The Last Hurrah

143.13 miles hiked, 10 Cultural Events Attended

We made a mistake staying in Oñati with only time for one good hike. The mountains deep in Basque Country are teeming with wonderful trails. Looking over the lists of trails to choose from gave me analysis paralysis. Pam weighed in and said that since we only have the one day, we should do the most popular hike in the area Aitzgorri and Aketegi. It’s a bigger hike, but we are in fighting shape, so it was on.

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.

The tree lined path into the Urbia valley.

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.

The Aizkorri massif, the highest peaks in Basque Country. The highest peak is on the middle, Aitxuri, which means white stone.

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.

Eurasian griffon vulture.

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.

It’s about time for the thyme to get  ready to pop.

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.

Aitxuri on the right. On the left is Aketegi, which has the Santo Cristo hermitage and a refuge hut on top.

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.

The view from the pass looking back at the way we came. The straight line of trees in the middle right is the path into the valley we crossed. The views went on for days!

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.

Looking back at the Aizkorri massif. If we had done the peaks, we would have been in the clouds, and rain, coming down.

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!