Part 2: From the Mar Cantábrico to the Mar Mediterráneo

We stayed in a beautiful small hotel in the town of Torla(H), right outside the Parque Nacional de Ordesa y Monte Perdido. What a view from the terrace of the hotel!

We walked into town at night and had fantastic dinners in small restaurants, kept the windows open  so we could hear the bubbling river while we slept, and spent too many daylight hours trying to register for a week of intensive Spanish classes at Lake Tahoe Community College. Are we gluttons for punishment or what?
During summer, it's not possible to drive a private car into the park, but this being late spring, there were fewer visitors. There's a main hiking trail that passes 5 or 6 waterfalls during the course of 8 km or so, or a 16 km round trip. Peanuts for Tom; a goodly hike for Ellen. As we gain altitude in our trip, we seem to be following spring. The leaves are shimmering and new, there are carpets of wildflowers, and the streams fling themselves down the mountainsides into foaming rivers. The trees are fir, beech and boxwood; the mountains are of eroded limestone karst; the valleys formed by both glaciers and rivers action. No, thinks Ellen, this is my favorite spot in Spain.

The day starts out partly cloudy and although there's no rain forecast, we know that the weather can change rapidly, and one of us (guess which one) starts to gaze nervously at the gathering dark clouds. Nonetheless, the waterfalls call to us and we press on. Each one seems more beautiful than the last.

We reach waterfall number 4 and pause for lunch.

Then it starts hailing, not just pellet-sized balls, but cannonballs as big as the last part of your thumb. We take shelter under a rock ledge until it passes, because after all, there's no rain forecast. We notice that the temperature is dropping pretty fast and we decide to leave waterfall number 5 and the glacial cirque of Soasa for "next time". We hot-foot it back through alternating hail and rain until we lose a hundred or so feet in altitude and then spend the rest of the hike dry and enjoying ourselves. The heavens don't actually open until we reach the hotel. Later, we talk to a couple who remained on the trail and see their pictures of several inches of hail. They think we made the right decision.

We left Torla(H) in the province of Navarra and headed for the town of Boí(I) on the outskirts of the Parc Nacional d'Aigüestortes i Estany de St. Maurici, in the Catalan Pyrenees.

There were small mountain towns off the L500, each one with it's own picturesque Romanesque church. There are 9 in total and collectively they are part of a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Wikipedia has some great information and photos at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vall_de_Bo%C3%AD

Everywhere we traveled, the roads and highways were in excellent repair, although some very winding and steep. At the end of the road lies the highest ski slopes in the Pyrenees, Boí-Taüll, which still had snow on June 10 although the lifts were closed. In fact, the weather closed in and dumped several additional inches of snow while we were in Boí.

On the way to the slopes, we passed through several large and completely deserted resorts. We saw lots of empty holiday homes all through our trip, although this is where we started noticing many for sale and for rent signs. Along with the dozen or so businesses around our piso in Bilbao that failed during our stay, these became emblematic of the profound Spanish economic crisis.

We took 2 hikes in this park. The first, abbreviated by a snow field across the trail, ended at a high man-made reservoir. The bleak grey mountains reflected in the still water made it a very enchanting spot.

 

The second hike was through the magnificent water meadows that give the park it's name. Aigüestortes means 'twisting water' in Catalan and refers to the gin-clear river that runs through this section of the park, splitting to rush around small islands, trees and rocks, joining and splitting, until it must resemble an intricate french braid in an aerial photograph. Our hike ended at a small lake when the trail was overcome by a snow field. Magnificent! Ellen was certain this was her favorite spot in Spain and it might yet be!

As much as we loved the mountains, we needed a change of pace, so we repacked the car and headed off for Andorra(J) and the Mediterranean. We started to feel the call of home!