Trip report from Spain

[eleeski]

Last night’s dinner was late – even by Spanish standards. So we woke up a bit late. Made it in time for the hotel buffet breakfast (Silken Park San Jorge in Platja d’Aro). The industrial coffee machine made mediocre cappuccino, nice cafe with milk and great espresso – once I topped off the cup with hot milk. Chocolate croissants and the worst pineapple I ever tasted – oh wait, it was some yellow melon. Still horrible but I hate melons and love pineapple so my faith in the world order is still intact. And ready to snorkel!

 

Toes in the Med were cold – but lots warmer than Barcelo Aranjuez’s pool a few days ago. So I toughed it out and hopped in. Awesome! Great visibility and tons of fish. Good rock formations and just enough sand to attract the fish that live there. Quite different from true tropical fish distributions in that there was little color. No bright yellows and greens. Fish doing the same things as in the tropics but they were all grey.

 

I worry about overfishing. Something will move into the niche of a fish that is overfished. Sometimes that fish will rebound and reassert its species. Other times, another fish will take over (hopefully they are as good eating). I hope it’s not jellyfish that take over. Jellyfish creep me out. And I've never eaten one – even with plenty of scotch. There were several ugly jellyfish swimming with us. Not the really scary kind with long tails of stingers but I didn’t want to whack one with an arm stroke. Of course the really dangerous thing out there was the guy in the camo wetsuit and a big spear gun. Looked like a people killing speargun. We made eye contact and I sprinted the other way.

 

Our quick dip in the Med turned into a wonderful snorkelathon. I was getting a bit chilly and my hands were getting numb so we finally quit – happy. But we had to rush to make checkout time. Good sign. I’d give snorkeling in the Med thumbs up!

 

Off to the Pyrenees. After yesterday’s fun “road not taken” drive, we intentionally sought the back ways to Andorra. Lunch at a tiny working town outside of Vic. We sat outside and munched sausages while getting the occasional whiff of a remote pig farm. The waitress had lots of tattoos and spiky dress – kind of entertaining. Our Mexican Spanish was a bit tough for communicating with the Castillian Spanish. Of course all my Spanish is embarrassingly bad regardless.

 

Driving through Ripoli (where we had to stop for the bottled water truck turning out of the water bottling plant) we took N260 to La Seu d’Urgell. Fantastic drive! Open curvy road with spectacular views of the Pyrenees. No traffic except for the Russian motorcycle team. No way could I pace them in my gutless VW. Of course, we played leapfrog as we chose to stop at different vista points to take in the views. We saw a cyclist riding at an incredible pace near the summit. How far did he ride? How could he maintain that kind of pace that far away from anything? Must be a retired TDF or Vuelta pro. I got inspired and was thinking of renting a road bike to ride a hill or two in Andorra.

 

Arrived in Andora. They didn’t even look at our passports much less stamp them. Zoomed through. I read that Andorra has something like 70,000 people. So I’m envisioning a quaint little country with a couple tiny resort towns. Wrong! We drove through kilometers of densely packed city. Maybe there are only 70,000 citizens but there were a million tourists. It might get REALLY busy during a good ski week. So much for a country bike ride. I’m not ready for urban road racing in an unknown city. We are staying at the health club so we went to the wonderful indoor warm pool.

 

It was quite busy with people sitting in bubble therapy lounges submerged in the pool. There was a lane open so we hopped in. Wearing my obligatory swimming cap (OK, weird rules) I swam .01 second faster. The water was warm but not warm enough to loosen up my shoulder which had been overworked on the morning snorkel. And certainly not warm enough to sit not moving in a bubble lounger. There was a warmer pool – just right for teaching kiddies but still not American jacuzzi hot. I found the jacuzzi tub – but it was cold. At least the sauna was hot. And the heat worked magic on my leg.

 

Dinner was a Mexican pizza (curiosity driven order) which had 2 pepronchinis and a fried egg on top. Hmmm, authentic? Europe really needs something spicy to liven up the food. The cheap but quite nice Spanish brandy helped.

 

Eric

[eleeski]

 

 

Snorkeling!

[eleeski]

 

 

Vista of a Spanish ski mountain naked (meaning no snow you pervs).

[eleeski]

 

 

Cows in the road.

[eleeski]

 

 

Anything Panda.

 

Since these were our Tapas, I lose all credibility as a food critic.

[eleeski]

 

 

At least I have good taste in beer.

[eleeski]

Anyos Park hotel in Andorra was very nice. Not as busy as their health club. Amazing vertical projection. Multiple tall elevators with glass sides and fantastic views were needed to get to the room. The electronic key was needed to turn on the lights and plugs (that’s why things didn’t recharge properly when we were out). No internet. Coffee on the balcony was chilly but very nice. We couldn’t see the slopes but we could see the base of the tram.

 

The tram is the access to the skiing, was a long way off and looked like it would be a choke point. Zermatt restricted cars from town. This meant that the buses had clear roads and timely service. I wonder how getting to the tram would be in the winter in Andorra…

 

Parked in front of our car was the Russian Motorcycle Team truck. Really. No camera proof though.

 

Enjoyed a nice workout in the club including a hamstring healing session in the sauna before hitting the road back to Madrid. Six and a half hours driving is a pretty big drive. But not so big that a couple “shortcuts” have to be ruled out. Got “cheap” gas in Andorra (1.10 euros/liter – but the VW Polo got 40mpg) and started out (nobody has yet given me Clark Griswald’s wife’s name).

 

We got on N260 out of La Seu d’Urgell. Behind a big truck. But he turned off right away and we quickly caught up to the huge farm tractor. Had to wait for the Russian motorcyclists to blow past to get a clear road but this was looking like a fun choice.

 

Wound our way up a hill to a beautiful plateau vista. It was a National park with a couple cars picnicing. In the US there would have been an interpretive center with a full parking lot and a couple tour buses. Beautiful site. We headed down and noticed writing on the road. Had the Vuelta just come through here?

 

Stopped for a full meal lunch in Sort. Quite nice. Went for a little walk along the river and discovered a whitewater kayak competition course. Very cool! We waited for a while waiting for someone to practice there but they must have been at lunch.

 

Took N260 south out of Sort through a magnificent valley. Cool tunnels, steep cliffs and forested mountains. Took C147 south to C1311 west. Now things got very interesting. A narrow road with no centerline. Crazy curves. Good pavement and lots of signs reporting on the grade with a bicyclist pictured – another Vuelta route? Passed a couple cars going the other way. It was tough getting by the farm tractor with the sharp disc right next to my ear. But the Russian motorcyclist came closest. He was laid over in a blind curve and had to hold his line which put my tires right on the edge of the cliff.

 

You know, those Russians could make some money by renting motorcycles for the route and ferrying your car to the other end of the road. That road would be fun on a motorcycle – but I’m not sure I’m that adventurous.

 

Got back to a real road (N230) in Puente de Montanana to Benbarre. In Benbarre I Griswalded the wrong roundabout exit and went to the city center. The previously pictured typical Spanish road was huge in comparison as we weaved through people’s home’s front entries and church breezeways on the “business” route.

 

From Benbarre to Barbastro the road was possibly the most spectacular drive I’ve been on. A beautiful blue water reservoir bordered the road. Tunnels carved into the mountains. At the dam, the road went into a steep canyon. With walls like a little Yosemite. The road spit out into the foothills like out of the garden of the gods.

 

Finally got on A22 to Huesca and back to freeway driving. Now the countryside clicked by quickly. A castle on every mountaintop. Countryside like California’s foothills (to paraphrase Austin Powers). Packing the bags in the parking lot of the Respol gas station. Turned on Lisa’s GPS for directions to the hotel a half hour out. Eleven hours was the GPS estimate to arrival. “At the roundabout, take the third exit to camino servicio.” No wonder we got lost.

 

Made it to the airport and the hotel Melia at the airport. Flying home tomorrow.

 

Eric

 

[skibackwards]

Wow Eric, you certainly made the most of your trip. Congratulations.

 

[eleeski]

 

 

Andorra

[eleeski]

 

 

Awesome road

[eleeski]

 

 

Kayak course in Sort

[eleeski]

 

 

Curvy single lane road.

[eleeski]

 

 

Warning sign on single lane curvy road after being startled by the Russian motorcyclists

[eleeski]

 

 

Sheer walls

[eleeski]

 

 

Amazing road

[eleeski]

 

 

Pillars

[eleeski]

The sun rises late in Spain. We are driving in the dark to the airport. No signs to rental car return. Had to Griswald around the airport once to find the rental return. Turned into the return spot the wrong way. Swung a handbrake turn into the parking space and said “sheet howdy, pardner, we’re goin home!” Not really. The attendant said the French were worse at getting lost.

 

But we did go to the wrong terminal…

 

We made it to LA! Rented a car to get home. Had dinner in LA with Kirk at Roscoes Chicken and Waffles. His Uber ride was $60! That’s more than our rental car. Dropped him off in Santa Monica at some friends and headed home. Maybe the most unsafe driving time of the whole trip as I was quite tired. Quit driving for a nap and was OK after that. Still, I’m horribly jetlagged. But home safely. What a trip!

 

Some closing thoughts:

 

Travel is tough.

Spanish brandy is nice.

Spanish food is ham based. Good but not great. And nowhere near enough vegetables.

Croquettes are sketchy. Unless you are starving, then they fill you up nicely.

My Cheeto Pandillas as tapas removes any credibility I might have as a food critic.

Aer Lingus food is horrible.

Bidets are a waste of bathroom space.

Twin beds pushed together are not an acceptable substitute for a real king bed. Especially if they are made up separately as twins.

Duvets are a pain. Why no sheets? And do they really wash them often enough?

Jetlag sucks.

Injuries suck.

I need a new phone. Lisa needs one even more.

My Spanish sucks but I might be able to get by – if I practice. But nobody speaks anything but English in the USA. Maybe I need to travel more.

Bottled water rocks in foreign countries. Even the locals drank bottled water. I did like the 1.5 liter option but they wouldn’t fit in a pocket.

Mahou Negra is a nice Spanish craft beer. Nowhere near water. But the restaurants didn’t have it.

European gas is weird. Too expensive. Really stinky gasoline – especially in the boats and motorcycles.

The VW and other non US compliant diesels haven’t ruined the air in Spain.

Sniff the nozzle to identify the correct fuel to add – the green hose is gas, not diesel there.

Spain doesn’t have enough trash cans or public bathrooms.

Spanish towns are really densely packed. Squaw is not making a European ski town – the density is way too low.

Spanish builders really are good at building on hills.

Motorcycle riders are crazy.

Spanish scenery is fantastic.

Spain has been around for a long time.

I’ve been sitting on this plane a long time.

 

If it was just about the tournament I’d be totally bummed. But there was so much more. Having a reason to travel made the trip far more relevant than just touristing. The tournament activities, the new friends, connecting with the old friends, the extracurricular travels and the enlightenment of the travel made the overall experience magic.

 

Eric

 

[eleeski]

Damn, just got a ticket from a Spanish speed trap photo enforcement. Payable online, of course. I guess I'm not done paying for the trip.

 

Eric