With Ruth’s parents on holiday from Wales, the team decided
to walk the trek over the Pyrenees from France into Spain on the Libertie
Trail. This is the escape route used by
around tens-of-thousands of people escaping the Nazi’s in World War II. This is he trek Ruth had guided the previous
week (in 3 days) and would take Ruth, Rob, John and Pam 2 days (9 hours walking
on day one and 5 hours the next day) over the mountain pass.
My job was easier – to be the pick-up crew, dropping them
off on the French side, driving over the Pyrenees and picking them up in Spain
the next day.
The mountains are a mix of rolling green foothills, rising
to majestic mountains with sheer cliffs.
In between are the veins/arteries of roads joining old villages with
cobbled streets, small churches with steeples and bells and stone houses with
shuttered windows.
The border crossing was seamless for me (literally!)-driving
down the motorway in France and seeing a sign saying Espanol – no checkpoint,
no border stop. Just a kiwi on an Irish
passport driving an Italian car licensed in France across to Spain. Very cosmopolitan (and glad I didn’t need to
stop to explain that to anyone).
Two hours into the Spanish side of the Pyrenees and driving
up a steep though wide and very well maintained road – chair lifts of one of
the ski fields on either side –beautiful chalets dotted around, horses feasting
on lush grass under the chair lifts.
There is a pub on the roadside and I stop to confirm directions. That night I stay at Estari d'anu,
Lleida, Spain , in a hostel- a 100 year old stone hotel in a large though
sparse and comfortable room. The town
seems deserted. I head out to get some dinner at 7.30 – none of the restaurants
are open (strange!); there are a couple
of pubs with menus and I inquire about food.
The waiter switches between Spanish, French, German and finally English
to tell me that none of the restaurants open until 8.30pm. He looks at me like I’m from Mars not knowing
this.
Sure enough, town erupts into life after 8.30pm and I enjoy
some of the local food. The next day I
found out that the shops don’t tend to open until around 10.00am, close at
around 2.00, re-open around 4.00 (unless you are a restaurant) and stay open
until quite late (anywhere up to 10.00pm)
Driving to the pick-up rendezvous the day before the actual
pick-up (just to confirm the location) it is like driving back in time. A single lane (though 2-way!) tarsealed road
morphs itself into a single lane dirt road with the odd ruin of stone buildings
or stables . Occasionally the bumpy ride is interrupted by a meandering herd of
cattle walking down the same road.
There’s plenty of warning that they are there –you can hear the cow
bells ringing for miles and, sure enough, round the corner the herd is swaying
down the road. There are hardly any
people; one or two anglers in their waders
at hip height in the gently flowing and crystal clear river. The mountains rise on either side – it is a
crisp day, the sun shining and blue sky but the temperature reminding that this
is autumn and that this road is 1200m above sea level.
While still the Pyrenees, this Spanish side has quite a
different feel to it than the French side.
The cliffs rise up more abruptly into grey sentinels, the main roads have hardly any traffic and
it is hard to believe that this country is in a difficult recession when you
see the quality of the roading infrastructure on the main highways and
tributary roads.
My rendezvous is for 1.00pm on Sunday. I awake to the sound of church bells at 6.00
competing with a local rooster. A brief
walk up into town leads onto a trail that heads up a single bush track up to an
old castle ruin. The flags on the
hilltop a reminder that this is actually not Spain at all – but Catalonia. [On
this trip I’ve realised that Spain actually does not exist – rather a
geographic cluster of fiercely independent group of autonomous communities
(including Catalonia, Basque Country, Galicia, Andalusia and others]).
My drive to the rendezvous this time interrupted by a sea of
sheep being shepherded down the road -
again with (cow?) bells.
The troops successfully negotiated the mountain pass
avoiding the gestapo and look amazingly refreshed and relaxed for2 days across
the pass.
We adjourn to the village for lunch. John and I try the barbequed rabbit – a local
dish that is as nice as that I tried in Portugal. That’s the last time I feed the rabbits I shoot
on our farm to our dogs (now I have the recipe for something other than rabbit
stew).
We meander down the road to the nearby village of Sort in
Lleida Spain (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sort,_Lleida)
. Rob and John are in their element and
like teenagers as they look at the river.
They are both keen kayakers and this is the site of the 2014 World
freestyle Kayaking championships. There
is a permanent course laid out with the dam nearby allowing the flow to be
regulated.
This is also home to some exceptional rock climbing nearby
in Collegats-Queralt. We overnight at
the camp ground in Sort and spend the next morning climbing – these cliffs are
incredible and stretch straight upward
touching the sky at ridiculously high altitudes. Rob has brought along his 80m rope so we can
climb some of these routes without needing to multi-pitch. Other than one other climbing group of 3, we
are the only ones there – below is an old disused road (since a tunnel has
replaced it) and it feel surreal belaying from the roadside onto some majestic
looking cliffs. The rock formations have
been shaped into unusual arches by water falls and flow from the mountain –
this is the site of inspiration drawn upon by Gaudi for some of his
designs. It feels strangely exhilarating
having visited Sagrada Familia in Barcelona to now be climbing in the middle of
the Pyrenees at one of the sites that inspired some of Gaudi’s themes.
We get about 2 hours
climbing in before the heavens open.
Whoever said “The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain” has not
visited here! The forecast is for more
of the same so we decamp a day early and head back to France taking a route
that completes the circle of the loop I drove a few days earlier. Three hours later and we are safely ensconced
back at the Gite in Loubuerres, France.
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