Pyrenees

We passed tiny medieval towns to finally reach our destination, an old donkey barn.  The room we got above the old barn is so cute, with a kitchen area, and balcony overlooking the river running below.

Marcos, our toned and tanned tour leader, does yoga most days, and his mom is an instructor, so I asked him to get our days in the mountains started off with a yoga session.   He was happy to oblige, and some who had never tried yoga are now enthusiastic about it. 

We have only one full day here, so had to choose between a hike or a trip down the river with an adventure company.  Two New Zealanders chose the river, and spent the day being terrified as they jumped off cliffs in wetsuits down to the chilly water, then floated and paddled down the river to the next cliff. 

Four of us chose the more appealing and no cost option of a hike to a viewpoint with a tiny medieval town and churches.  Well, actually five, one girl came with us in sandals, with no food and little water, and all the way up to the town talked about how difficult it was.  She asked the local guy we

met there to find her a ride home. 

We checked out an unexpected tiny witch museum (in this area black magic is practiced using the plants and animals found here) in the mainly deserted town.  Then we tried but failed to eat our sandwiches of stale bread and chewy ham so fed them to the lone dog hanging out there.  Hungry and sunbaked, we were ready to start back but I thought we should first check out the churches a little above the town, so we continued up to the three tiny churches.  There we had amazing vistas to snow covered peaks in France just a few miles away.  

The churches held some creepy articles such as a little girl’s dress and letters written in bad Spanish.

Back in the town we shared an apple, but had lots of river water to fill us up.  When we got back to our donkey barn, we were hailed as heroes by the rest of the group waiting for us, who had been told by the American girl how incredibly hard the hike was.  We were slightly confused, since it was not a difficult hike, but decided we should just go with it and tell everyone how tough it was.

 Most of the group had already jumped in the icy river below, so in we went with Marcos who had already been in a few times.  I didn’t have my camera so came back down to get our pictures, and was told we had to jump back in for the pics, so in I went again.  Getting out was the best part but it was perfect after our hike in the heat of the day and was a great cap to the best day I’ve had on this trip, all with great company.

A girl who had been watching all the action fully dressed said she wanted to go in but just didn’t want to go up to her room and change, so would do it in the morning.  I provided the unsolicited advice that one thing I’ve learned from travelling is to do it now,or you just might not have the opportunity again, and the next thing I knew she jumped in.  Fully dressed. Good on her!  

We still have a couple of hours until dinner so broke out the spoons game, where everyone has to grab for a spoon as soon as one person gets their four of a kind, and had Marcos sliding halfway down the long table a few times to get his spoon, and then shout Cuchara! which means spoon of course.

This was the best day of the tour for me, I will be very sorry to leave tomorrow.