A smooth day of travel from my girlfriend Marisa's house in Norwich to Barcelona via train, plane and train. In fact the only tricky part was the walk from Marisa's to the trains station which we didn't leave much time for and ended up being a scrambling walk wading through the crowds of shoppers in the heat of the day with a rucksack on. The main event en-route was the view from the plane of the clouds which had formed over the Pyrenees - a remarkable scene which looked like a conference of gods as huge plumes of clouds rose up out of cloud banks all back lit by the evening sunlight.
Arrived at Nilo Hostel in Barcelona at 10.10pm where I'd arranged to meet Samanartha between 10 and 10.15pm - so pretty much bang on time. I found Samanartha sat calmly in the Hostel's rest room looking like an apparition. Samanartha is an old friend from Leeds and among many talents he’s an experienced walker and mountaineer. He'd already paid our 20 euros for the night each so after dumping stuff in our room we headed out to Arc cafe for food. A funky cafe with good food (although fairly limited veggie selection). Then after a short stroll through the maze of Barcelona’s many narrow alleys we returned at 12.30am to sleep in a hot room accompanied by the New York like city noise from outside.
3/6/05
Awoke remembering a dream where Padmadaka, who lives at Padmaloka retreat centre where I live, was showing me a pit he'd discovered containing 8 dead snakes which someone had shot. Later they were stored in a cupboard and Michael, who used to live at Padmaloka, had been 'feeding' them (despite being dead) so that they were really puffed up. He was apparently preparing them for Samanartha to help with his work at Leeds Buddhist Centre.
Most of the day entailed a long, hot, tiring 11 hour journey from Barcelona to Torla in the Pyrenees. Wanting to save money we took the cheap train (which in Spain seems to mean the one that takes longer - a lot longer) from Barca to Zarragoza. The train headed south along the Mediterranean before swinging west and then North West up through hills and onto a large desert-like plateau in which Zarragoza was located. Between dozing, reading Henning Mankell's gripping detective novel 'Sidetracked' and watching the bleak landscape go past, we kept our eyes on the onboard temperature display which slowly rose the further we went, eventually reaching 42C as we approached Zarragoza. Between trains we had an hours wait in Zarragoza train station which was a beautiful modern building - lots of airy space and white walls. Stocked up on Bocodillo Tortilla de Potatas we then caught the train to Sabananigo on which Samanartha had the unfortunate experience of getting locked in the toilet due to a dodgy lock. This route offered a more mountainous route ending in Sabananigo to meet the Hudebus which took us on the hilly journey over to Torla which sits at the West end of the main canyon in the Ordesa National Park. Luckily the timings all worked out well, with no delays, as there was only a 15 minute gap before the bus went and there was no way of getting an earlier train from Zarragoza to Sabananigo. If I was to visit the Ordesa park on public transport again from the UK I think it would be easier to travel via France instead and walk over from Gavarnie as 2 long days of travel seemed a bit excessive.
Torla is a picturesque village with at least 2 hostels and numerous bars, restaurants, hiking shops and 2 small supermarkets. We stayed in Refugio L'Atalaya which is a bar - restaurant - hostel combined and is only 6 euros per night (without food). After stocking up with provisions for the walk we found a pizzeria so were able to have some veggie food other than Bocadillos. They also sold Turon ice-cream! As it was pretty full in the hostel we were given a 2 man ledge above the stairs to sleep on - which was fun, but noisy and hot at night. Samanartha was kept awake by some guy walking up and down stairs who was making enough noise for an elephant!
4/6/05 (8 hours walking)
Woke tired from lack of sleep, packed and went for another Bocodillo at a near-by cafe. Then the walk began. Picked up the GR15.2 (GR routes are routes marked with red and white stripes found all over the Pyrenees in Spain and France) to take us to the west end of the Valle de Ordesa, which as said previously, is the largest of the canyons in the Ordesa National Park. Here we joined the GR11 path which we followed along the valley bottom by a large winding river and through shady pine trees which provided respite from the already hot sun. After about an hour of this gentle walking, and having spent some time cutting ourselves some rough walking sticks, we stopped by the river for water. As we sat, above us towered the dramatic 1000m high cliffs of the canyon. However they weren't just to be observed as we then took the path up the south side of the canyon to reach Punta Acuta o Punta Diazas at 2242m. This first long uphill path was hard going with legs not used to the work, but was a path to be enjoyed for its great views of the canyon, endless zigzagging through scree slopes and woods and wild mountain flowers which Samanartha, in his David Bellamy mode, was able to identify.
