peepee. As always, if you don’t like these ideas, unsubscribe at any time. I respect your decision to do so.

After breakfast, we had to make a pilgrimage to an honest to god holy place. A place that explains your place in the word. A place that puts true meaning into your soul. In my opinion, the most holy of holy places in Spain: The Museum of Human Evolution.

Ten kilometers north east of Burgos is Atapuerca, a cave system where archeologists discovered the earliest remains of hominids from 1.2 million years ago. This is the oldest know site in Europe for these remains. The museum is the story of those remains and how they, and us, fit into the genus of Homo in Europe. We absolutely loved the museum and demand you put it on your bucket list of places to visit. 😺 If you have any European ancestry, it’s only respectful that you visit your elders! These are your relatives after all.

Level -1 shows you all the amazing discoveries at Atapuerca and how the site came to be. As you move up to Floor 0 shows the work archeologists do and how intense it is. On this floor they show the evolution fromAustralopithecus afarensis (AKA “Lucy”), to Homo rhodesiensis, to us Homo sapiens. We both thought that this display was astounding.

At the end of the above family tree display was a discussion of the Homo sapiens most potent advantage: our brains. It ended in one of the best pieces of art we’ve seen in ages.

The outside is a myriad of computer network cabling standing in for the connections your synapse makes across the brain. When you walk in, you hear recordings of the pops and clicks for the electrical signals firing across them. It’s dark and the artist used light to show those connections.

I couldn’t find who the artist was, but it was all I could to not fall to my knees in awe at such an inspired interpretation of this 3.3-pound machine that requires 20% of our oxygen intake, but only is 2.2% of our weight. To see the most complicated machine ever created in the universe in a completely new way was more moving and meaningful than any rich jerk’s “look at me” chapel. The worship of science is my religion and this entire museum its holy place. Only 0.4 miles separates the Burgos Cathedral from the Human Evolution Museum, but there’s only one cathedral in Burgos, and it’s absolutely not the one with the name.

We had taken many hours in the museum and only looked at half of it. Given all the time in the car and lack of hiking the last few days, (our reason for traveling!) we asked the Human Evolution Museum its blessing to let us move on with the promise we’ll come back and complete the half we didn’t see in this visit. I so wish I could bring all of you wonderful people to see the museum.

After a quick stop for tapas, and more mochillo (pig blood sausage) for me, I look up a hike we can do in the time we have left. Given the hell of getting into the city yesterday, we weren’t sure how it was going to be getting out of the city. If getting into the old town was Dante’s 931^st  level of hell, getting out was better at Dante’s 795^th level. None of the GPS apps could give us a route. At one point, I had to back up down a single car wide street the length of Manhattan (at least that’s what it seemed to me!). Lesson learned: unless you are native born, never, ever drive in a Spanish city center.

In the silence of frustration, we drive an hour to the trail head not knowing what to expect at all on this randomly chosen hike in the minuscule town of Villalba de Rioja. Less than a quarter mile from the car, we meet the town greeter Otto (from his collar). He’s the goodest of boys

Twenty steps later, we see a pilgrim, so start feeling a little better. This trail isn’t on a Camino, but who cares with something this fun.

While it’s nice to be out walking, since we haven’t done much the last few days, we come upon a huge stone wall seemingly out in the middle of nowhere. Following it up, we find it’s the walls to Santa Mariá de Herrera, a monastery of the Camaldolese, which is a monastic order of Pontifical Right for men founded by Saint Romuald. We are not sure what all that means, but at the gate it says visiting hours are this afternoon from 3:00-5:00 and it’s 4:30. We don’t hear anything inside but there’s a sign that says ring the bell. I’m worried that we’ll bother them, but Pam is braver than I am and give it a pull. Nothing happens. I then see a sign that talks in Spanish about the cost of visiting and we have no cash on us. I’m sure they don’t take credit cards. With cell signal, we look them up on the web and their blog hasn’t been updated in a few years. Based on the complete silence inside, I’m pretty sure it’s abandoned at this point.

A little bit down the hill from the monastery is a cave so we have a look. It’s a man-made cave and must have been a wine or storage cellar for the monastery.

Twenty minutes past the cave, we come to an abandoned salinas, a salt mine. This area has salt deposits underground that have streams flowing through them, so they harvested the salt back in the old days. It wasn’t much to see, but we thought it was pretty cool to see the placard that explained how it worked.

We are at the point where the hike is grinding along because we are a little concerned about the time and we are also walking next to a major road. It’s uphill of course. Across the highway, we can see a dramatic looking peak with a church building and  a huge statue on top. The day is very overcast and it’s far away, so the pictures aren’t worth it.

The trail intersects a bridge across the highway for walkers and bikers and we decide to walk over to see what’s on this prominent point. Keep in mind that we picked this hike based on length and elevation gain simply to get in a hike after all the frustration of driving the last few days, especially the hell of Burgos. We know nothing about the hike or the area.

Across the bridge is a completely out of proportion picnic area. It’s weirdly huge, which means there’s something about this church high up on the narrow peak that has a big festival associated with it. We also see a side peak that has a hole in it about halfway down the hill. There are no signs telling us what we are looking at, but we need a break as we are very tired. That’s when it hits us that we’ve been standing up for four hours in the morning and have just done six miles of ups and downs without a rest. That was stupid of us, but the desire to walk outweighed common sense.

We discuss what we want to do. Above us is a sign that says the ramp up is 90% difficult and the stairs up to the top is 30% difficult. It’s hard to tell how much up we are talking about. Since I’m a weirdo, I tell Pam that I’m 51% in favor of going up. She’s not too sure, but has that feeling that if I go up, she will too. I tell her to stay at the picnic area and rest, but I think I’ll give it a try. Since the ramp is loose rock, and 90% difficult, I’ll go up the stairs. I encourage Pam to stay but she is afraid of missing out.

After much girding of the loins, we start up the stairs with Pam saying that she might turn back if it’s too tough. I tell her, I’ll follow her lead. We head up and immediately feel like complete morons. We are at the top in 10 minutes! We totally overestimated what we were dealing with! 😹😹 We just had to laugh.

This church at the top is dedicate to one of the patron saints of La Rioja town of Haro, San Juan, who always overlooks the town. The views are incredible.

We finished the walk with joyful hearts because we had such surprises on it. I’ll talk more about the place we are staying tomorrow. Let this be a lesson, if it says 30% difficulty, you can do it!

Thanks for reading! (A bonus picture for reading this far)

Since I didn’t want to spend three straight hours in the car, I looked for hikes we could do but also weren’t going to kill us as we had to be in Burgos at 5:00 PM for a tour. Given our outstanding luck with guides this trip, with Mercé in Cadequés and Alberto in the mountains, we were excited to learn about Burgos. Half way to Burgos is the capital of La Rioja, Logroño, and I found a walk that would take us through the parks and bridges across the Río Ebro that sounded perfect. Pam was doubly enthusiastic because it was flat as a crepe.

As we were getting close to the start of the walk, I saw Logroño had the awesome Spanish city parking. While you might think it weird to get excited about city parking solutions, you’ve never been to Spain. On one of our visits, we drove to the Galician coastal city of Vigo. On the main road next to the waterfront we saw a parking sign, so pulled in. The parking was under the road. Even better there was a light above each parking space, red for occupied, green for open. Getting out of the car, there was nice classical music playing throughout the garage. It felt so civilized compared to the normal stress of trying to find a parking space. Minus the lights and classical music, Logroño was the same. Since we were in the business district, on a Monday morning, it was weird that the parking lot seemed empty. We weren’t complaining.

One of the multitude of routes of the Camino de Santiago  goes through Logroño, so as soon as people saw us with our backpacks, they thought we were lost pilgrims and tried to point the way back to the route. That’s something so sweet and kind of the Spanish people that they care so much about getting lost pilgrims back on the right path. They seemed surprised when I explained we were just in Logroño to walk the parks and see the bridges, but always pointed the way.

In 2019, Pam and I did the Camino Primitivo and for the last week met up with family for the last part. Any Camino is a trip we recommend for everyone. The Spaniards take their Camino responsibilities very seriously and we still talk about how many times we had people running out of bars or work to make sure we were on the right path if we were a little lost. Those are some of my most favorite memories of Spain. That’s also the trip where I started writing every night about our days. Back then it was just for family and a few friends over email. The problem was the mails would get forwarded and people would ask for earlier entries so in addition to all the writing, I was having to manage an ever-growing email list. This Substack makes it a lot easier.

On our Logroño walk, it's just us and all the retired people out enjoying the day. As we cross the second bridge of the walk, we saw Iglesia de Santiago de Real not too far off a park trail. Though a committed atheist, I can’t resist a Spanish church, so Pam and I go visit it. As we get closer, there’s a lot of noise and we pop out into a market day, or so we thought. There are vendors selling everything from cheeses, to jewelry, to temporary tattoos. Even weirder, lots of people are dressed up in outfits from the 16th century. There’s something big going on, but after asking a few folks, by shear dumb luck, we came during the festival of San Bernabé (Saint Barnabas)! That also explains why the parking lot was so empty as it’s a holiday.

In the 16^th century, wars were as common as the sunrise. In May and June 1521, Logroño was under siege by the French king Francis I with the help of the king of Navarre. The people resisted and the siege was lifted on June 11^th, which coincides with San Bernabé’s day. Looking for any excuse to party, the celebration has turned into a week-long party.

Pam and I poked around a bit but with our backpacks and obvious “not being locals” look, we decided to mosey back to the path and keep walking.

About five minutes down the road, we realized we had a problem. That problem is in the following photo.

OK, stop for a minute. What do you think that grill smells like? It’s covered in pork, beef, more pork, and more beef. The second grill has potatoes, and the third is paella. In my soul, San Bernabé was speaking to me, and he said, EAT MEAT! We turned our butts around and had to have some. We talk to the waiter and ask which is the best meat for sale and he said hands down it’s the beef ribs, but a particular sausage is right up there. What you can’t see in the picture is they also offered fried baby squid and calamari, as well as salads, but who cares about salad when you have MEAT! Pam’s a baby squid freak and I’m all about MEAT! so we add beef ribs and the lighter sausage to the order. He also tells us about the potatoes in the second grill above, so we add those, too. To top it off, we add a sangria to the mix.

My dear readers, we made a mistake. Without asking, we thought these were going to be tapas portions, but the waiter tricked us into racciones portions.

Tapas are the tiny plate you think of when you think of Spain. The racciones are the full meal. Yeah, we ordered four full meals for two people! I’m sure the waiters had a running bet on who could get the biggest order and we surely won that one for our waiter. We were scared at the amount of food but went for it. The highly recommended ribs were nothing compared to a good NC rib so that was a disappointment. The sausage was great, the potatoes divine, but the fried baby squid was the best I have ever had. So how did we do?

We ate the hell out of everything. I asked the waiter why he gave us racciones instead of tapas and he said, you’re American. We did America proud today. For our cholesterol and weight, I’m not so sure. We just shifted our eating around, so lunch was the big meal instead of dinner.

We waddled back on the hike because after all that gorging one must move. After visiting the park, we thought we should go back to the car through the city to get the feel of Logroño.

We eventually got the main part of the celebration. As we were looking around, something interesting happened.

This is a celebration for Pam and I eating all that food. We got a key to the city and an official proclamation from the mayor that we are gluttons. All the citizens cheered. Oh, sorry, that was my MEAT fever dream. Part of the celebration is when the citizens of the siege found traitors and killed them. This is the procession of soldiers leading the traitors to the main square for execution. (I don’t make the rules, just report them.)

The surprise of San Bernabé’s celebration such a treat. We got to see and be part of what makes Spain so fascinating to me. Little did we know that Burgos was going to be equally “fascinating.”

Our hotel in Burgos was in the old part of town. Following Apple Maps, it tries to take us down a road that’s blocked. Google Maps wants us to go down the wrong way down a one-way street. This whole time I’m driving down roads no bigger in width than our car lost our of our mind. Pam’s reading over the instructions and says Waze is the app that Pura Aventura recommends, so I use a ton of data plan to download it. Waze takes us down a different route but next to a closed (as in forever) restaurant, it says we have arrived. In all these single car width roads I finally find the single spot in the entire old city where I can pull over without blocking traffic  Pam hops out to see if she can find the hotel and she’s gone for a very long time so I’m worried. She finally comes back and says the hotel is at the end of the street two blocks from where I’m sitting. I realized later that our GPS devices don’t work very well when the GPS signal is bouncing off all these stone walls. It took us 30+ minutes in the city center to get to the hotel. Do note that the “fascinating” part hasn’t stared.

The hotel says they have underground parking. That’s a huge relief as street parking is nonexistent. I pull into the garage as Pam runs in to get the parking spot number. Fascinating is about to start.

There are 15 car parking spaces on the floor we need to park. No big deal you say, but the entire parking garage is maybe 1.5 times the perimeter than our house. The hotel is such an optimist thinking they can park 15 (we counted!) cars on the first floor of your house. We get assigned a spot that’s angled next to another car and has two poles I have to avoid hitting.

It takes Pam guiding and me driving over 20 minutes to get into the spot. Shockingly, we never hit anything in this trying time. Once we get into the spot , we realize we are parking in the car next to us so they can never leave without crashing into our rental. Pam goes back up to the reception desk and discusses the situation. We get a better spot, and it only takes seven minutes to get into it. In the meantime, I watched a Spanish guy in a $175,000 Porsche whip into one of those tight spots like it was nothing.

We had planned to be in the hotel at 4:00 PM and it’s now 5:15 PM because of the finding and parking issues. In one of the many trips to the reception, Pam ran into our wonderful guide, Rosalind who could see Pam was flustered and said not to worry and we needed to recover so would be back at 5:45 PM. We appreciated it so much. Once we got everything to our room, I looked at Pam and said I am never traveling like this again and she agreed. If you go to Burgos, which we would highly recommend, never ever drive in the old part of town.

After many, many, many deep cleansing breaths we meet up with Rosalind and she’s so sweet and a great guide that we can’t recommend enough. We start with the Burgos Cathedral. During the Spanish Civil War, Burgos was captured by the fascist Franco forces at once so never was destroyed like so many other cathedrals in Spain. There’s a reason it’s a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Rosalind concentrated on showing us who paid for the church to be built, which is an intriguing way to explain how this huge cathedral came to be. I absolutely loved it! If you are planning a trip to Burgos, let me know and I’ll share Rosalind’s contact information. While you would think, if you read the bible, that religious figures were to serve the people, nope, these priests, cannons, constables, cardinals, and bishops were all about getting stupidly, insanely, rich and glorified themselves over everything. At first, I hadn’t connected all this together, but the way Rosalind told the story makes you think. None of my pictures do justice to the space, so look online and you’ll find plenty.

I do have to show one horrible photo that none of you will understand, except for Greta, one of my amazing Spanish professors at UNCA. After his mortal remains had been moved 14 times because of the wars between the muslims and christians in the 10^th century, this is the final resting place in Burgos Cathedral of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, El Cid, Campeador. I know Greta has seen it, but I was I was so absolutely thrilled to see his grave after her wonderful classes on Spanish history.

On Rosalind’s great tour, she asks a lot of questions to gauge your knowledge of the catholic church, the history of Spain, and related subjects. I kept answering the questions and after 15 minutes she asked how I know so much about Spain. When you just finished a degree in Spanish, it was unfair to Rosalind. She thought it was hilarious. We absolutely loved her tour and can’t recommend her enough. (Also, thanks to Michelle, Jerimais, Juan, Elena, and Idoia for all the Spanish knowledge to answer those questions!)

As we had eaten half the animals in Spain for lunch, we truly only wanted tapas for dinner. But there was something in particular I had to have, morchilla de Burgos. (If you have a sensitive stomach, stop reading now and don’t look at the picture.) A specialty of this area is this sausage made with onion, rice, salt, pepper, pig lard, paprika, and pigs blood. It is so, so good.

I appreciate you all for reading!

But before the hoodoos, we must get there so we begin the drive. Our ultimate destination is the city of Tudela. We are only staying one night in Tudela as that seemed reasonable when we were planning the trip. The next night we are staying a single night in the next place. I’m already feeling a little sad because what we love to do is spend enough time in a location, so we smell it, feel it, and know it. I’m worried we won’t get to know enough about these places to satisfy that traveling need I have.

As we are scooting down the road, a vision appears. We are in the flat country now and off in the distance we see a huge castle. This is Spain and if you are in the province of Castile y Leon (Castile means “land of castles”) you are used to seeing them there, but we are in the province of Navarre, while flat, I wasn’t  expecting a castle. At this point, you must be wondering why I’m surprised, but on our trips to Spain, I don’t worry too much about in between spaces from one location to another. We like the surprises, and this castle is a perfect example. Since Pam loves castles, the car points itself right at it.

We pull into the town of Olite, a four thousand person town with a castle because if there’s a castle that matches every Hollywood stereotype, this is it. We find parking right in front, and for a Sunday in Spain is something of a miracle.

The castle was the seat of the kings of Navarre and in the 13^th century, Carlos III of Navarre decided to build a that his wife, Leonor de Trastámara, would find perfect so she spent more time with him. Leonor wasn’t too thrilled about living in Olite, so this was not a defensive castle, but show piece to proclaim his wealth and power to the world. If you are thinking rich dilettante, whose parents earned everything, but they blew it on a house, it’s the Biltmore of 600 years before.

In 1813, the French invasion of Spain by Napolean was in full swing and to prevent the castle being used by the French, the Spanish military burned it almost to the ground. Weirdly, the guides just referred to a huge fire in 1813 that destroyed the castle, but never mentioned why the fire occurred. I guess today they are more interested in making French tourists happy instead of telling the real story.

After sitting abandoned for over 110 years, the Navarran government decided to restore it, but as they said in one of the displays, “to restore it and make it more impressive.” They added many meters to towers and did everything they could to achieve that goal.

I think it’s important to tell the real story because all the current guides from the castle hype up the 13^th-14^thcentury history, without fully mentioning that the restoration was to give Olite a permanent tourist destination. There’s nothing wrong with that, and we very much enjoyed visiting the castle, but I thought they should have been clearer about “truth.”

The castle is totally worth a visit because they let you walk up all the towers with those crazy winding stairs. Also, they give you access to most of the entire castle. It’s a celebration of a dude with too much money and time, and there’s nothing wrong with that. We had a blast following the guided tour from the brochure.

It was off to Bardenes Reales, where the land got dryer and even flatter, if that was possible. Almost as soon as we turned into the national park, I felt this place in my soul. As a little boy in Yuma, AZ, the desert always occupies a special place in my heart, and to feel something like it was wonderful. No visit to Bardenes Reales would be complete without a picture of the most important sites in Spain, El Castiledetierra (Earth Castle).

The hard rock interspersed with the soft limestone wearing away leaving the hard makes this the ultimate hoodoo picture (told you I’d show you!). Looking at this transcendent beauty, there were two things that elevated it to something I will cherish forever. As a car carrying introvert, you’ll be surprised that both were human.

Walking around, everyone I saw was just thrilled and happy. That happiness you get when you are seeing something in nature that’s glorious and you can’t stop smiling. Everyone had that and  “Oh. My. God.” smile. The awe, the intense desire to be there, the wanting to capture it in a photo was infectious. It made me so happy to be there and just see it with those people. Even on this Sunday, there were only 30-ish people there. Seeing all those people being happy made me happy.

The second was something incredibly simple that the Spanish park service put up. A pole. But this pole had a little iron box on it, where you could put your phone into take a selfie of you at this transcendent piece of nature. This simple act made everyone so happy they could capture a picture of themselves (and friends) in front of this glorious nature. As I’m writing this I’m tearing up because for us introverted people, we were understood and accommodated. We didn’t have to ask someone to take our picture, but we could get the picture we wanted but would never get without that pole. My heart almost burst when I saw a single person set up their phone to take their selfie. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in all my travels.

We move on around the loop in the park to the place where the recommended hike starts. We are going to walk a road through the badlands so we can see them and be in them. I’m so excited about being in this place. Even though it’s 68° F, the winds are crazy now and we must put on our fleece to keep from freezing. We walk about five minutes, and we see a truck bouncing down the road we are walking.

It's a park service truck and the ranger started yelling at me. With the wind I can’t hear him, so I walk up to the truck, and he tells me that we are not supposed to be there and he’s going to fine me  with “a very, very large fine.” I’m confused and he’s mad that I ignored the signs and I’m in trouble. He’s accusing me of ignoring the rules and I tell him I’m sorry, but I didn’t see any sign, but I believe him. I show him the route we are going to hike, and he says I purposely ignored the signs and I’m in trouble. I finally figure out the trail is closed and there’s some sign he’s referring to. I tell him I honestly didn’t see a sign, but he says I must leave. He keeps insisting that if he turns me in the fine will be very large. I tell the ranger over and over, that I’m sorry but if I’m in the wrong, I’ll pay the fine.

He tells me that he’s going to lock our car in on the road and wait for us so he can turn us in. I said if I broke the law, I understand and it’s my fault. He speeds back up the road and we see him sitting by our car. We walk as fast as we can back, and he pulls off down the road. We get to the car and that’s when I see a sign 15 feet from where we parked the car that no access is allowed to the trail. I feel a massive wave of embarrassment wash over me. We look all over the car for a ticket, but there is none. We unlock the gate he put around our car and pull out, locking the gate behind us.

Wow. I went from feeling glorious to the lowest of lows in 20 minutes. When it comes to rule following, I have Pam beat when it comes to national parks. I feel terrible and can’t shake the shame. We drove out of the park as soon as we could. I’m still so mad at myself for missing that sign. I guess in my excitement to commune with the badlands, I forgot common sense. I still feel horrible about it.

Out of the park we drive to Tudela to find our hotel. It’s in the old part of the city and Apple Maps takes us to a parking lot, that’s not near the hotel. I fortunately see an area reserved for our hotel parking, so we park and go look for the hotel. After getting Pam settled, I still haven’t done any walking for the day, so I walk around Tudela.

In my walk, I find that Tudela considers themselves the vegetable capital of Spain. It’s right on the Ebro River and they truly do grow all Spanish vegetables here. In fact, they have a festival for the vegetables that goes on for a week with gastronomic tours and everything. It sounded like so much fun I want to see it.

Pura Aventura has set up a tasting menu at Le Bistrot Tudela, one of the best restaurants in town at 7:30 PM. If you know anything about Spain, no one eats dinner at 7:30 except Americans. We were told that it was hard to find the restaurant, and that’s no lie. We figure it out but show up as the waiters are setting up for their real customers, locals. At first, we try to explain to the waiter what we are there for, but he’s not sure what’s going on. He says the guy who knows is in the bathroom and might take a while. Honestly, that was information I could have done without.

The waiter comes over with a GIGANTIC book, like the ones you see in medieval times or in the Scrooge play. I’m kind of in awe of the book, but I point to our handwritten reservation, and everything clears up. We have the four appetizer tasking menu with two mains. For Deb, Marion, Anita, and Lauren reading, stop reading now. Pam chose the suckling pig, and I had the sucking lamb. We loved them and thought each of us had won dinner.

My hope is that you are never in trouble with the law on your vacations. As always, that’s for reading!

I’d found a hike that goes through the town of Gallipienzo, the town we are staying in and climbs along the spine of the mountains behind it, before dropping down into the valley on the left side and back to the town. Originally, I had suggested a longer hike that crossed the valley in the picture above and climbed the big mountains on the left. That was about 3,500 feet of elevation gain in nine miles, but Pam gave me that look, and I wisely backed off and suggested the one we did. I may be an introverted geek, who can’t read people well, but even an alien could have read Pam’s mind on the original hike suggestion.

We walk out of one of the most beautifully restored building we’ve seen in Spain, which is at the bottom edge of this town built on a hill. As soon as we turn into Gallipienzo, the contrasts are stark. The town’s not that big, but it’s obvious the long decline has been going on for a while. Many buildings in the narrow medieval streets are for sale, but are in such poor shape, I’m not sure they can be saved without a very large investment.

The town itself seemed to have peaked in the 1400’s. In 1910, the population was 759 and today has a population of 96. The medieval part has people living in it, but getting any vehicle into that area is difficult, if not impossible. To buy and restore one of those medieval buildings would be doubly difficult because supplies would have to ferried by an ATV to the site. Most of the residents live in a newer section along the main road into the town.

The town government is trying to bring tourists, and besides Heredad Beragu, there’s another good looking guest house, Casa Rural Zulotxo. This tiny town also has two churches. At the top of the town is the dominating Church of San Salvador and in the lower part of town the Church of San Pedro, which seems to be three quarters the size. The Spanish Wikipedia entry says both churches were built at the same time in the 1640’s. Why the town needed two churches is beyond me, but they had a long running feud involving lawsuits from 1640 to 1785 over which was the parish church. The bishop of the area finally said the Church of San Pedro was the only parish. The whole debate strikes me as pointless. But then again, I don’t understand religion.

The Church of San Pedro is the better restored of the two, which I wish we could have seen the inside. I never could capture a picture of the Church of San Salvador, because its only distinct feature is its size. It’s been in the slide to ruin for a while, with a few small trees growing out of the bell tower. The path to the church is rough, grass covered, and is littered broken stones.

Several times on this trip, and on previous trips to Spain, I’ve seen signs saying “SOS Save Rurel Areas.”  We have the same problems in American rural areas, but the Spanish rural areas have a rougher go of it. Their towns are compact so the decline looks worse and there’s always a big decaying church, or two, involved. Add in possible defensive walls or towers, and the cost of stabilizing, let alone restoring, increases astronimically.

For these areas, the only realistic future is tourism. It’s a slow hard effort, but with places like Heridad Berugu, change can happen. I didn’t ask how many people they employed but they seemed to have 5-6 full time employees and that’s a good start. When we, and you, make a trip to these rural areas, we are helping in the best way we can. Of course, there are trade offs. A place can try too hard and end up like Pigeon Forge, TN, which is my personal version of hell. (Feel free to disagree.) But if we all can seek out areas like Gallipienzo on our vacations, we can each contribute. While the readership of this microscopic blog won’t save a town, if we all tell others about these cool rural places we’ve found, we can make a difference.

We started the ups after leaving town, but they weren’t too bad. It was getting warm, but there was a gusty breeze from the valley and views forever.

As we hiked up, we’d seen the one burned orchard, but as we got higher, we saw all of the olive orchards on the mountain were burned down in 2022. That must have been a huge blow to the local economy.

The route took us down the valley Pam is facing in the photo above. It was a steep-ish downhill into a much wilder valley. This part of the hike was a pure slog. It was along a dirt road that climbed back to Gallipienzo. Not only was it a long, slow up, there was no shade from the blasting sun, and we didn’t have the breezes we had on the ridge. We rated that part of the hike “officially not fun.”

Pam was very happy to get back to the Heredad Beragu with three hours before dinner to relax. We spent the time in what we called the “reading room.”

Dinner again was an experience of joy. We started with a lovely cold white garlic soup. Pam opted for the duck thigh in red berry sauce, and it was fantastic. On James’ recommendation, I went for the roasted lamb and totally won dinner. For dessert, I tried the traditional Basque dessert Gouxua (we are in Basque country after all!). It’s my ideal of a perfect desert. Here’s the recipe.

Thanks for reading! Where’s the coolest rural areas you’ve visited that you wish others would go to so we all can help them?

Ainsa’s medieval walls and town is marvelous, and if you are anywhere close, you should go. I didn’t think to take many pictures of the town until this morning, but deliveries to business can only be done before 1:30 so the main plaza and roads were filled with cars and wasn’t photogenic. Interestingly, Ainsa was a very important town in the Middle Ages, but lost importance once the battle against the muslims moved farther south. With only a few hundred people for centuries, the building and walls were left alone. With the hydroelectric projects in the area starting in the 1940’s, and the founding of national parks, Ordesa y Monte Perdido and Sierra de Guarra, the population has been growing steadily in the last 50 years. Without the century part, it reminds me of Asheville, the town that couldn’t recover from the 1920’s and left the Art Deco buildings alone. Never underestimate benign neglect as a recovery strategy for the future is the lesson.

Our next stop is the town of Gallipienzo, in the foothills of the Pyrenees. Instead of grinding out miles on the Spanish autopista (highway), we went the slow way. We are on vacation, so the slow way is the good way. The route took us through the top of the Meseta Central, the flat plain that most people associate with Spain. We’ve been through the area north of Madrid several times, but it feels like it’s as flat as a billiard table and, in two words, windy and hot.

After skirting the city of Huesca, we head back northwest to the foothills. Along the way I notice a cultural sign for Castillo de Loarre. Something tickles the back of my mind and I remember that super guide Alberto,  mentioning something about visiting Loarre on our way to Gallipienzo. Since Pam always talks about visiting castles, it’s a no-brainer to follow the signs.

Most of the construction was between the 11^th and 13^th centuries as Loarre was on the front lines in the fight between the muslims and christians. A big part was built between 1033 and 1035. There was a lot of back and forth between various religious orders, which, honestly, was boring but involved one group saying the chapel of the other group was not true to the faith and thus we need to spend a ton of money/supplies to build a bigger chapel because our brand is better.

What was left was the Church of San Pedro, a Romanesque masterpiece with a dome over 85 feet tall. Surrounding the church are pillars capped with various sorts of motifs from religious, to vegetables, to fantastical. I guess the stone carvers managed to convince whoever was paying that “just trust us, we know what we are doing” was the plan of the day. The best part was the sound that echoed and bounced everywhere. The acoustics were amazing.

My favorite part of the castle’s history is that the castle was abandoned in the 1600’s so the stories are that the local shepherds used it as a refuge for them and their sheep for over 300 years. It just made me happy to think of a tired shepherd sleeping in the queen’s bedroom as it was raining outside, while their sheep were sheltered in the ruins of the Church of San Pedro.

It's totally worth a visit because there’s been a huge restoration effort starting in 1903 continuing to today. What’s nice is that the restoration hasn’t gone over the line into wholesale changes to make it bigger and more than it was. It gives you a very good idea of what the castle looked like and who lived there at the time. We enjoyed the spontaneous visit much more than we thought. A total thumbs up on the go visit scale.

There were two parts that we each individually thought were awesome. Pam says that while the castle was very cool, she’d love to see much more about how people lived in the castle. She wanted interpretive actors, period correct furnishing, and smells so she could feel the time. I told her that history will never do it for her, she needs a time machine. I think she related the most to the following picture because it discussed real life. (She’s probably going to kill me for the leap, but it’s true!)

As for me, the best part of the castle was in what was the guard house.

In the gift shop, I found something that will speak to all of you who watched TV in the 1970’s. This important icon showed us that it was OK to be tough, incorruptible, and caring at the same time.

After our man-made castles, we headed to the real castles in this part of Spain. When the tectonic plates were crashing together to form the Pyrenees, sediment from the mountains washed down and became cemented together by limestone. Over time the softer rock wore away and the resulting conglomerate rock formed towers. Today these are some of the best rock climbing in Spain and are known as the Mallos de Riglos.

Around these magnificent pillars is one of the most famous hikes in the Huesca region, Camino de Cielo (Path of Heaven). With a name like that, we absolutely had to do it. But given the popularity of the route, I was concerned that there would be a lot of people. Fortunately, we have figured out the secret how to see ZERO people (yes, as in NONE, ZIP, NADA) on one the most popular hikes around. As we had the spontaneous stop at the Castillo de Loarre, we were behind schedule. The trick is to start this hike at 3:00 PM when it’s stinking hot at 90° F and 75%+ humidity. Also, do the route backwards so you do all 1,216 feet of elevation gain in 1.5 miles of the 3.83 total. Sure, it sounds crazy, but we felt so fortunate to be in these stunning columns with just us and the many birds. I can’t speak for Pam, but my heart was so full of happiness seeing them with her it was overwhelming. When you sweat, and push like this, you earn the views. If you ever come to this part of Spain, you have to do this hike.

We still had a 1.5-hour drive to our next place, so stinky us got to it. We fought a little rush hour traffic coming from Pamplona going the other way but rolled through the countryside happy. As we got closer to Heredad Beragu, the roads got narrower and narrower to the point the weeds on both sides of the road were brushing the car. We can see the town of Gallipienzo up on the hill but are starting to wonder if we put the wrong address into the GPS. We turn a corner, and we see one of the most beautiful buildings we have seen in all our Spain travels, and, fortunately, a sign that says Heredad Beragu.

We arrived about 8:15 PM and were wondering what we were going to do for dinner. Checking in with the most gracious James, we see a sign that says dinner is served from 8:00-9:00 so we have a conundrum. We stink like crazy but having family who’ve been in the restaurant business we are insanely conscious about the staff because we know how hard they work. I told James that we wanted dinner but needed to toss our bags in the room. We head to the room and saw the following.

If you zoom into the letter, that’s a real wax seal with a letter addressed to us. Our room was just gorgeous, but we had dinner to get to before the kitchen closed at 9:00 PM. Our self-conscious stinky butts get to the dining room and see the view is even better than our room. We felt very out of place with the other three tables, especially when we realize that service to 9:00 PM means seating to that time, not the kitchen closing. 😹 We had plenty of time to clean up. You can take the goofs out of America, but you can’t take the American out of us goofs.

Then dinner starts and we forget our concerns with the superb service and perfect food. Who cares if we are still in our dirty hiking clothes, we are eating on another level. We shared a tomato, mozzarella, and olive salad that was at peak freshness. The local vino tinto (red) wine is transcendent, and then the main courses came. Pam had a great lasagna, and I opted for the braised beef cheeks “like grandma used to make.” My beef cheeks were so good I asked James that I prayed that the grandma in the kitchen would adopt me. He told me that the grandma was Ramón, one of the owners. I still asked if he would adopt me.

With man-made castles, natural castles, and castles of food (?)… OK, it’s late and the metaphor doesn’t work, but we had a day fit for a queen and king. Even better, I get to share it with all of you. That means the world to me. Thank you!

Pam envisioned getting up relatively late (9-ish), going down to a casual, relaxed breakfast, taking a stroll through the village and maybe doing a little window shopping, having some wine and tapas around 1 or 2, reading for a few hours before heading to the laundromat, enjoying another wonderful Spanish dinner at one of the local restaurants, and getting to bed before 11.

I, on the other hand, thought that, since we only did a four-hour, seven-mile hike with 1,512 feet of elevation gain today, THAT was a rest day. You'd think that, after almost 35 years of marriage, we'd be on the same page about this. I have no idea how I convinced Pam to trade relaxation for up. Something tells me there’s going to be a quid pro quo in my future.

We had asked Alberto for some hikes local to Ainsa, and he suggested two. His first suggestion was Congosto de Entremón, a short path, for us, that follows the Río Cinca below the El Grado damn, that creates the lake in from of the new part of Ainsa.

The hike itself wasn’t hard, and it even had a few carved out sections reminiscent of the Mont Rebei hike from a few days ago where the trail is carved out of the side of the mountain and you have the wire strung to hold onto.

If you’ve been following along our journey, you might have noticed, like in the picture above, the water is green/blue in many of the photos. Regular mountain streams are crystal clear, but the water in dam areas has the funny color. Having a little time before dinner, I started to dig in for research. The first hit on my internet search, explained everything.  It’s all down to the “…increased growth of algae cyanobacteria and sometimes dinoflagellates, the blue-green algae that turn many lakes green.” See the linked article for a full explanation about the problem.

This is yet another issue in modern Spain we can blame on the dictator Franco. This is my analysis, not the science article’s, just to be clear. After the Spanish Civil War, Franco and his cronies, only cared about the cities and turned to hydroelectricity for power. They never saw a stream they couldn’t dam (damn them!). So, if you visit Pyrenees area of Spain, you’ll see that blue/green color in all the valley rivers. In fact, the only mountain river not dammed/damned is the Río Arazas, we hiked along yesterday.

Before the last little downhill back to the car, we heard faint human whistling, but were not sure why. We turned a corner and saw a huge flock of sheep being herded from a field down to the river. To see that dog-human connection solving a problem is one of my joys in life. When we used to live on Vashon Island, WA, the sheep dog trials held every September were a must see. In those, they only herded three or four sheep. Watching a master herd 200+ sheep today was so special.

Back at the car I looked up the next trailhead, Samitier Castillos, was only a mile away, as the crow flies. Dotted around hill tops in Sobrarbe, the area of Aragon we are in, are a series of castillos, or defensive positions. Under the reigns of Sancho Garcés III and Ramiro I, between 1035-1055, the kingdom of Aragon was the front lines of the battle between muslim Spain and christian Spain. These castillos were lookouts that would signal each other with smoke that the muslims were on the move. What’s awesome about these castillos is that they are not restored. There’s something about seeing something that old but not “gussied up” that makes you feel the length of time.

There’s a restored church in front of the castillo, but it is decidedly ho-hum. It was restored in 1996-1997 and it would have been much more interesting if it had been left alone. I guess if you are religious, it’s nice but if it wasn’t next to the castillo, I wouldn’t even mention it.

On the right side of the castillo in the picture above, was an entrance. However, the two steps to it were, to my afraid of heights brain, such small holds that even Alex Honhold would have said, “Nah,” so I apologize to you dear readers for not making it in.

If you paid attention to the caption in the first picture, the big cliff you are looking at is where the castillo is, but we were too low to see it. In the picture below, two steps from it.

The first walk started to the left of the bridge above, and if you look closely near the river, you can see the trail. I thought it was cool that the two hikes complemented one another. Alberto is still guiding us!

We got back to the wonderful Los Siete Reyes, because laundry is calling. Well, more like smelling. 😹 On our way out of the old town of Ainsa is a hairpin turn. Just as I got to it going down, a MASSIVE Spanish bus pulled across both lanes trying to make the turn. We should note that all the cars in Spain are small, but the busses make American busses look like minnows. We are staring at each other as neither of us can go forward. We are only 1.5 cars lengths from the bus, and I can see the bus driver isn’t going to do anything but sit there. Isn’t this called a Mexican standoff?

I’m not thrilled, but I’m going to have to be the one to back up going uphill to let this great white whale pass. I start backing up, up hill I should stress, trying to see where I’m going with the mirrors and looking out the back. American cars since 2015 have required backup cameras, but Spain does not. When our rental goes into reverse, all you see on the car screen in black is the super helpful “pay attention to surroundings.” Have you guessed where this is going? Yep, I back up right into a low wall I couldn’t see at all. It caused cosmetic damage to the rear right passenger side. Our laundry is now the most expensive laundry run in the history of laundry runs. A $20 backup camera would have saved a lot of money and aggravation! But, by way of Greta at Pura Aventura and my lovely Pam, they had bought the full insurance package before the trip so we should be OK financial wise.

After a few minutes staring at the damage, we head to do laundry at a campground three miles north of Ainsa. That’s when the whole debate of “who’s more advanced, Spain or the US?” gets interesting. We find the laundry and as we don’t have detergent or much cash, we go the campground office to buy detergent and to find out how much cash we need to get. The lady working the desk is awesome and says, “Oh, our washing machines automatically add detergent and they cost €4.50, and the dryers are €3.00.” Also, both are massive, so two weeks of clothes fit in one load for both. The question for all of you is, which is more advanced: backup cameras or washing machines that squirt in detergent automatically? Without question, I vote for backup cameras. USA! USA! USA! 😹😹

Eventually, it’s time for dinner and we need to find a restaurant. Something we’ve noticed in Spain is when you look up a place on Trip Advisor or Yelp, the star rating is their real rating. It’s not like the US were everything is inflated to the nth degree. We’ve figured out that if it’s not four stars, there’s a very good reason. Between places not being open and lower reviews, we are having trouble finding a restaurant. We finally end up at Mora de Nuei in the old town of Ainsa. It’s hot so we head to the patio, but it’s very noisy, I forgot my hearing aids, and I’m frustrated about the accident, so the grump factor is pretty high for me. But that all goes away on the first bite of their secreto imberico. Imberico ham is the best ham in the world, and this secreto is from the back of the pig. It’s mind blowingly good. Like holy-fucking-shit-Pam-you-have-to-try-this-now good. The kind of good where you wonder if it’s rude to order six more.

The waiter was one of those real professional waiters that has a million tables and keeps it all looking smooth. Nothing flustered him, even the table of 14 ladies who ordered all sorts of special conditions. An atom bomb could have gone off in the restaurant and he would have handled it. At the end I asked if they had any “chupito casero” (homemade chupitos) and he says, “I’ve got you covered.” He brings out a homemade blanco, the really, really strong stuff.  I haven’t had any as good since visiting my wonderful brother-in-law’s hometown of Arbo. It was supreme and approaching the levels of Popcorn Sutton’s moonshine we used to buy from Popcorn behind Tuscola High School way back when.

In the middle of this waiter handling all this craziness of a million tables, with half the chupito gone, he’s across the patio, looks me square in the eye and gives me a small nod. I give him the small nod back because he knows this is the real shit and he now knows how much I appreciate it. This moment is why I always want to vacation in Spain.

I hope all of you have moments that good on all of your vacations! Thanks for reading!

With the heat and no airflow in our hotel room, I don’t think I slept at all last night. Pam did a little better, but we were both exhausted when we “woke up.” Because we had to keep the tiny window open, my allergies kicked in and gave me a sinus headache that wouldn’t stop. As we were supposed to go on a hike with our super guide, Alberto Marín López, I felt terrible so I called Alberto and asked if we could meet him at 10:00 instead of 9:00 so the ibuprofen could work its magic.

We stumbled down to breakfast and the owner of our hotel, Los Siete Reyes, Eduardo, was working and I told him the air conditioning wasn’t working and asked if there was there any way we change rooms. He told us that the only room available was the one across the hall, but he was very worried about the air conditioning problem. He called his partner to come over and look at the situation as we had breakfast.

His partner showed up very quickly and headed up the stairs to assess the situation. As we sat looking up other hotels we could go to, his partner returned quickly, and they went into a huddle. When I heard the word “califacación” I wanted to crawl under the table and die. We had turned on the heat instead of the air conditioning! It was all my fault!

Both Pam and I had messed with the little control box many times. The graphics are microscopic on the control unit, and we thought they were a breeze and a sun. What they were actually heat and a snowflake. After taking a picture of the unit and zooming in to maximum, we finally saw what they were. Have I gotten so blind I can no longer read things? I’m having an existential crisis over getting old right now. I apologized over and over. I felt so stupid. I told them that from now on, they need to give tests to American guest to see if we can understand the basics of life. Eduardo told me they were the ones that panicked because if their central air was broken, they were in a world of hurt as this is one of their busiest seasons. Eduardo’s partner correctly set the AC and by the time we finished breakfast our room was the inviting and perfectly cooled. We can’t recommend Los Siete Reyes enough and apologize to all of you reading for completely embarrassing our entire country with my idiocy. I hope you will let me back in the country so we can see our kitties again.

When Alberto showed up at 10:00 we told him the story and I thought he was going to die of laughter. In retrospect, it is really funny, but at the time I swear you could have powered half of Spain on the burning red of embarrassment in my cheeks. Alberto was so kind not to bring it up again, but as I am made of weaker stuff, if I were him, it would have been working hard to work it into every conversation with me for life.

On Alberto’s web site for his company, Senderos Ordeso, he mentions that he’s certified to guide the blind on many activities. We asked him how he specialized in that. He had a friend that taught at a school for the blind and his friend ask Alberto for help coming up with activities to introduce nature to his students. It was a little learning as you go, but they found ways to do it. For example, to tell the differences in plants, you smell and taste them. To do rock climbing, he worked with the students to teach the feel of tethered climbing and so on. Alberto loves doing that work and was so proud that some of the original students kept coming back to learn, through high school and university, and are now very good friends of his.

After two hikes with Alberto, Pam and I were trying to figure out what makes him such an exceptional guide. He obviously loves sharing his world with people, but we think he has incredible empathy and reads people so well. He’s an excellent teacher, but he always just knows what you want in the moment. If you want to be quiet, he’s quiet. When you want to talk, he talks. You never feel pressured or hurried. If you want a vacation experience that teaches you many things, but at the exact right level for YOU, Alberto is the best. We love the hikes Pam and I have done alone, but we will remember and cherish more the hikes we went on with Alberto even more. He gave us the ultimate hiking experience. It doesn’t matter what hiking level you are at, or what your limitations are, Alberto will work with you and make your experience profound. We can’t recommend, or thank, Alberto enough.

Our plan for the day was Pradera de Ordesa to see the waterfalls. This is one of the most popular hikes in the entire Pyrenees, but as we have learned it’s nothing like the popularity of an equivalent hike in America. For example, if in the summer you want to walk Looking Glass Falls in the Great Smokey Mountain National Park (GSMNP) the number of people is more than the entire Broadway area of Manhattan on a weekend in July. As Pam can attest, I get weirded out quickly if there’s a lot of people on a trail, but today was a breeze.

I do have to apologize that we got Alberto’s rating wrong after our first hike. We had given him 10 out of 5 starts, but we must update that rating. Driving up to the park, Alberto abruptly pulls off the road into a national part information point in a town below the park. He turns to us and says, “We should use the bathroom here, because the one this one is cleaner than the ones in the park.” For all the ladies out there, you know how important a clean bathroom is, so we changed our rating for Alberto to 11 stars out of 5. Now do you understand when I say Alberto has amazing empathy?

We arrived at the parking lot and started hiking the trail, Alberto said we need to get off the trail so he can show us something. He said that no one hiking the regular trail sees this, but it’s one of the best views in the park. After spreading his arms wide, Alberto says, “Welcome to my office!” He wasn’t kidding as we found out he does this hike a couple of times a week.

All the accolades for Pradera de Ordesa don’t cover the half of it. I could write hundreds of thousands of words about the hike, but to spare you, I’ll cover some highlights I thought were fascinating. I hope to encourage all of you to take this relatively easy hike for yourselves. Even if you are not a hiker, you can do it. I believe in you! Of course, you will all hire Alberto to go with you, too!

The above, innocuous, purple flower is hiding a secret: it’s carnivorous, well insectivorous, so it won’t eat you specifically. Look closely at the leaves. The leaves secrete a smell that small flies cannot resist, but that substance is sticky so traps them. The leaves produce another digestive enzyme to break down the soft parts of the insect, so the plant gets the nitrogen it needs. So, what happens when the leaves fill up with fly skeletons? That’s where a wild symbiotic relationship occurs. A less than a millimeter in size spider hovers around the butterwort plants, and it has evolved to not get stuck in the sticky stuff, so it cleans the leaves for food.

While not a particularly compelling photo, there’s a lot of history being told, and I do mean A LOT. If you look closely at the grey band near the top of the mountains, you are looking directly into the Jurassic age, the time when dinosaurs trembled the earth. Anything below that grey band is even farther back in time. You can now call yourselves time explorers.

This photo was taken by a very nice Belgian couple. When they learned we were from the US, the started telling us about all the national parks they had been to. I told them they knew more of American than 99% of Americans. They had been every were and couldn’t say enough about our park system. I wish Americans knew how good we have it. Oh, that’s the first of the waterfalls on the hike.

I couldn’t capture these falls in a way to do them justice. The water curves to the right at the top because it is hitting sandstone, which is waterproof, so it doesn’t get worn down. At the right it hits limestone, which wears away. The water hit another seam of sandstone so the water goes back left. The ying and the yang fight it out.

This gorgeous, crinkly leaf beauty is endemic only to Northern Spain in the Pyrenees. It is also one of the few plants that survived in Europe during the last ice age. That makes it over 350,000,000 years old. Finally, something is older than me.

The above photo is for all my fellow geeks out there. We cross the prime meridian on the hike! You might also know this as Greenwich Mean Time. The geek in me squealed in delight.

Capturing the size of the waterfalls was hard, but in the Stairstep falls, you can see Pam and Alberto for scale. All of the falls were huge.

Pam’s mom Lila loved waterfalls. Carrying her ashes on our hikes and letting her become part of these beautiful places in Wales and Spain has been of great comfort to Pam. We miss her so much.

On the hike, I told Alberto that we have already decided that that moment when he ran into his friend Pedro (sorry, I got his name wrong in that post) that was going to be the highlight of our trip no matter what else happens. I think Alberto was surprised we said that, but he kindly shared the photo of that reunion. To have been able to share that pure joy can’t be topped.

When Alberto dropped us off at Los Siete Reyes, I told him something my dad said to me when I was a little boy. My dad was in the Army, and we lived in Alaska at the time. Dad was always going on crazy adventures with different people, but some more than others. He told me you learn a lot about a person after hiking with them, and if you were still having a good time after two days, you found a friend. Alberto, our friend, we loved hiking with you. Thank you.

As always, thank you for reading.

Our next stop is the town of Ainsa, with it’s beautiful old medieval old town it’s a must visit as it’s in between the Ordesa National Park and  Sierra y Cañones de Guara National Park. Since Bonansa is at almost 5,000 feet and Ainsa is at less than 2,000 feet, we are going to get warmer. On our way to the hike today we drove through Ainsa, which gave us a chance to stop and see the new part of town as we hit the grocery store. It also happened to be market day, so we had to see the excitement.

Market days are a loooong tradition in Spain where farmers can sell their goods but have evolved with modern times. We saw the usual vegetable and fruit vendors but also the things that make Spanish market days special. There were numerous clothing sellers and artists. The one in Ainsa was small, but some are huge. Visiting the hometown of my awesome brother-in-law José, Arbo, we went to many markets in the area. The biggest was in Tui, a few towns over with hundreds of vendors that sold everything from farming implements to the freshest fruit ever. If you ever get to Spain, make sure to go to a town’s market day to see the real Spain.

Today was about hiking so we had a schedule to keep. There are some amazing hikes in the Ordesa NP area, so a balancing act was in play. While I want a hike that will push us, we had at least a 1.5-hour drive to the trail head. I also had to account for the idea that Pam has more common sense that I do. We needed a hike that would satisfy my desire for push but not go over Pam’s “John, you are crazy” limit. After a bunch of searching, I think I found the hike for us.

It was hard to pick a hike because in this area all the trails start in a valley and go up, and up, and up, and up. Some of the trails I looked at had 2,000-3,000 feet of up before you saw a single view. Eventually, I found a route that would get us some great views but hopefully not make Pam mad at me. (Narrator with a deep and sexy voice: John did good!)

At the market in Ainsa, we could feel the heat. As we made the 45 minutes to Plan, the starting point, we were thinking the heat was going to be high. When we got out of the car, we were surprised how cool it was. It was like an optical illusion. The route seemed flat, but we were gaining altitude to almost 4,000 feet, so the heat lessened a good bit. Additionally, we were driving into a gorgeous Gistaín valley with giant mountains all around.

We looked at Plan (pronounced like flan) a little bit, but it wasn’t that big and figured it was your usual small Spanish town. That is until I looked it up on the internet. In 1985 the mayor of Plan had a plan: women come find a man! Spanish television had just shown the 1951 Hollywood movie Westward the Women about a western town filled with men but no women. At the time Plan had 40 male inhabitants of the town and only one single woman because the rest had emigrated. In a newspaper ad they advertised for “women between 20 and 40 for marriage for the town in the Pyrenees.” Called the Caravana de mujeres (Women’s Caravan), it caused an international sensation with reporters coming from as far aways as Japan. It resulted in 33 marriages! If that’s not a fantastic case of government working for the people, I don’t know what is. It completely revitalized the town. I bet the mayor attended a lot of weddings and never had to buy a beer in his life again.

Just past the marriage capital of 1985 was San Juan de Plan. There were some interesting information points talking about the old ways of living and working. I forced Pam to listen to me translate them for her. In front of the church was a placard that talked about a special Mass tradition only done at this church. Evidentially, in the 1500’s there was a man in town named Juan that terrorized everyone and killed some people in town. The townspeople rose up and “killed Juan with their bare hands.” The Inquisition council investigated but there were no witnesses. That Juan must have been a bad dude because after every Mass they pray for the people who suffered under Juan. Since Juan is the Spanish translation of John, I was a little worried so told everyone my name was José. The whole story made me think that Juan was reincarnated as Ken McElroy.

After conquering the big up for the day, the views were incredible and worth all that sweat, as you can see above. Once we were up, we passed through the town of Gistaín. Where San Juan de Plan had information points and even a museum, which was closed, for visitors, Gistaín was decidedly ambivalent to tourists. Most Spanish towns have a fountain of potable water for travelers, and Gistaín had one, but most of it was dedicated to a trough so cows could drink. That told me what was important to them.

The flat-ish and long downhill across the rest of the walk, combined with breezes and views that went on and on made this a route we want to do again. We didn’t see anyone and had everything to ourselves. This was the kind of walk that soothed my soul. Just being there and making Pam laugh as we walked was the height of life.

Even though this was a perfect weather day, we had the donning of the waterproof socks. At this point I firmly believe that Randy Sun socks are the most important human invention ever. Even more important than sliced bread and the internet. A stream took over a half mile section of the trail and with our new superpower the gods were protecting us. Of course, we still worked to keep our shoes dry but taking out that wet foot worry is priceless.

The last three miles of the trail down to the valley was covered in Scotch broom, the nasty plant with thorns that will flay you alive if you wear shorts. It’s very invasive in North America, but native here. About 10 minutes after hitting them my allergies went into high gear. That wasn’t so fun walking through Scotch broom with a faucet for a nose. Weirdly, 10 minutes after getting past the main part of the Scotch broom, my nose stopped running. Massively reproducing, very thorny, and allergy causing must be the trifecta of terrible plants.

As we popped out on the main road back to our car, we couldn’t find the trail after looking for about two minutes. Then trail magic intervened. Behind us a French couple popped out of the trail and told us the trail we were looking for was washed out by a rising river. We had seen no other hikers all day and these people just appeared. We had to laugh.

Our hotel for the next three days is Los Siete Reyes (The Seven Kings) and is on the main square of the medieval part of Ainsa, and it’s beautifully restored. It’s seven rooms are decorated nicely, and it’s gotten wonderful reviews. Our room is on the top floor so it’s in the old attic. We opened the door and were almost knocked down a blast of heat. They had turned off the air conditioning save money, so we opened the very tiny window and turned on the AC.

After showers, we headed to Casa Alfonso across the square and it was very good. In Spain many restaurants offer a simplified menu where you pick the starter from a few items, and the same for the main and desert. The servers were hustling, and Pam was in the bathroom when one of them dropped off the bread and a dish with to brown balls covered in nuts. She said something walking away I didn’t catch what it was. I tried a piece of one of the balls and the taste was interesting, but I couldn’t place it. When Pam came back, I offered her one, but she wasn’t sure, so I ate them both. After 10 seconds, I realized I just ate the special butter the restaurant does for bread. Pam laughed at me a lot and now you can too.

For the main course, Pam opted for the local lamb, and I went for their equivalent of surf and turf, shrimp and pig jowls. Both were so good we’d go back for them. We also got a bottle of the house red wine, Viñas de Vero Roble. It’s a blend that’s aged in American oak barrels for four months and is to be served chilled. Since it was warm out, it was very refreshing, and the taste was sublime.

Back in the room, it was still hot and the thermometer on my backpack said it was 80° F. Pam is laying spread eagle on top of the covers as I type. This is going to be a hot night, but not the kind you want.

We got to the park and had another surprise. We didn’t realize that the park doesn’t allow cars to park at the trail starting point. You must park five miles away and pay a licensed taxi to take you up. We had one of two choices, we could call for a taxi, which would take anywhere from 30-60 (or more) minutes to show up or walk the five miles ourselves. We’d wanted to do an 11-mile hike, so we were in a conundrum. I can’t understand why a park shuttle can’t be running back and forth instead relying on random taxi drivers. I guess the idea is to provide jobs, but it seems like a very inefficient system to me. When I say inefficient, I mean dumb.

It was a beautiful day, so we decided we’d walk up on the trail that weaves around the main river running through the park. Also, it was shadier than walking on the road. Every step of the way all you could hear was rushing water or waterfalls. We figured we would walk to the trailhead and continue as far as we had time.

Something that stuck in my mind was when we got on the trail a sign said it would take two hours to get to the trailhead (We did it in 2:10). I’d noticed on other hikes in Spain that instead of listing mileage, they would list a time. What’s stuck in my mind is, how do they figure out that number? Is it similar to a phone survey where they took 1,000 random people and averaged the time all of them took to walk the trail? Do they have a formula based on distance and altitude gain? Do they just draw a number out of a hat? I obsessed about this perplexing question for far too long. I’ll ask our super guide Alberto when we see him next and report the result.

About halfway up there was small Romanesque chapel of Sant Nicolau. According to local legends, there are numerous French kings’ crowns hidden in the valley. We did a lot of poking around and found them! However, we left them where they were because the other part of the legend is whoever touches them dies. If you want some serious bling, let us know in case you are feeling lucky.

We enjoyed the big waterfalls in the middle of the park, but all my photographs don’t capture their size. At the trailhead, there’s a Mirador (Lookout). Once thing we’ve learned about Spain in our earlier trips, if there’s a Mirador, the views are going to be worth it.

As we were taking a break at the trailhead to eat lunch, the clouds were getting thicker, and Pam said it was going to rain. I didn’t think so and said at most it would spit a little rain. In five minutes, it started spitting. Pam said it was going to rain, but I didn’t think so. A few minutes later, the spitting moved into drooling, so we got into our rain gear and our luscious waterproof socks. You can guess what happened three minutes later, it started to rain. When am I going to learn to listen to Pam?

We had fleeting thoughts of heading up the trail, but the thunder and lightning put an end to those thoughts, and we wisely started heading down. The rain got heavier, and then this happened:

Unlike most people with phones, I never think to make a video. In this case, I was so glad I did. It was only pea sized hail, but we waited it out under a pine tree in case it got bigger. We headed down quickly and in 15 minutes we were out of the rain. The rest of the walk was very pleasant, even when we had to cross a creek flowing across the road and the water was slightly over three inches deep. Those Randy Sun socks are amazing because our feet were dry after five miles. I swear we are not paid for these glowing reviews!

We got to laughing that we wished we had these waterproof socks on our Wales hike last year. We spent so much time looking for ways around or through bogs so we wouldn’t get our feet wet. All of those days would have been two hours shorter because all we did was look at ways to keep our feet dry, and they were all unsuccessful.

As I was preparing to take yet another flower picture, something flew into the frame. At first, I thought it was a hummingbird because it was hovering and behaving just like one. However, Europe doesn’t have any hummingbirds, but I’d read about moths that mimic the behavior of them. We couldn’t believe our luck, we got to watch a hummingbird hawk-moth! It’s an excellent example of co-evolution and if I hadn’t recalled this random factoid, we would swear it was a hummingbird.

We stopped in the tiny town of Barruera to stock up at their one grocery store, but it was still siesta time so visited their church to kill the 30 minutes. It was a very small church but had an altarpiece that was different. Back in the late 1600’s the style was to be as realistic as possible, especially with Jesus on the cross. You had to see every muscle, vein, and wound to appreciate his suffering. It was quite morbid.

On the way home, we finally got a picture of something we’ve wanted for the last few days. Since it’s a road sign, and Spain has no road shoulders or road pull outs, it was surprisingly hard to get.

The first time we saw this sign, we could not figure out why the cow is so weirdly proportioned. Those legs are much too short. My working theory is that Spanish farmers have figured out how to cross breed a cow with a corgi. We named these signs, corgicows. When we asked Alberto about them, it turns out the signs are proportioned correctly because they are pirenaica, the indigenous beef cow of north-eastern Spain. I’m going to start a petition to have them renamed corgicows because that’s funnier.

Pam asked me why I always thank all of you for reading at the end of these posts. It’s because you are my taskmasters, but in a good way! It would be so easy to say, I’m on vacation, the blog post could wait for tomorrow every night, and they wouldn’t get done. With you all reading (and commenting, thank you ❤️) it’s that little push I need to save these memories when they are fresh. For that, I will always thank you!

When we were setting up this trip with Pura Aventura, they recommended that we get a guide for this part of the mountains. Since Pam knows the introverted me, she was a little hesitant, but Greta at Pura strongly suggested we should, so we went for it. We are so glad we did. Alberto Marín López, is an incredible guide and I knew he was going to be fun when we called to coordinate yesterday. When I started speaking Spanish, he said “Whew! I speak English, but it’s just too weird to speak English on the phone so thank god you speak Spanish.” I thought that was hilarious.

Alberto picked us up after a superb breakfast at Hotel Terra Bonansa and his enthusiasm for the mountains was infectious. He’s originally from Zaragoza and went to school to be a videographer. During that time, he fell in love with the mountains, fell into guiding and loves his job. He said he’s been guiding for more than half his life. He’s specialized in education, mountaineering, and guiding the blind and visually impaired.

Our plan for the day was to visit Posets-Maladeta National Park so we could see the biggest mountains in the Pyrenees and learn about the glacier formed valleys below them. Along the way we passed through the town of Benasque, below the park. Alberto was pointing out how crazy expensive the area was because it had several ski resorts next to it. That’s when we realized we were looking at the Jackson Hole, WY of Spain.

Even though it was a partly cloudy day, the U-shaped bowl of the main valley covered in wildflowers, surrounded by giant peaks, some covered with glaciers was divine. I took tons of pictures but could never quite capture the Zen of this gorgeous place.

In the above photo the Narcissa flowers were in their full glory. If you look closely, these wildflowers are a very close relative to our Daffodils. Alberto told us the wonderful story of how they got their name. If you recall your Greek mythology, Narcissus was a beautiful young man who spurned all suiters of both sexes. Ameinias, a young man spurned by Narcissus had his pleas herd by the god of revenge, Nemisis, who cursed him by saying that Narcissus would never be able to be loved by the one he fell in love with. After placing the curse, Narcissus was getting thirsty and bent down to get a drink of water and fell deeply in love with his own reflection. Since the love could not be reciprocated, he wasted away to a golden and yellow flower, who’s opening always faced down looking into his reflection. Those Greeks had a story for everything.

Hiking with Alberto was like hiking with the coolest science teacher ever. We’d ask a question and he’d reach in his backpack to show us the animal or flower we were asking about. He carried a whiteboard to draw the glacier process so we could understand all the geology of how glaciers shaped the valley. I’m sure he’s answered some of those questions a billion times, but his enthusiasm was contagious because he made you want to learn more. As a total geek, I loved it, and Pam couldn’t get enough.

We ran into some of Alberto’s neighbors on the hike and they had the cutest little five-year-old boy. He was a little shy, but as we all talked, he walked up the each of the three of us because he wanted to share his chocolate mushrooms. He was so excited to share he did a little dance afterwards. Cuteness overload!

The river we are standing in front of is fascinating. (I didn’t catch the name.) It originates from the glaciers on the side of Aneto and disappears under our feet. No one knew where the water went for centuries until they finally discovered that the water flows under the Pyrenees and comes out in France.

Alberto and Pam had to wait on me constantly this hike. The wildflowers were at their peak, and I made it my mission to photograph every single flower in the valley. The variety was staggering. I hope you don’t mind a few flower photos.

We saw a few people with skis or snowboards on the backs. A popular activity for the hard-core set is to hike up to the snows below the glaciers and ski down. These are the real skiers, not the folks who pamper themselves with a chair lift. We talked to a few at our lunch spot, and they all said this was probably the last day of the season.

As I was bent over photographing yet another flower, I heard a huge shout and looked up to see Alberto and one of the backcountry skiers in the kind of embrace only long-lost friends do. That was exactly what it was! Alberto and José were teenagers in Zaragoza who came up to the mountains all the time together and started Alberto on the path as a guide. Life interceded and they hadn’t seen each other in over 30 years! They were so happy they couldn’t stop talking. We were close to the end, so Pam and I gave them their space because we thought it was beautiful mountain magic. Even though today was the best vacation day we could ever have, that shout, hug, and meeting was by far the best thing that happened and will be the highlight of the entire trip. Alberto told us later, he looked at the guy passing him and thought, “Wow, he’s an old school mountain climber, he’s like me,” before they recognized each other. What a moment to see!

On the way home in the car, Pam hit 100% as in 100% of our trips Pam sees a snake. Even though she’s not too fond of them, she has that knack. It was a seven-foot green snake, but it was too fast to get a photo. Alberto got a huge kick out of the story we had in England when Pam actually tripped over a black adder, their only poisonous snake. I managed to get a photo that time and when I asked another hiker what it was, he looked so sad and dejected. He told us he’d been coming to Yorkshire for over 20 years because his life goal was to see that super rare snake and us two dorks tripped over one on our first day. If you ever travel with Pam, she’s a snake magnet so beware.

Alberto dropped us off at Hotel Terra Bonansa and it wasn’t a final goodbye. We have another hike with Alberto in a few days. (How much luckier can we get?) If you ever visit this area, we are ordering you to stay at Hotel Terra Bonansa and go on a hike with Alberto. We guarantee that it will be a perfect vacation day. We know this from experience! We give both ten stars out of five.

Remarkably, a perfect day got even more perfecter (I just made that word up by Microsoft Word says it’s a real word, who knew?) We wanted to stroll around the thriving metropolis of Bonansa where fifty people live. The owners of the hotel have three dogs who are the official greeting committee when anyone walks in their driveway. The dogs are border collie and sheep dog mixes, which means they are smarter than most people. It breaks my heart I’m allergic to dogs because all I want to do with this friendly family of dad, mom, and their baby is love on them hard. The next time we visit I’m bringing elbow length gloves, and they are going to get so many ear scratches and tummy rubs I’m wearing fur off.

As we went on our stroll, we had three new guides. Dad wandered off, but mom and baby were on the job. They were hilarious to watch because the baby always runs up to mom and rubs against her side. It’s like mom is a magnet. As we walked past a hill at the back of town, two big dogs came charging down the hill at us barking in not a pleasant manner. Before I knew what was going on mom and baby were between us and the dogs barking at them just as threatening. Mom and baby stayed between us and them no matter where the big dogs moved. As the big dogs got closer, mom and baby upped their game and I thought there was going to be a fight. The owner of the big dogs was yelling at them, and we hustled down the road calling for our professional bodyguards to try to avert any problems. I WANT TO LOVE ON THESE BABIES FOREVER!

On the way back we realized we were going to run into the big dogs again and felt bad because we saw they were sheep dogs as the shepherd was moving a flock of sheep. We did our best to get past them quick and tried to sign sorry to the shepherds. When we got back to the hotel Pam gave them plenty of loving. I could only whimper in sadness.

Then our day got even more perfecter because it was dinner time. If we thought yesterday’s meal was stupendous, this one topped it. A flatbread with tomato jam, caramelized onions, and black olives. Second course was a quinoa salad with perfectly ripe fruit. The final course was a braised lamb shank that could have only been prepared in heaven. It was one of the best meals we’ve ever had in our life.

I am just so overwhelmed with today. It was perfect and thank you for letting me share it with you.

We had many hikes to choose from and Pam declared: we are doing Mont Rebei. My thought was, well, Pam was decisive so that’s what we are going to do. I read about the hike and two things jumped out. The first was that it said don’t do this hike on the weekend because it is so crowded. The second was if you are afraid of heights, you should not do the hike. It’s Saturday so that’s not good. I’m also afraid of heights so that’s terrible. Being a good husband, I sucked it up and said the magic words associated with all good marriages, “Yes Dear” and hoped for the best.

As I was the driver at least I could control the route to our next stay by choosing mostly back roads. The idea of grinding along on an interstate didn’t sound like a good time to me so it was wonderfully curvy back roads much of the way. Our underpowered MG SUV-let did OK but made me wish we had rented something super sporty because every road we drove was curve city. If you ever come to the Pyrenees rent the sportiest car/motorcycle you can because every road we were on was screaming to driven fast.

I hadn’t really noticed this before when I drove in Spain, but on those smaller roads, they don’t have shoulders. In other words, if you don’t stay on the road, you are going into a ditch at a high rate of speed. With no shoulders, that means you don’t have any easy pull outs where you can stop to take in the view. If the driver (me!) wants to see a view, fuggetaboutit (as they say in NJ, the birthplace of both Pam and I). The Spanish Department of Transportation should talk to me first before they break ground on any road because I’d be happy to help them for free on where pull outs should be.

As we got vaguely close to Mont Rebei, the roads got narrower and narrower, to the point the roads were maybe 1.000001 cars wide. I can handle that, but the cars traveling in the opposite direction felt entitled to take the entire road as their half. I’m sure it’s just me being nervous, but it made for a thrilling drive to come around a blind corner and having to stand on the brakes to stop. It made for a thrilling drive.

We make it to the trail head and the ranger at the entry station tells me I need to park in parking lot 3 because 1 and 2 are full. I’m feeling the weight of the people on me, and I gird my loins to deal with a billion people. As it turns out, what the Spaniards think a busy trail would be an almost abandoned trail in the American sense.

Mont Rebei is a trail through the gorge carved out by the Noguera Ribagorzan river. This is the last gorge left in Spain as all the others were drown by hydroelectric dams. The trail starts following the river and evolves into a shear cliff trail carved out of the rockface.

As I am the one with height issues, the carved trail as shown above didn’t cause me any problems at all. I wasn’t about to walk to walk on the edge though. The first bridge we encountered was across a tributary. It was a big metal suspension bridge, like the Golden Gate in San Francisco. While the bridge wobbled, the suspension points had excellent hand holds on the connection parts from the bridge to the suspension cable. With my weird fear of heights, if I can hold on to something solid, like those on this bridge, I may not be fast, but I will get over.

After numerous trail ups and downs, I was doing OK until I met my nemesis: The Second Bridge. (Dramatic music plays) This bridge was over the river proper, but the only hand holds were the thin guide wires, which transmitted every movement, from the breeze, the earth, and every molecule vibration. To me, the bridge was just like one of those bridges you see in cartoons with the slats falling out that the hero has to cross. The real bridge was perfectly safe, but that’s where my brain went, and I am definitely no hero.

I started across with shaking knees holding onto the trembling guide wire as my brain is off in terrified land. I’m very slowly making my way across looking at Pam the whole time because focusing on something makes my brain slightly forget that I’m on a bridge with a shear drop off over 500 feet. As I get halfway across the bridge, where the suspension cables get very small, and I have fewer hand holds, I can see Pam is getting worried.

Pam, in her infinite kindness sees I’m not doing well because I’m shaking at about 700 RPM. She starts to step onto the bridge to help me and I am within nanoseconds of freaking the hell out. She’s going to cause bounces on the bridge and since my feeble brain thinks it’s nothing but slats (even though there are guidewires to hold onto my brain isn’t processing them). I realize if she steps on to the bridge I’m going to have the biggest panic attack in the world, drop to my knees, and never move again. It’s going to take an air rescue helicopter to pull me off the bridge. I yell at her to stop. Talking to her later, all she was trying to do was reposition herself to encourage me, but my lizard brain went to immediately to the worst possible outcome.

She backs off and I keep slowly moving forward finally reach solid ground. My heart was beating so fast that if I died right then and there, the adrenaline in my body combined with a heart rate that high, was sufficient to keep my blood circulating for two years after I die. We head up the hill as fast as I can so I can get away from my nemesis.

The trail continues but I’m not too interested in that right now. We’d read that there were stairs on the trail, but we hadn’t seen any. Pam heads up a bit to take a look and shows me the picture below.

I take a glance at the picture and it’s “nope, the fuck, nope” on that one. We are turning around and going back. But how am I going to get back over my nemesis bridge?

Those of you that know me, know I used to jump out of airplanes and most of those were at night, so given the description of my fears above, how could I do that? I’ve learned there are two types of fear. Abject terror and terror. My very first jump was pure, abject terror. This is the kind I described above. The kind where you barely function. As I survived my first jump, the second was easier because it was demoted to simply terror. The second bridge crossing was just terror, which I can handle.

If you’re wondering why I put myself in this situation, it’s because you must challenge yourself once in a while. It would have been easy to turn around, but facing your fears is healthy in my view. My sense of accomplishment is complete (for today at least). The next time we hike here, I’m doing those damn stairs!

After the hike we drove on to our next resting place, Hotel Terra Bonansa. The family who runs it gives us a welcoming greeting that made you feel you belonged here. There were views for days, three happy dogs for Pam to play with, three kitties for me, and the hotel design and decorations are incredible.

And then came dinner! The first course was a rabbit meatloaf with bread designed by the owners specifically for the meat. It was incredible and we were just getting started. Next was a pumpkin and local mushroom soup gorgeously served in a martini glass. I don’t like  pumpkin or mushrooms and I couldn’t get enough of it.

The main course was fresh local beef as a hamburger stuffed with softened apples accompanied with another custom bread made with tomatoes. At this point, we ran out of superlatives and could only happily and lovingly smile wondering how we could ever deserve food this good.

Maribel came out of the kitchen to say hello and we were effusive with praise. She said, “I’m a graphic designer, not a cook.” We agreed with her, she’s not a cook, she’s a Michelin star chef. To experience something this otherworldly is the reason for vacations. For the rest of our lives, we’ll say, “Do you remember the first night at Hotel Terra Bonansa?” and we’ll at once be transported back to this amazing place where we are deliriously happy, laughing, and filled with great food and wine.

We can’t believe we have two more nights here. We are so lucky!

We are also lucky to have all of you reading too, it’s making the vacation better for us. Thank you!

We started the walk in a gorgeous beech forest on immaculately maintained trails that the parks department in Garrotxa deserves huge kudos. All the rain from yesterday had run off and we were walking on that smooth volcanic cinder, which is perfect trail materiel. This is a very popular walk so the trails were wide and so easy to follow that even Pam couldn’t get lost.

We passed farms with goats, a church, and overall enjoyed the walk. Being a Friday, we saw a couple of people but felt we had the place to ourselves. Next to a farmer’s field where a large volcanic rock was placed on a pedestal and a metal work of San Isidro was mounted on it.

San Isidro is the patron saint of farmers and laborers. Since we were “laboring” by hiking on this vacation, we felt it only fair we adopt him as the patron saint of our vacation. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone because San Isidro is also known for his kindness to animals and with four cats (yes, we are crazy cat people), I feel a kindredness with him.

Everything we had read about the area, and Gorotti absolutely insisted, a visit to the medieval town of Santa Pau was required. As we go to the edge of town there was a cool display set up by the town government of all the key points to visit in this town that could fit in a few downtown blocks of Asheville, albeit with an intact defensive wall and is split into two arms.

We walked through town we saw the church and the crumbling castle at the center of town. It was time to pay the Spanish bathroom tax, which is when you order water at a bar so you can use the bathroom. We picked a bar in the center square, but as we sat down, we were rudely interrupted by a group of ten older Spanish visitors. We could never figure out what their problem was, but the old ladies screamed at each other across the square. I’m not kidding. It was all “HEY CARMEN, DID YOU SEE THIS SCULPTURE ON THE CHURCH?” C-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y. Every word was at top volume followed by their husbands going “shhh, shhh” right after. “THIS IS NOT AS BIG AS OUR SQUARE.” “shhh, shhh”  “LOOK AT THIS STORE, DO YOU WANT TO GO IN?” “shhh, shhh.” “ARE YOU HUNGRY?” “shhh, shhh.” “NO, I WANT A DRINK.” “shhh, shhh.” Ad infinitum. The server at the bar hadn’t even come to our table and Pam could see the steam coming out my ears. The loudest lady sat down on a step right in front of our table and screamed “HERE’S A GOOD PLACE TO SIT.” “shhh, shhh.” “COME OVER HERE, MARIA.” shhh, shhh.” (None of this is exadurated).

I started getting up to scream at that one lady to shut the hell up because she’s being obnoxious. Having been married to Pam for almost 35 years, she could read my mind and I only got halfway out of my chair when, like a ninja she dragged me out of the bar, whispering in my ear “let’s go” before I even knew what was happening. Those poor husbands of those banshees. At least they tried.

We got as far away from the screaming meemies as fast as we could. We followed the highlights of the city path, which we must commend the town government for. They had nice signage and ensured you really saw this attractive medieval town. We wound are way to the newer part of town the mirador (overlook) where you could see the old town.

There was a nice quiet bar at the mirador, so we sat and enjoyed the view. The service was wonderful, and I even opted for a caña, a small beer. The breezes were sweet, the company was great, and we received wonderful news from America.

As we were heading back to the main trail the clouds were getting fuller and darker, but we hoped the rain would hold off. We walked up our first volcanic crater, the Santa Margarida Volcano. In the middle of this extinct volcano is a small hermitage of Santa Margarida. While we could not get in, we could peek through the door of the church. Weirdly, all the pews are recycled movie seats, which we found hilarious.

As we hiked out of the crater, the clouds were piling up and we had a few spits of rain. Coming down, we passed by one of the few houses of the day and it was totally an artist’s house as it was surrounded by dozens and dozens of carved wood statues.

As we were passing between their house and the barn, which was the artist’s studio, it started to drizzle and we scootched up under the eve of the roof to stay a little dry before we put on our rain gear. Just as we got our packs off, as they say in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it poured the rain. It was a deluge. We didn’t want to be rude by standing under the eve of someone’s barn but also didn’t want to walk in what was coming down in sheets.

We stayed next to the barn wall and that one-foot overhang because we had no idea how the owners would behave if they looked out and saw us. It was awkward, but we were dry. There was a little cell reception so we could check the weather and the satellite view showed a big patch of yellow that was growing by the minute, so we stayed put.

If you have to be stuck under a tiny overhand, next to a barn, being stuck at an artist’s house is an excellent way to spend the time. Having a long time to really take them in is nice. The range was eclectic, from native American heads to fantasy figures, and a lot of sea life. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and we were dry.

After an hour of us standing there, the door of the house across the single lane road opened and a young lady and her two-year-old daughter stepped out. The daughter was in her wellies and bundled up in her rain jacket holding on to her stuffed rabbit for all she was worth. I said (in Spanish), “Hello! Thank you so much for your roof” as I pointed to the overhang. She laughed and said “You’re very welcome. We are going to get wet now” and they headed down the road. Whew! We both felt very relieved we were not being perceived as jerks.

Fifteen minutes later, there was a break in the rain, and we figured we had to get going because we had miles to go. We put on our rain gear tops and bottoms, and something different: waterproof socks. When we did our Wales hike last year, we were talking to some other hikers and they mentioned waterproof socks. I had forgotten about them, but 10 days before we left for this trip, Pam ordered some. The idea is that your feet breath but keep the water out. I had my doubts.

We decided to skip the other volcano craters on the route since it was now raining like crazy again. We walked three miles back to the car in our new socks. So how did they pan out? OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO GET THEM! THEY ARE THE SECRET TO LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE. YOU INSTANTLY BECOME TALLER AND BETTER LOOKING WITH THEM ON. THEY WILL BRING WORLD PEACE EVERYWHERE. THEY WILL SOLVE WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY. THEY PREVENT HANG NAILS. THEY CURE HICCUPS. THEY ARE ZEN! I sound like and old Spanish lady screaming at their friends, but they are that good.

We couldn’t believe how great they worked. Our shoes were completely soaked, and our feet were perfectly dry. These are such a game changer for me. Pam’s tougher so never has blister problems, but once my feet get wet, I’m guaranteed to get blisters. No longer, I have waterproof socks. We bought Randy Sun socks and obviously love them. If you do any walking at all, get them.

We happily jaunted down the trail back to the car, when we ran into a problem. At the trail head, you have to pay for parking. That’s cool with me because it puts money back into the park system. The only problem was the two machines where you pay would not take our cash nor our credit cards, so the gate wasn’t going to open. We didn’t know what to do. We looked if there was a way to four-wheel drive around the gate. We thought we’d have to call Gorotti to bring our dinner to us and hand it over the gate. We were preparing to stay forever when I realized the weird number on the exit station was a phone number.

I called the number, and someone immediately answered. I tried to explain the situation and they said, “OK, where are you?” We had no idea so were trying to pull the map out of our backpacks when the voice asked in English, “What is your ticket number?” I read it out in Spanish, and they hung up! I’m trying to call them back when we hear this voice from god say, in English, “You may leave now.” WHAT THE HELL? (as I become one with shouty old ladies) We had no idea where this voice was coming from and like a miracle, the gate opened. Was this the beginning of a miracle? Was god really talking to us? Was it the devil trying to tempt us? I slammed it into first gear and gunned it because we had to get out of that parking lot. It finally dawned on us that the exit station had a speaker in it. So much for us achieving sainthood.

We had a wonderful dinner at La Rectoria de Sant Miquel de Pineda cooked by Roy and served by Gorotti. During dinner there was a much older Catalan couple seated behind us. The man had his phone configured to make a sound every time he typed, at full volume. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. This was our soundtrack to dinner. I swear we attract all the old weirdos.

After dinner I didn’t ask for my normal chupito because if you remember from yesterday, Gorotti is a whisky expert, so I asked for a recommendation. She started asking me questions about smokiness and origin where all I could do was look like a deer in headlights. I told her that I drink scotch because that’s what we do in the Robbins family. Pam chimed in and said that all we drank was Clan Macgregor and it was $19 for a handle. (the liter version). Gorotti had no idea what we were talking about but deduced we needed some education (sorry Uncle Pete). She went through a bunch of information that I didn’t understand, and I finally said, we drink Clan Macgregor because we like it. That was good enough for her. After a nice pour of Benriach and suggested I bring that to the family reunion. It was very nice, but we’ll stick with the tried and true. It’s way cheaper.

Happy Guilty of 34 Felonies Day to all who celebrate.

After another great Tramuntana Hotel breakfast, we headed out for one last short walk around town. We had no itinerary other than to imprint this wonderful town deeper in our minds. Of course, I obsessively looked for more electric box art.

If the styles look familiar, they are all by the same artist, Danilo Fernandez. We saw other electric box paintings of his as well. As we were walking around looking at this wonderful public art, I wondered if the residents are commissioning the pieces or Danilo is a guerrilla street artist painting these at night, a la Banksy? No matter, taking something utilitarian, a basic electric box cover, and elevating it to art is balm for the soul.

Our goal today was a cultural tour instead of a hike. We took the long way around to get to the city of Figueres to see the Dali Theater and Museum. At best, I can almost, with some strenuous effort, muster a “meh” as a review, especially given the overcrowding (and it’s not even tourist season).  Honestly, I thought the best part was the air conditioning in some rooms given the crowds and the humid day.

When Pam read what I wrote yesterday about the Dalí House, she said I better explain myself, especially since I think you should skip both the Dalí Theater and Museum if you ever visit this part of Spain. The fundamental question is: can you enjoy the art when you don’t respect the person? In my view, absolutely not. Baked into my DNA, art, politics, and life are all intertwined and one can never, ever, separate them.

During the horrific Spanish Civil War, Dalí ran away to France and America. When his friends died or were executed for fighting evil, Dalí remained ambivalent. In 1948 Dalí decided to move back to Spain and let the fascist Franco dictatorship revel and glory in his international renown. While his “art” was all over the world, gleefully supported by the fascist regime, artists with good souls in Spain were thrown in prison to rot or killed and buried in unmarked graves.

My fundamental core belief is that fascism, whether from the left or the right, is something that requires you fight against it with everything you have. I gave up a large part of my young adulthood to serve and prepare to fight fascism. Either you are against the evil of fascism, or you are evil. Life is simple.

Picasso was right. Once Dalí willingly gave his approval to fascism, we should always mention that fact every time we discuss his art. So why did we go if I have such strong feelings? Because Pam wanted to see these places. She didn’t know Dalí’s real story because the amazing marketing spin Dalí and his supporters have given to his life. I’d encourage you to read more about Dalí so you too will see that not only was he a megalomaniac asshole, but he also supported fascism. The hard truth is that I don’t view Dalí as an artist, but merely a marketer. A marketer that very successfully sold a whitewashed view of a bad soul.

I did take one interesting picture in the Dalí Theater and Museum. At the end of one hallway, there were no paintings or drawings, just black walls. I looked at this for a very long time because I imagined all the artwork by artists that were killed by the fascist Franco regime Dalí supported.

I think I would have been more amenable to both places if there was some acknowledgement that his “art” was used to glorify and to justify destroying people under the Franco fascist regime he willfully supported. At the Dalí House there’s a room covered in pictures of Dalí with famous people. The tour guide did mention “Here’s Dalí with Franco, ugh.” That was it. Everything else was glorification. It depressed the hell out of me.

After Franco died in 1975, the Pacto de Olvidado (Pack of Forgetting) became the unwritten rule in Spanish society. Understandably, people wanted to move on and join the rest of the world. After almost 50 years of ignoring the past, Spain is now starting to deal with the terrorism inflicted by both Franco, and to a smaller extent, the Republicans. I hope they continue this painful look at the past so healing can finally begin.

As I said earlier, everything in life is intertwined. If you don’t like this political discussion, feel free to unsubscribe.

After we left Figueres, we stopped at the small city of Besalú, as our guidebook said we should. (You all know Pammy the Rule Follower!) The highlights are the Monastery of Saint Peter. Founded in 977, but like any Spanish church, it grew over the centuries. During the Spanish Civil War, the interior burned so it’s disconcerting to see this huge church with nothing in it.

The town also has the stunning Besalú bridge, a Romanesque beauty with a massive iron gate in the middle. From the history the bridge was a permanent work project for many generations given all sorts of problems it had, but it’s just so awesome to look at.

A very happy surprise was that Besalú also has the partial ruins of the town synagogue. Back in Besalú’s heyday, the High Middle Ages (approx. 1,000-1,300), there was a large Jewish population. The ruins are only the foundation, but they also held the mikvah. We couldn’t see the ritual bath but were thrilled to see the emphasis put on these forgotten people.

We got to experience those heavy Spanish rains we have had on our previous walks. This time we got to stay dry, but I had to drive in them. That was some work. I should report that the manual stick drive hasn’t been a problem no matter the weather or narrowness of the road. Today I only started the car twice while forgetting to push in the clutch. Progress!

The sky was dumping when we pulled into La Rectoria de Sant Miquel de Pineda where we are staying for the next two nights. I couldn’t figure out how to park in the parking lot and a man runs out with an umbrella showing me with hand signal how he wanted me to park. I’m all confused, but we get it worked out and run through the rain inside. That’s when we met Roy, and his English wasn’t a local accent. Turns out Roy is Scottish, and his lovely wife Gorotti is Catalan. They met in Scotland where Roy was a chef and Gorotti was working to become a Scotch whisky expert and to learn English. In 2007 they found this wonderful property with a small church and a priest’s rectory and their dream of opening a B&B came to fruition. They are the most wonderful hosts and have built the kind of B&B that you dream about. I have already threatened Gorotti that we are moving in forever!

La Rectoria is a B&B&D (Bed & Breakfast & Dinner), but Thursday night is their one evening of well-earned rest. Gorotti made us dinner reservations at La Deu in the city of Olot. She said it was a very good restaurant and most importantly, given the heavy rain, we could park right in front of the entrance. That’s the kind of attention to detail that they give you at La Rectoria.

For those of you that are vegan or vegan friendly you may want to skip this paragraph. For our friend Marion in MA, close your ears! OK, only the real carnivores are left, so you are about to weep. One of the options on the menu at La Deu was veil (baby cow), which was a specialty of the restaurant. As I felt wild and crazy, I ordered it. Thinking it was going to be something like we get with a dish likeveil piccatain the US, a very thin slice of meat, I was surprised when a GIANT honking steak was set down in front of me. Then I took my first bite I now know what an out of body religious experience in heaven feels like. I was eating a steak that was a million times more tender than the best fillet mignon and had a billion times more flavor than a bone in steak. Pam rolled her eyes at my description, but the best I could come up with was in math terms, exponentiation to the exponentiation. If you remember your high school math, exponentiation is something raise to a power. For example,

Here’s how I described the flavor of the steak:

It was the best steak I have had in many decades, if not my life! I am struggling to rectify that I will most likely never eat steak again. Pam grumbled at me for licking the plate when I finished. Her grilled cod was amazing but who the hell cares about fish after the ultimate steak?

Welcome back, vegans! After the meal, we struck up a conversation with a younger couple I had recognized as staying at La Rectoria as well. Jeff and Marica were college professors (he math, she economics) at the University of Texas at Austin. They were on their first couple’s only trip after welcoming two children and are biking across Catalunya. They were a lot of fun to talk to. (Those of you who know me know how much of an introvert I am, so obviously the meal affected my brain. 😹)

After asking for my usual chupito, Jeff and Marica were curious so I explained the tradition to them and said it would be my honor to buy them their first chupitos. The staff brought out their best, but sadly, it was a weak imitation of a real aguardiente/orujo. I felt bad to introduce our new friends to the all-important Spanish chupito and it wasn’t that good. At least the thought was in the right place!

I’m sorry this installment of our gripping saga is a day late. The wine and chupitos caught up with me and I fell asleep writing. I thought about sending out what my forehead typed when I was drooling on the keyboard, but asdhjfuiohsdf voaheirwueiehflkna REDRUM dweOIR REDRUM OQEWR didn’t make much sense.

Thank you for being on this adventure with us!

Seeing all those bloqueros yesterday had me very curious about why they are there. Some bloqueros are circles of slate about 10 feet in diameter and about 4.5 feet high. If square, they are about five feet per side. In each case, they are nothing but dry stone. Other bloqueros are approximately 5x5x5 (feet) but there’s an opening about two feet high on one side where you can access the interior if you crawl on your hands and knees to get in.

The hotel offers olive oil from their own orchards so I thought the owner of the hotel could tell me what they were used for. He laughed and said he as numerous in his orchard, but they are all hundreds of years old, as is most of those we saw on the hike yesterday. Today, all the hills are covered in terraces with olive trees, but in the Middle Ages to around the nineteen hundreds, Cadaqués was a major wine producing region. Slate is the main geologic rock around here, so much so that there’s more rock than soil. When building the terraces, they would hand pick out all the slate pieces so they could infill with good soil for growing. The bloqueros were simply a way to keep a stone pile from spreading everywhere and provided the store when building slate walls. Those with openings and rooms the people built so you could escape the rain as well as stay warm in winter. The bloqueros would take years to build and give you an idea of how much work went into cultivating the land.

What’s so fascinating about the intensive terracing is the unbelievable scale. Yesterday we tried to take a picture that would show just how massive they are. None of those work, but on today’s hike, I found a place where I think you might be able to see the scale of these terraces. In the picture below anything that looks vaguely like a straight line is a terrace wall. The terraces start at the top of the hills and go all the way down to the steam bed at the lowest point in the middle. If you look closely, slightly off center there’s a huge circular bloquero as well as five or six more in middle foreground. I hope this gives you an idea of the scale of what we are seeing on our hikes. Each terrace was built long before mechanical help and built one stone at a time. Sorry for continuing to tell you more than you ever wanted to know about terraces around Cadaqués, but they fascinate me to death.

Our morning hike was to the north so we could see a different part of Cadaqués and to get some walking in so we could close the movement activity rings on our Apple Watches. Confession time: it’s me who’s a weirdo about closing my activity rings and Pam just goes along. If you’re wondering what “closing your activity rings” means, consider yourself lucky because Apple has exquisitely gamified exercise perfectly just for my brain so I must close those rings every single day. It’s great that I’m focused on healthy activities, but I think Apple’s approach is hard for most people. After 2,262 days of closed rings, it definitely works for me.

On the hike we passed a small church (actually small, not a gigantic church but tiny compared to the main church in town), Ermita de Sant Baldiri. The church itself has almost nothing in it so was probably destroyed in the Spanish Civil War. What was interesting is that it contains the modern cemetery for Cadaqués. Pam and I must be odd because we will always seek out any cemetery to walk through.  Spanish cemeteries are more like mausoleums with the crypts above ground. It was interesting to see that in Cadaqués there’s the tradition of painted tiles to show the deceased. Some showed the person at work, others showed favorite items, one of which was a Canon DSLR camara on their plaque. The whole cemetery was beautiful and interesting all at the same time.

As we were getting close to the hotel, I was thrilled to find a dog I could pet! I love dogs but am allergic to them. It kills me because there’s nothing better than giving a dog a good ear scratching and seeing a tail almost wag off. I miss that so, so much and to find a dog I could love on was a special treat.

We couldn’t hike all day as we had an appointment at 1:00 PM at the Salvador Dalí house in Cadaqués. Pam’s already asleep so can’t argue with me, but I would not recommend going at all. Contact Pam if you want to know more about it. As for me, I thought it was pointless, tasteless, and  a waste of time.

After the Dalí house it was getting-a-little-bit-hungry o’clock. In Spain, that means its tapas time. We found a place on the main street in Cadaqués and began people watching. Pam really wanted fried squid and I had to have more anchovies. Have you ever had that moment where you pop a bite of a dish in your mouth, and you at once think that you must share this with the world? That was the fried squid at Nord Est. The anchovies were amazing, but that fried baby squid wins.

As we sat in the beautiful, warm breeze, eating great food, Pam looked over at me and I had fallen asleep. Back in my working days I used to do a lot of international traveling and for me, the second night in a faraway place is the killer. That’s when the jetlag smacks me hard and last night I got a whole 3.1 hours according to my watch. Old man John had to go back to the hotel and take a nap. I’ve never had to do that before, so I am now having an existential crisis about how little time I have left on earth. Nah, I just needed a good nap.

After waking up, we still had two hours until dinner. We decided to walk around town in areas we hadn’t been, with two goals in mind. The first was to finally figure out how to capture a picture of the fully in bloom bougainvillea covering many houses. The problem is the contrast between the darker bougainvillea, the white walls, and the sky. The only acceptable picture we have is below.

Our other quest was to find more “electric box art.” On the sides of houses and buildings are a metal electric box cover and many are hand painted or decorated in some way. Little public art like this fascinates me because this is human scale public art. This little act goes so far in making the surroundings beautiful. If I knew how to use Photoshop, I could build a collage of these. However, I’m on vacation so don’t want to learn. I’ll show you my favorite three we’ve found so far. We haven’t seen anything like this in other Spanish cities.

For dinner tonight, there was no thinking involved. When setting up the trip, the great folks at Pura Aventura told us, without any input from us, that we were going to eat at Compartir at 8 PM and made the reservation for us. With Pura Aventura having a wonderful Spain-based staff, we never gave it another thought. They were absolutely right!

They reserved us for the 10-course tasting menu and it was so much fun. The staff at Compartir (which is “to share” in Spanish) were fantastic and had great taste after great taste. My personal favorites were all the super fresh fish courses. One of the courses was grilled squid and included a vinaigrette made of squid ink. As we are loving every bite, I cut my last piece in two and it squirted a stream of squid ink right into my chest. That squid must have known I’d been eating his kind all day long so had to get his revenge. Fortunately, the stain did come out, but you must watch out when eating squid because they look out for each other. Even when dead.

The only downside to this wonderful meal is that 10 courses took us 2.5 hours, so we were very full at the end. Pam felt it could have stopped at 8 courses. When you get to Cadaqués, make sure you eat there.

Tomorrow, we start heading west so the adventure continues. Thank you for reading!

Originally, our travel company recommended a hike from Cadaqués to a lighthouse. However, it was only 4 miles long and hard-core walkers like us need a bigger challenge. At breakfast I looked through Wikiloc, the app Pura Adventura has us use, to see if there was any other hikes in the area that would be more challenging. As we spelunked on the phone between scrumptious bites at breakfast, we found a hike that was worthy of challenging your dynamic duo. We decided to go on a route south of town that would take us up in the mountains to a hermitage followed by a loop past the light house. The hike was 9.1 miles long with an elevation gain and descent of 2,113 feet. It looked like the perfect hike to start our trip.

So up we went. The first part of the walk had all the elevation gain as we walked up to Ermita Sant Sebastian, but we didn’t care. Given those beautiful  tramuntana winds, we stayed coolish even going up almost 1,200 feet. One of the big reasons we always travel in the beginning of May is to see wildflowers. We thought we wouldn’t see much on this trip since it was several weeks later. However, it seemed everything was in bloom from cactuses to every kind of native succulent imaginable. It was hard to make progress when you were stopping every 10 feet to take a picture.

A cactus in bloom.

Lavender in Bloom

Succulents on display!

More succulents on display!

If anything could top succulent flowers it would have to be the endless slate walls that guided our route. There’s something about a great rock wall that speaks to my soul.

A rock wall with Cadaqués in the distance. (It is insanely hard for me to limit the rock wall photos to just one. Be thankful because I have about 500 more I wanted to share with you!)

These handmade walls were everywhere on the entire hike. They delineate land ownership, but also were used to build terraces for planting. As we learned from Mercé yesterday, the terraces were built to increase the vineyard space, but today are used for planting olive trees. All around Caciqués proper, everything is olive trees today.

John and his happy place between handmade slate walls with Cadaqués in the background.

When we made it up to Ermita Sant Sebastian, we found out it was a private residence today. Later we learned that it’s owned by the Guinness family, the Irish beer people. We respected the privacy placards and stayed away. We got to laughing about the idea that to get closer to god, a monk or nun has to lock themselves away in inaccessible places, so others don’t bother them. Ermita Sant Sebastian is 1,000 feet higher in elevation than anything in the area and extremely isolated. These hermitages out in the middle of nowhere must be there to prove Jean-Paul Satre’s point that “hell is other people.”

Ermita Sant Sebastien.

On the way down we loved looking at all the bloqueos built in places seemingly inaccessible. These “buildings” were about four and a half feet high, some square and some circular, with thick walls, roofs, and an entrance you’d have to go through on your hands and knees. We couldn’t figure out what they were used for but will ask the inn keepers tomorrow as they have lived here forever.

Pam at the bloqueo we could afford as a fixer upper.

The trail also treated us to gorgeous views of the Mediterranean.

John enjoying the view.

Pam enjoying the view.

Right after the above photo was taken, we turned to the left to make our way to a lighthouse and that’s where the problems began. We’d had a few problems on the ridges finding the trail but once we started crossing the dry arroyos (stream beds) the trail became a figment of our imagination. Fortunately, Wikilocs on the phone came to the rescue so we didn’t get lost. Bizarrely, Wikilocs didn’t help push the nettles and Saint Sebastien levels of sharp, spiky plants exquisitely designed by evolution to inflict as much pain as possible. All of that was before we hit the downhill scree patches that tested your soul’s balance. We declared miles six to nine on our hike as officially not fun.

We survived and made it to the Calanans lighthouse and on to the hotel. We ended up walking 11 miles with 2,603 feet of elevation gain. We were fine, but Pam was shocked at the nettle burns all over my arms and legs. I looked like a failed allergy test! No worries, they were all cleared up by dinner.

Entering Cadaqués about 6:15 PM we realized we had a bit of a problem. The Spaniards don’t eat dinner until 8 PM at the earliest, and there was no way we were going to last that long. But tapas to the rescue. Pam had a huge desire for sangria, and I just wanted some food. We found a place with outside seating because after that much sweating we knew we would offend people at other tables. I got my food and Pam was thrilled with her sangria.

Pam, Sangria, and the Iglesia de Santa Maria in the background.

For dinner Pam chose Casa Anita. We didn’t know what to expect when we walked into what looked like a converted wine cellar with nothing but “family style” tables. At our big table were two French couples, so introverted John was relieved. It was great fun to watch the owner dealing with everyone because he obviously loved his job and spoke Catalan, Spanish, French fluently, and English as a side hustle.

When he came to take our order, we just followed whatever he recommended. We started with the traditional Cadaqués anchovies on tomato smeared bread. I can’t even describe how good that was. For the second starter he pushed the asparagus hard so that’s what we had. We had no idea asparagus could be that big, that flavorful, and that good. I’m not a huge asparagus fan and I was in love. For the main, we had a whole fish, but with the 1/3^rd Spanish, 1/3^rd French, 1/3 Catalan, and 1/3 “English” he used to describe it, I have no idea what it was, but it was good.

We figured out watching the interaction of the owner and the other two working the front of the house that the young guy was his son, and the lady was his wife. The wife asked us about dessert and told us she only spoke Spanish (actually Catalan) and French. We heard the word “chocolat” and we stopped here there. After the wonderful desserts, the son asked if we needed anything else like café, or a porto. Off handedly, he said  “or a chupito.”

If you’ve read this blog of our past trips, you know I have a major thing for chupitos. After the the wine harvest in Spain, they take the grape skins and make what they call “moonshine” and it’s supposed to aid in digestion. (It’s really an excuse to drink high alcohol content wine.) As soon as I said, “por supuesto, necesito un chupito para mi estomago” (of course, I need a chupito for my stomache) he got all excited and slammed down a gorgeous crema chupito that even Pam loved. The son walked by and saw us talking to one of the French couples about chupitos in broken Frenglish/Spanglish and said, you are serious about your chupitos and slammed down a brand-new bottle of chupito de hierbas (moonshine filtered through herbs and is stronger than the other flavored chupitos). I had to have two of those!

Fortunately, a young English woman had been seated at our table and was able to use her high school French to help us tell the story of chupitos to the French couple. Once they figured out what chupitos were, the French couple wasn’t too interested. They missed out. The young English girl (early 20’s) was traveling alone and finding how much she loved it. We loved how brave she was in today’s world.

When the owner came around with the bill, I noticed they hadn’t charged me for the four chupitos we had. I asked him to add those on and he was a little offended. He told me that if I knew what a chupito was for, there was no way he could ever charge me. Sometimes it’s very good to speak the language! However, after the bottle of local wine and three chupitos it made it very hard to write this entry. I hope on the editing pass the effects will wear off!

Tomorrow looks pretty wild: a hike, surrealism, and a star.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading!

Spring has sprung and that means Pam and John are out on an adventure and we are bringing you along! As always, we don’t want to be intrusive so you can unsubscribe at any time by clicking this link. If you don’t unsubscribe, you’ll get our ramblings from May 27-June 16. We thank you with all our hearts for reading.

Last year Pam wanted to go someplace where she could speak the language, so we had a great hike through central Wales. This year, Pam said because I (John) had a mumble, sigh, get-off-my-lawn, milestone birthday, I got to pick the destination. While survival is a “good thing”™, I think I earned the trip destination pick because (humble brag incoming…) I graduated the University of North Carolina Asheville with a double major in Mathand Spanish! Yay, me! (Sorry, I’m kinda proud of finishing. ☺️)

The J & P 2024 Adventure! (Sorry for the weird picture captions but Substack threw out the ability to do picture captions in the last year. Yeah, it’s stupid).

I’ve always wanted to see and smell the Pyrenees mountains and Basque Country of Spain. The map above shows where we will be staying across the area. Like all our adventures, there’s going to be a lot of hiking, but if you know anything about the geography of this area of Spain, it looks like we might be walking 200-300 miles a day. Super Trooper Pammy is hardcore, but not crazy.

Given the terrain and national parks in the area, we’re going to do this adventure a little differently than our normal inn-to-inn walks: we’re going to have a car. That will allow us to try all sorts of different hikes across the region. Also, we are working in some museums and other cultural attractions since we have the car to get to them. We thought it would be fun to shake up the vacation plans a bit.

As we did on our last Spanish adventure, we are using the wonderful folks at Pura Aventura to work all the logistics. We can’t recommend them enough because of their kindness and extraordinary effort to help us craft a great vacation.

As we had to fly into Barcelona, getting flights out of Asheville were a challenge. We ended flying into LaGuardia and had to transfer to JFK for the over the pond jaunt. It also came with an 8.5-hour layover and that was perfect! I can feel the eyes rolling now, but it really was almost too short of a layover. Pam’s lovely cousin Elizabeth and her partner Rick were at their place in the city, and we met up with them at Bruno Ristorante Italiano in Howard Beach. It was such a treat to catch up and share a ton of laughs with them. We are already planning to come back to NYC so we can enjoy those laughs with Elizabeth and Rick some more.

Also, Bruno’s is a gem! We walked in with backpacks, luggage and assorted  bags and the staff jumped right up to get everything we carried out of the way. They we so accommodating as we stretched out our meal catching up and laughing. The food was great, too. Thanks again to Elizabeth and Rick for making 8.5 hours go by in 10 minutes!

John, Pam, Rick, and Elizabeth *STILL* laughing!

The next 8.5 hours were not as fun as that was the flight to Barcelona. We booked the flight through American Airlines but was flown by a company I’d never heard of: Level. To their credit, we didn’t have a rapid unplanned disassembly and we got our checked bags, so that was good, However, they designed the seats to be slightly uncomfortable in any position, had an average cabin temperature of 86°, and any amenities past survival (like pillows, blankets, ear phones, and alcoholic drinks) requiring a credit card, one felt like mooing in cattle class.

Once we got to Barcelona, another adventure began: driving a stick shift. The last time I drove a stick was in Spain in 2017. My wonderful sister Deb and husband Jose, invited Pam, myself, and Deb and I’s Uncle Pete and Aunt Carol to visit them at their house in Spain. We decided to see the Roman Aqueduct in Segovia, so we piled into their brand, spanking, new minivan. As we got closer to Segovia, I happened to be driving and told everyone there was no way I was going to drive in streets laid out in the year 700 and scratch up (or do worse) to their car. Of course, as soon I say, “I’m not driving any more”, I turned right onto one of those streets only 3 inches wider than their mirrors. I managed to get us to the hotel 15 minutes later without a scratch but that was pure stress.

Pura Aventura has already rented a car for us, and we knew it was a stick shift. What surprised me as we walked up to the car was because it was an MG. MG’s have a huge soft spot in my heart as they were my dad’s favorite cars, and my first car was a red 1963 MGB convertible. While I had visions of double clutching and drifting around corners, the modern MG we rented was an underpowered, bland SUV styled, thing. It’s fine, but the incongruent MG visions in my head vs. reality made me feel a little old. Fortunately, other than a few high revs when sliding into 1^st gear, I didn’t have engine kills or tire squeals, so I’m happy that I remembered a core adult task.

The drive up to Cadaqués was straight up a highway and mostly boring but as we got closer to Cadaqués the road changed into an even better Deal’s Gap, AKA the “The Dragon” (318 curves in 11 miles 45 minutes from Asheville), which is considered the best motorcycle road in America. I had so much fun driving that curves-out-the-butt road though I pined for my 1963 MGB (or 1993 BMW R100GSPD motocycle) at every corner.

We were hustling to get to Cadaqués as Pura Adventure strongly recommended that we take a walking tour of the town with a local guide. As we were very tired from no sleep, we were wondering why we agreed to something planned on the day we came in. Let’s sum it up this way: if you visit Cadaqués and don’t take a tour with Mercé Donat you will have all your vacations revoked until the end of time. Her family has lived here forever, and she loves Cadaqués and all its people with all her heart. We have run out of superlatives to describe how fun and interesting the tour with Mercé was. As we told her, this was the exact perfect start to our vacation. (If you do plan to visit Cadaqués let us know and we’ll get you Mercé’s number so you can book your own tour.)

Cadequés. The Iglesia de Santa Maria is on the left.

The first thing you feel when you arrive in Cadaqués is the wind. Even though Cadaqués is on the Mediterranean Sea facing east, the wind  blows constantly and strongly, from the north west and is called the Tramontane (Castilian Spanish) or Tramuntana (Catalan, and is the name of hotel we are staying in). As Mercé told us “In Cadaqués we have 335 days of Tramuntana and 30 days of bad weather.” In fact, the wind is such a constant, that the juniperus oxycedrus, cade in English, or cadeque in Spanish (I wonder how the town got its name?) grows to accommodate the wind with the main branches appearing on the side opposite of where the wind hits the trunk.

Pam standing among the cade/cadaqué. She’s facing into the Tramontane wind so notice how everything grows.

The other mind-blowing fact we learned about Cadaqués is that the super curvy road we drove over the mountains to get to Cadaqués was only built in 1910! Cadaqués was a major fishing port and wine making region through the Middle Ages and Renaissance and the only access was by the sea. Even more mind blowing to us is that Cadaqués didn’t have city water until the 1970s. There are pictures around town showing how the local women carried water in vessels called “dolls” on their heads. These are some hard people here in Cadaqués.

Mercé showed us around the area where the old town walls used to stand. She is especially interested in the Jewish history of Cadaqués and pointed out how we could find the two synagogues that were very active until the Christian kings expelled the Jews in starting in 1492. The two synagogues are now in privately owned houses. Mercé has spent ages in various archives across Spain trying to find family names so she can use that to try to use that get funding to buy the houses and restore the synagogues.

At the second synagogue, the only piece outside that you can tell that the building used to be a synagogue is the carved out piece in the entry arch that housed the mezuzah. She knows the inside of the current private house because when she was a teenager in the 1980s, the house was the town disco and she said she spent a lot of time there. In fact, the disco ball used to hang over the mikvah! Even more hilarious was that the balconies in the disco were the same balconies that separated the women from the men in the synagogue. As teenagers the world over do, in Mercé’s day, the boys hung out in on one balcony and the women on the other. I just found that hilarious because even as a de-consecrated synagogue, the sexes separated, just like the Middle Ages.

Of course, we visited the Cadaqués Catholic church, Iglesia de Santa Maria. What we didn’t expect to find was an altar piece that just blew us away. It was designed and built in the Baroque Style in the 1700s and has two fascinating characteristics. The first is its size and the second is that it is one of the few alter pieces that incorporated regular people into it. At its base are two local fishermen in positions that show them supporting this entire gigantic piece of art. The funding came from the local fishermen working on public holidays, bank holidays, and weekends. Having seen so many churches in Spain, it was glorious to see a representation of the people themselves so prominently. So much of what you see in these old churches is ego stroking by a king or overly wealthy people patting themselves on the back.

The glorious altar piece of the Iglesia de Santa Maria.

We are in the Catalan region of Spain, and it was a stronghold of the Republicans fighting against Franco’s fascists in the Spanish Civil War. The Republicans were anti-Catholic, because the church aligned with Franco, and their first order of business was to destroy churches. It wasn’t a miracle that this glorious alter survived the war. Even though the townspeople were Republicans, they knew how important and priceless this alter is, so they built a wall in front of it to protect it from destruction.

Another fascinating tidbit we learned was that the altar piece has only been properly cleaned once in over 300 years. The town and church are arguing over who should pay for the long overdue cleaning because it will cost 80,000 Euros.

The left side fisherman.

The right-side fisherman (Dude’s kind of jacked!)

We were also lucky to see the alter all lit up. Mercé checked at the church before our tour and noticed that the donation box where you can light up the display had broken. Since she’s as local as can be, she got the key from the church electrician so she could light the display for us.

Of course, Spain is all about eating! Being a fishing village, you know that the fish is to die for. Since we had eaten our way across the Atlantic, we weren’t full dinner hungry so just hit up a couple of places for tapas. We had a wonderful meatball in brown sauce with shrimp. I know that sounds off to most Americans, but it was excellent. We (mainly me) had to have the Cadaqués specialty of anchovies at multiple places. The tradition is to take that wonderful, fresh, daily baked, Spanish bread, spread a smear of tomatoes on them, and lay a single anchovy on the top. These are fresh anchovy simply smothered in olive oil so lack the over saltiness of American anchovies. They were so, so good that my goal is to eat 20 pounds tomorrow. Even Pam liked them!

Pam’s scared but loved the anchovies anyway!

I think you can see why we can’t recommend spending some quality time with Mercé Donat if you visit Cadaqués. I could go on for another 1,500 words (or more!) about all the cool things we learned on her tour, but it’s now 01:10. I need my beauty sleep as we start walking tomorrow!

As always, thank YOU for reading!

Today started a little different. Normally at a B&B on this trip you are staying with other vacationers, but the other guest at the excellent Offa’s Dyke Cottage, Mervyn, was doing a training course in the area. He spent 30 years as an electrical engineer and the COVID time inspired him to make some changes. His children had grown, and he had a family medical issue where a hospital chaplain helped immensely, which made all the difference. It inspired him to become a hospital chaplain and he is so excited being of service to others. It was a gorgeous and inspiring story that set the stage for the rest of the day.

We needed that inspiration, because as I mentioned yesterday, everyone was telling us how difficult this section of the walk was going to be. It was challenging, but normally hikers are walking south to north, and we did the opposite. That meant we got the two very steep 600+ft (181 m) ups and downs out of the way early. There was a lot more up and down after that and my Apple watch recorded 3,713 ft (1131 m) in elevation gain for the entire day. Hitting those big ups and downs at the end of the day going north is what makes this section hurt. We had it easy in comparison.

Additionally, today was dry. Those big steep sections in the rain and mud would have been much more difficult. Before we left today Pam was reading the Offa’s Dyke Cottage guest book and there were a lot of entries from people who were coming north into the steep parts in the rain and had to give up because the trail got dangerous. One foot slip going up or down would have resulted in a long slide to the bottom of the hill leaving you covered in mud and the ubiquitous sheep poop.

At least we had the sheep to keep us company as we slogged up and down over those early hills. This entire trip we have laughed that when we booked it, we read that Wales has rolling hills. That didn’t sound too bad after hiking in Picos de Europa last year, which is a lot higher, but as Pam will tell you, those Welsh rolling hills sure added up to a lot! We did see a bunch of lambs all together in the middle of those hills so that was a perfect spot to catch our breath.

Now that we have been hiking with sheep for twelve days, we feel we are experts in their behavior, Dunning-Kruger be dammed. We’ve been particularly entranced by the feeding habits of baby lambs. It seems like when a momma sheep stops, her baby or babies if twins, immediately dodge under her legs and head butt her udder two or three times before trying to feed. With some of the older lambs, the head butts lift the mom’s back feet off the ground. For you human mothers reading I’m glad for your sake human babies don’t smack their heads into you to start nursing. Once the lamb has latched onto teat, the fun begins. While the lamb is suckling, their tails are in constant motion.

We’ve seen all sorts of lamb tail movement at rapid speed:

• The windshield wiper from the top

• The horizontal side to side

• The full slither like a snake

• The small circle

• The windshield wiper straight up

• The side to side wiggle like a dog

• The straight up and down (like a pump handle)

• The full helicopter (my favorite)

Some scientists say lambs wiggle their tails because it is a way for a lambs to communicate with their mother. Based on our extensive twelve days of studying lambs, the scientists are utterly (udderly?) wrong. The wild, rapid tail movement provides suction so the lamb can get the milk out of the teat. That’s my theory and I’m sticking with it, scientists be damned!

We also saw some wildlife today that we didn’t expect. Though Pam isn’t too keen on snakes, she has a knack for stumbling over them. When we did the Coast to Coast trail years ago, she physically tripped over a black adder in Yorkshire. I managed to get a picture of it scooting away and when we asked a fellow hiker what the snake was, he looked extremely dejected. He said he’d been coming to Yorkshire for 20 years with the goal of seeing a black adder and two American’s tripped over one in their first hours. There’re only three snakes in England and they are very rare.

Again today, while Pam didn’t trip over the snake, she stirred it up and I got a picture of it. When we finished we looked up what kind it was and it wasn’t a snake, it was a slow worm, which is a legless lizard. What’s so hilarious to us is that Pam stirred up a slow worm on our trip to Spain last year. She’s two for two on the slow worms!

Our route followed Offa’s Dyke nearly the entire way today. With the hills, valleys, streams, and rivers, in the landscape, the Dyke was a more snake like in its travels compared to yesterday’s straight line. With each step my appreciation for the magnitude of the effort to build it improved. The whole earthwork including the ditch and bank was originally 65ft (20m) wide and 8ft (2.4m) tall. This is an extraordinary amount of dirt and rock that needed to be moved, especially considering the Dyke is 169 miles long. After seeing some sections with the facing at least 15 feet high today, after 1,300 years of erosion, it had to be impressive when built. The number of people involved in construction must have been huge, especially considering it was built during the Iron Age. Of course, this brings up the unanswered question as to why it was built. Was it really built to keep out the Welsh? Was it a show of power by Offa? Did Offa want to keep his kingdom’s people busy so they wouldn’t question his rule?

Several largish sections of the walk had long sections across high meadows where we had views for miles. It was hard not to stop every fifteen steps and take a picture.

It was great crossing a ridge and looking down into Knighton. It had been a long day and we were getting tired. After one final steep downhill we passed into the town proper. When we got to our hotel for the night, the George and Dragon Inn, we gave each other a high five and mainly wanted to sit down. In all, it was a very successful hike because other than a minor slip by Pam today going down a steep section, we never fell. Also, and just as important, we never dropped our phones into the mud or sheep poop. I’m still quite salty about the Transportation Security (Theater) Administration forcing us to leave our hiking poles behind. Pam’s slip today would have not occurred if she had a pole. Next time we are boxing up our poles so they can be checked. Also, we are going to research those waterproof socks we heard about.

When we checked into the George and Dragon Inn, the lady working the bar and the chef both said the remembered us from our last visit over two weeks ago. I don’t know if that was good or bad, or possibly scary. It was fine because they both remembered laughing a lot with us. Whew! We continued those laughs over dinner and a few drinks at the inn. With the long day, I ran out of brain power so had to head to bed, which is why this entry is late.

A special thank you to all of you reading and commenting on these posts. Writing about the day started out as an email to family to let them know we hadn’t fallen and weren’t stuck somewhere along the trail. In rereading those emails months later, I realized they helped me remember more about that trip than I had about any other. I love the challenge of thinking about what I’m going to write about in the evening, and I just love writing them. The encouragement from you all is a gracious gift and I thank you deeply for it.

Finally, thanks to Pam, AKA Super Trooper Pammy, for organizing everything, and not complaining too much about me staying up late with the lights on finishing the day’s story.