T-Minus One Week to the Med

La Howdy Again,

We hail from the French ville of Arles-Sur-Tech, which roughly translates to Arles on the Tech, the latter being a river that runs down into Spain and the former being a Roman name not to confused with a town of the same appelation in Provence. It's been a zany, blurry, and beautiful stretch since we last wrote, and to be honest, the scenery and the hike, both of which are frequently breathtaking, are starting to run together. France doesn't like hooking up to our camera, so we'll try to update as best we can with memory.

I had in mind to submit Felice to the last two notable Pyrennean peaks on this half of the range. The first, Pic Carlit, sported a truly intimidating route straight up its western face. Undaunted and fueled primarily by Nutella, Felice cowed the peak in just over an hour with me along for the ride. The reason we were primarily fueled by Nutella is that we were kind of running low on water due to not having a map for a short section. Without a map, we could only guess at where water sources might lie. For most of the trip, we've crossed multiple streams and rivers a day, but this section was very dry, lots of arroyos and dry creek beds. So we kept hoping for a little bit of water, but the sun was setting, we were weary from walking 10ish hours, and we were a little put off by some ferocious Great Pyrenese Sheep Dogs (who had no sheep in sight to guard, but surrounded and barked at us for all their worth anyway), when an enormous wind picked up, and we thought we'd better skedaddle down a canyon for some sleep. Thus--no water, no pasta, no oatmeal (thanks, Mana and Lotte)--Nutella for dinner and breakfast, which is fine with me 'cause I love Nutella. Also, I don't think that Grover could possibly be part Great Pyrenees after meeting these three monsters. The "last" (It's quotation marks like these that worry me.) peak, Canigou, is somewhat renowned in the Catalonian sector and a truly momentous summit, topped by a fun hands-and-feet requiring scramble. It was meant to show us our first look at the Mediterranean, but by the time we summited at 6 in the evening, clouds had filled in its Eastern horizon. I must note that I felt eerily quiet atop this peak, knowing that it spelled the last of our really great ascents. This peak was probably my favorite so far. It was a long climb, 4 1/2 hours, but the last bit was exciting rock-climby, and at the top was a very cool and poetic hand-painted circular map depicting and identifying the sights for the 360° around us. I don't really believe that we're anywhere near the Mediterranean at this point. I haven't seen it from any mountaintops. It think it might be a ruse.

Last night, we found our camp spot (by "our" I mean that it was mentioned in the guide as being a good spot for camping and was the one we circled on our map as our destination for the evening) to be taken by several giant teepees and a handmade structure of woven branches: it was a rainbow gathering. This is interesting because we ran into the American Rainbow Family on our last big trip, our road trip from Santa Fe to Gainesville, FL. (They were in Colorado at a National Park where we'd agreed to meet some friends.) It's a bit of a hippie-fest, and these guys out-hippied me and Ryan by far. (I know that's hard for some of you to believe, but it's true. We felt so awkwardly un-hippie, especially as we'd just talked a bartender at an auberge into letting us take free showers about an hour before the encounter.) Look the Rainbow Family up; they're on Wikipedia, I think. So we camped beyond them and went back to convince them to throw the frisbee with us and to watch them juggle things and to eat slices of their watermelon. Then we returned to our tent a little after dusk and listened to their drum-circle as we fell asleep.

We're just slightly ahead of schedule, but we don't want to be homeless for too long before our flight leaves Barcelona on the 10th, so we're trying to take this last 4 or 5 days even more casually, and we anticipate a black or blueberry patch to settle down in for at least a night. The weather is becoming quite hot and dry, so more midday siestas might be in order, or at least earlier rising times.

So now we hike for two days to a wonderful-but-ugly sounding shopping land where we'll buy groceries at Spanish prices (something like 6% tax instead of 13% in France) and then a few more days to Banyul, the end of the hike, the Mediterranean, our destination of all destinations! Then we will eat a celebratory dinner, drink something celebratory, and sleep in a bed, take showers even. I am pretty ready to be done with the hiking and to get onto the beach for a little while. I'd like to get rid of these hiking-boot tan lines.

Friends and family: thanks for reading. We miss you and are headed back soon. Hope that all is well with you all. We'll try to do another entry in Banyuls around the 4th. Same Bat-time, same Bat-channel. Love--Felice

Post Haste

Miracle of miracles--we received the packages! The post office lady even came chasing qfter us through the streets of this town, though she didn't have to go far, as we were staying next door to the post office. Yay and thank you Mana and Lotte. Now we will never go hungry again. Yum. Love to all!

Adios Espage, Salut Shortcut

La Hi-Diddly-Hey, Neighburritos-

Well, we're back in La France, land of the AZERTY keyboards, slightly higher bulk food prices, and powerful baguette+cheese combo. Seems like it's been forever since our last shower, and the friendly gentilhomme at the hotel desk we checked into seemed to agree. He encouraged us to use the elevator to reach our 3rd floor room, and for once in my short lifetime, I enthusiastically obliged. And so, we're comfortably checked in to a place above the post office in the town of Tarascon-Sur-Ariege, and our laundry is hanging all over the jury-rigged clothesline in the room. This free computer in the lobby has no port for our camera, so if you're still reading, you'll have to make due with whatever editorial we add to the random recollections of the past week.

For the past few days, we've been taking a patented Ryan_Bell shortcut, the Port de Ciel, which means, we decided, something like "The Window to the Sky." It was described by a very nice National Parks employee as beautiful but difficult. She was right in that it was particularly gorgeous although we were held hostage in our tent by tiny bugs for an entire evening the first night on the trail. They were like flying fleas. I wore Julie's high-school rain jacket with the hood cinched tight so only my eyeballs were exposed while I cooked dinner; they still got me somehow. The next day, though, we got on top of the ridge and we had some gorgeous 360 degree views for days. There wasn't a single place to look that wasn't mountains, azure lakes, etc. And, honestly, it did't feel all that dificult. Our last hike was pretty much straight up, and people kept telling us, "You'll need cramp_ons for the hike down." (In Sanish, though--"Necessitan crampones en el otro lado.") But they were so wrong, although Ryan did use tent-spikes combined with duct tape attached with string to his boots. (He's so MacGyver.) Now he's a little bummed we're out of the High Pyrenees, but I'm sure that there's still all sorts of trouble for us to get into. Especially now that we're back to the land where Ryan gets to do all the talking/interpretting.

Felice decided to forego mentioning that since we left Vielha in Spain we've been hiking on the GR11, the Spanish coast-to-coast equivalent of the GR10. At first, I'm pretty struck by her oversight, because this particular section of the GR11 visited the National Parc des Aguistortes, a truly incredible Spanish national park only recently created in 1995. The scenery was absolutely astounding, even though our itinerary only nipped but a corner of it (my mind was constantly thinking of excuses for lengthy detours deeper into the Parc). However, my co-hostess' dismissal is very forgivable in respects to the demanding terrain that was covered within the region (pretty much the equivalent of hiking the roller-coaster tracks at Busch Gardens--though very pretty) , including some truly demanding ascents and accompanying arguments that justified our fans' suspicion of this trip qualifying under the pretext of "honeymoon." However, even Felice has now admitted that we have found a distinctive rhythm to the hiking, and that our daily grind, however disinheartening aforehand, usually ends up manageable and enjoyable.

We actually got to play a little pick-up soccer in the town of La Guingetta de Aneu (my first soccer--and running, even, in a month and a half). It was at a little field next to a camp ground, and the players were mostly around the age of ten, though there were about five or six "grown-ups" playing, too. It meant a very late start on the hike, and it meant playing barefoot for Ryan and in heavy hiking boots for me--but anything for soccer, though they call it futbol here, er, rather, everywhere but America. We also enjoyed a swimming pool in the town of Tavascan, the kayak capitol of Spain (not to be confued with Tarascon, where we are right now), which was glorious. I enjoyed it as much for grime-removal as for the cooling qualities. The attendant grilled us about life in the US vs. in Spain, then a 16-year-old came to practice her English on us: Then we got ice cream for only 1€. The end.

Well, we've loaded up on bulk foods at the local supermarché and our wallets really prefer our tent to the fresh digs here, so we'll be moseying eastwards sometime tomorrow from the town of Merens-les-Vals (it's Googleable). So let me close by annoucing a giant screwup on my part. I've been asking friends and family to send us nice things to Goulier, France around this time. Guess what? Turns out there's no Post Office in Goulier. Isn't that (In Felice's mid-climbing sarcastic voice) "Hee-larious??" So, I do apologize profusely if you took the time and money and love to send us something that gets sent back to you in North America. Believe me, we really appreciate the thought, and I'm kicking myself all over; someone else is kicking me too, for good reason. Ryan has been working to rectify this mistake by visiting nearby post offices and asking for packages that arrive there for us to be forwarded to Arles Sur Tech, but I think it's hit-or-miss. I'm sorry, too.

Next stop: Arles-Sur-Tech around the 30th; less than 2 weeks to the sea!

Beautiful Changes of Plan, Photos, and Onward!

Buenos Tardes Familia and Amigos,

Yer co-host Ryan here, checking us in from the lovely town of Viellha, in the Val D´Aran, the little notch on the border where Spain gets a chunk out of France. We´ve taken a break here for a hotel, resupply, and World Cup Fiesta. Our hike deposited us at the mouth of giant tunnel that has allowed the outside world access to this valley, so this town has grown considerably and has all the accoutrements needed for a nice break. And Spain has QWERTY keyboards!

I´ll try not to take up too much time recapping, as I know my co-hostess dropped a line a few days ago, and this computer also finally has the ability to access our camera photos! So we want to get to those. But to make a longer post shorter, you should know that my amibitious itinerary that would´ve taken the High Route has been considerably altered due to the following factors: 1) Snow, and lots of it, has remained on the glaciers, 2) Weather is so much more stable in Spain! (It´s incredible to camp on the Spanish side of the ridge and watch the storms berate France not more than a couple kilometers away), and 3) A more realistic appreciation for these mountains´ sizes and our pace. So, we´re spending more time in Spain for the time being, on the trail called the GR11, and will attempt to make up lost time by skipping a chunk of France down the trail en route to the Sea.

And now, without further ado, some photos! (If I can make this thing work.)

Above is Ryan in Hendaye, where we began our trip. You cannot tell from the photo, but he was as giddy as a school-girl. This is the last time that we saw the ocean except for from a distance over mountain crests.
At the top is me sharing a last moment with the Atlantic. And below that is Felice playing Vanna White is the first red and white blaze of the GR10, a blaze which we´ve become good friends with. (Note: We´re running long here, and expensive. So besides these first two, we´re going to have to be out of order.) Here´s one of our earlier views in the Basque country. Note the cartoony designs on the tombstones. The Pyrenees valleys are smattered with languages not spoken elsewhere; Basque is one of them.) Behind us as we´re photographing these happy tombstones is a set of three life-sized and particularly gory crucified figures. They will be available to be seen in the longer slide-show that will accompany our return.
Every night seems to be a competition for one upping our previous campsite. Here´s just one of the sites in the competition, early in the morning. This photo is from the night before last. It was one of my favorite spots, and the next morning, we hiked 3 1/2 hours into Vielha, from which we´re typing now.

I actually don´t hike semi-nude often. Despite the snow, it´s very warm here in Spain, though I don´t have a good idea of HOW warm, as everything´s in celius--30 degrees, whatever that means. It´s probably not as warm as Charleston and definitely not as warm as Columbia.

Here´s Felice looking rugged at the top of one our daily climbs to a col. That is either me or the Native American character Kokopelli. I´m not sure which.

The Head of Ordesa Canyon, which was a nice snowless alternative to the High Route. Felice thinks it pales compared to our Grand, though.

Climbing up these chains was actually quite fun, although I was intimidated at first, from the ground.

Our view from the hotel in Gavarnie, and my favorite European beer, a liter of the Belgian Leffe. (This particular one led to too many on this night.) Note the cascade in the Cirque in the distance that can be seen from anywhere in the town.

Root Bar Power! Go Pub! I hope yáll are winning some games this summer back in Asheville. People think we´re British because of these shirts. Please don´t replace us; I want to play with yáll again when we return for the fall.

Felice trying to look as excited as I am for having survived our most treacherous snowfield traverse to date, at the Col on the shoulder of Vignemale, the highest mountain on the entire border. As Nietzce would say, "It´s not the height, it´s the declivity." Then again, what does he know about hiking up steep snowfields?

We ate a feast at this lake: cheese and baguettes, cereal, hot cocoa. It was awesome. There were people riding in chair-lifts up to this spot, but we did it the good old-fashioned way, on our own feet.

Ryan is sad here because we´re leaving the Atlantic Pyrenees and entering the High Pyrenees, which signified the end of a large portion of our trip. Don´t worry. He was happy again as soon as he saw some giant mountains in front of us.

These little critters were all over the place for a while. They didn´t seem to mind being handled, or at least were too slow to escape us. I think that these might be my favorite animals we´ve encountered so far.

The Pic du Midi Ossau, known to the French who love it as The Champion. It introduced us to the Parc National des Pyrenees. Ryan told me it was a Pic de Medioso, and I said it looked like a grande to me. Haha.

We get to sleep in all sorts of gorgeous places.

This is the little town of Lescun. It is the town where we took a great rest day, met up with our friend Klaas again. (I miss Klaas. If you´re reading this, sorry about the World Cup, my Netherlandian friend.) It is also where we met our other trail-buddy, John, although it may be spelled Jon or even Jean, as you can never tell how British people are going to spell things. (Grey?)

One noteworthy early descent on the GR10. Felice is visible if you look closely on the left. I don´t know how mountaingoats do it.

Here´s Klaas! He and his GPS may have saved our lives that day.

For a few days at the beginning or our hike, this is all that we could see, thanks to that b@#¿h , Xynthia. I quickly began questioning the idea of hiking across France, especially when you could tell that there were probably amazing views right past the fog. However, the weather hasn´t been this bad in quite a while (knock on wood).

Saint Jean Pied du Port is pictured above. This was a very cool town where all sorts of religious pilgrims began their trek, which is called, Camino do Santiago. It is also the first and last place that we encountered any other Americans since arriving in London.

Bienvenidos a España

Hello, faithful viewers. This will be a short post, as I have very little time on this coin-operated computer, but we´re finally in Spain, and have been for a few days now. We are in Bielsa, a nice little town with about a million grocery stores and wine in casks to fill for the ounce. Ryan is out looking for a bota de viño as we speak, a leather pouch to fill with wine that you keep strung around your neck.

I will relate the details from a couple of days ago, after the Ordesa Canyon, which is not as grand as the you-know-what. We started the day after a whole 12 hours of sleep, which was awesome, interrupted only by the wails of some creature that could´ve been a bird, pig, demon, something floating down the river past our tent. We hiked up into the canyon and there were beautiful walls striated in shades of ochre and umber, very nice, and nicer as we got along past the trees and could see both walls. We came to the cirque, which is a big glacial bite taken out of a mountainside, and opted for the adventurous route, a steep climb up a series of affixed chains. (Gainesville-rock-climber-friends, you would be proud.) This is the first time we´ve used our arms in quite some time. It was great, though I think it might have made Ryan queasy.

We got to the top of the wall and hiked past a refuge and on down into another valley after being told by one of the refuge-employees that Ryan´s shortcut would be dangerous due to snow. On the way into the valley we could see tiny multi-colored dots in the distance. We made guesses at what they were (colorful tents, a rainbow gathering, zombies dressed for a rave?) and discovered a co-ed scouting troop. We thought, ¨how cute,¨as they hola-ed us. But not for long...

We got into the canyon after hiking approx. 8 hours, set up our tent, and were reading/drifting off to sleep, when we heard the nauseating sound of happy children. The damn scouts had set up camp about ten feet from our tent--all 40 of them. We weighed our options, and moved our tent upriver for some peace and quiet. This is why I am now anti-scout.

A few last thoughts: Things that entertain me while I´m hiking: (1) Ryan knows all of the words to every song he´s ever heard, so he serenades me/himself, and I get to learn Billy Joel lyrics, etc. (2) Our awesome neighbors, Jeanna and Brian, gave us a book of challenges, so yesterday we made up a story involving a dragon, a princess, a banjo-picker, and the discovery of a native plant. (3) I try to remember the words to television commercials and public service jingles from when I was growing up. So far, Pepto Bismal is a good one, as is the jingle about power lines ¨Gotta keep away from those powerlines...Yeah! Gotta play it safe around those power lines!"

Thanks for reading. I hope all is well. Much love to you. Adios!

Stage 2 and 3 -Bye-bye, Basque, Hello Haute

The last time we wrote was St. Jean Pied du Port, and so much has happened since then. Firstly, thanks to Mariana for guest-hosting. The internet is almost as rare as peanut butter in these parts. (Though we do still have some good NC peanut butter.)

Things that I am scared of now that never bothered me before: cows, bed bugs, icy snow, giardhea--sp?

One of our first two nights after Pied du Port: We wandered through a day of mist to the top of a mountain where a farmer family with some adorable kids sold us bread and cheese. We were probably somewhere spectacular but could see only meters (I am so European now) ahead of us. We ended up in a sweet ski community of triangular huts surrounded by horses. We climbed up to the top of a cliff to tent at a beautiful panoramic view to sleep our coldest night yet, which was not so bad because of our amazing sleeping bag and liner. (Thanks moms and dads.)

In the morning, the view had been completely erased by a giant rubber eraser, and we were all set to take our sorry butts down to the low route. When we finished our breakfast of hot cocoa and cereal, the fog was gone, and we set off on our longest day yet, on the High Route, in what has become a series of adventurous/slightly stupid decisions that we are none the worse for.

For those unfamiliar, there are 3 trails that span the Pyrenees from coast to coast; the best/stupidest is the High Route Pyreene (HRP), and I tried to work/hide it in our itinerary as much as logistically possible. However, it turns out France got the same kind of winter as most of the states; there's still quite a bit of snow about on the high passes.

In any case, the nicer weather and my pouting look earned us the HRP route for a couple days, as well as our first >2000 meter summit! En route, we met a friendly Hollander named Claus, a recently retired physical therapist whose GPS was kind to us throughout. We also at this point officially left the Pays Basque and entered the Haute (High) Pyrenees, and boy do they look it; snow strewn, imposing, and Alpish. We also had our first night in a Cabane. These are off duty shephard/hunter cabins that are of highly variable quality and open to use by hikers for FREE. Veritable gold mines sometimes.

We hiked up a giant mountainfor a long time to get to the best camp spot yet, at the source of a river ( the answer to a kid's question "Where does water come from?" Magically from underground. And it's cold, clean, clear. It was 360 degrees of mountains and made Ryan want to frolic and me want to sleep. From there we climbed down ( my favorite type of "climb") to our break day in Lescune, where we stayed in a hotel with kittens and took more showers than were necessary. We ate real food and watched some good World Cup. And we ran into Claus again, who is wonderful, but a GPS-addict. Lescune had my favorite church so far, tons of roses, and extremely friendly people, none of whom speak English. But it's not their fault. It's the republicans.

We stayed in the most interesting cabin so far, after a grizzly bout of hail/thunderstorm. The cabin is carved out of a cave with a rear wall that backs into a giant, curved boulder. The other walls are about four feet thick, and it was so dark with the windows/door shut that you could not tell if your eyes were open or shut. This section is in the middle of the Pyrenese National Park, which I kind of hate because of the amount of rules about where and when to camp. These rules are less than in US National Parks, it should be mentioned, and there doesn't seem to be anyone about to enforce them.

In effort to preserve our waning morale and it anticipation of a less appealing bout of weather, we descended from the HRP and took a couple days on our old familiar French GR10, which again rolled up and down through the French foothills, in and out of mountain villages. Even those which might've provisioned us with our addiction of baguette and cheese are frustratingly deserted between the hours of 12 and 3.30, which usually happens to be when we're passing through.

Good weather was coming, so I convinced (forced) Felice back into the High Pyrenees for an exciting leap over a pass exceeding 2700 meters! I tried to jury rig crampons out of tent spikes, but the snow, though in abundance, proved soft enough to not require them. At the most vertigo-inspiring spots, Felice seemed more comfortable than I, I should confess. By the way, this pass took us over the shoulder of Vignemale, the highest mountain on the entire border of France/Spain.

Now we are in the lovely town of Gaaverny. We are supposed to head into Spain soon. We are probably going to deviate from our itinerary at this point, so if you would like to mail us anything, please don't do so until Goulier or thereafter, and please email to let us know.

Sorry we are unable to post photos; we are working on it. Don't take your QWERTY keyboards for granted. Thanks for reading; I hope this isn't too boring. We love you, and we'll try to write again in about a week or so.

Au revoir! Bon courage!