YIKES!

48 miles hiked, 3 Cultural Events Attended

This trip is all about getting us to see, smell, feel, enjoy, and experience, the Pyrenees. We’ve started from the ocean and have moved into the foothills/beginning of them in Garrotxa, the volcanic part of Spain on the east side of Catalunya. Now it’s time for us to move into the heart of the Pyrenees: the big mountains. That means we must do some driving to get to them, but of course, if there’s the right hike along the way, we are going to take it.

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.

The view of the city of Tremp with the Pyrenees behind it. You see why I wanted to pull over all the time.

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.

The river heading into the gorge.

Pam strolling leisurely on the gorge trail.

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.

You have got to be kidding me!

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.

It tasted even better than it looked!

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!