Ghost Train

With all the publicity concerning airports in Spain where no planes land any more, or where no planes have ever landed, here is a reminder of some failed projects from an earlier age. We did a weekend trip to Jaca in August to do some walking and had some time to take a look at the international railway station of Canfranc. A very fine looking building it is too, but a bridge accident in 1970 on the French side has meant that international traffic has been a bit sparse for the last 40 years. Not that there are no trains at all in Canfranc, a graffiti covered two coach service from Zaragoza arrived whilst I was taking photos of the station. But it goes no further towards France than this.

It seems that the most successful period for the Canfranc line was during the second world war, with busy trade between Franco's Spain and Nazi occupied France. The sort of thing that the revisionists who play down the fascism of Franco's dictatorship tend not to like very much.

Over in Cantabria there is a significantly less successful line. The station at Yera has never seen any trains at all as the Santander-Mediterranean rail link was never completed. We did want to take a look at the nearby tunnel of La Engaña which cuts through the mountainside separating Cantabria from Castilla-León for almost 7 kilometres, but we didn't have the right footwear for the day we were there in November. In any case the tunnel is not recommended for visits, having collapsed in places. Instead we went off to eat cabrito asado.

Pirineos Sur 2010

Last weekend we paid a visit to our other favourite summer music festival, Pirineos Sur. Although this festival has similar music to Mar de Musicas, and they do work together, the atmosphere could hardly be more different. Pirineos Sur is held in the tiny Huesca village of Lanuza, lying just a few kilometres from the high central Pyrenees on the French/Spanish border.

So one difference with the Cartagena event is clearly the surroundings. The stage at Pirineos Sur is set on a reservoir in the Valle de Tena. Another, important, difference is the climate. At Cartagena I could be sitting there comfortably with a T-shirt at 2 a.m. and hardly ever feel cold. In Lanuza once the sun started to go down I was wearing two fleeces. A cold wind was blowing across the lake and the temperature at night must have been around 10º at most. On previous visits it has rained during the concerts as well.

These conditions account for the third difference, the people who turn up for the festival. Pirineos Sur has a more alternative feel than Mar de Musicas, with a very hippy mercadillo being held in the nearby village of Sallent. Lots of people camp (I tried that once - never again), and many others sleep in the camper vans or cars that fill the road between Lanuza and Sallent. The soft southerners from Madrid took it easier at La Casueña in Lanuza.

On Saturday night there was an excellent double bill of Malian music from Afel Boucoum and Toumani Diabate who probably thinks I'm some kind of stalker as I saw him twice in Cartagena as well. He didn't bring the Murcian symphony orchestra with him this time and the music was better for it. Despite the cold wind there was a really good atmosphere, the musicians had to keep warm too. Although the cold and the humidity seemed to play havoc with the tuning of their instruments.

We always try to combine the concerts with some walking routes, and this year I searched for something we hadn't done before. We did two excellent routes which I have added to the growing backlog of walking routes that I want to blog about. Despite the cold at night, we were very lucky with the weather, arriving the day after a week of storms and heavy rain had come to an end. The result of this was an amazing quantity of surface water on the mountains for this time of year, streams we have previously walked across with no problem before suddenly became challenging.

There was another challenge concerning my ability to remember even simple things for a weekend of walking and concerts. Despite having packed everything hours before leaving I realized with about half an hour to spare that the GPS routes I had downloaded hadn't yet made it across from laptop to GPS. Then, having travelled 450 kilometres, we walked into the hotel and started chatting with the owner about the concerts. At that point the inner voice that those of us who spend too long in front of computer screens all have suddenly intervened.

InnerVoice: "These concerts are the ones you bought tickets for aren't they?"

Me: "Yes, of course."

InnerVoice: "The tickets you picked up from FNAC the other day?"

Me: "Yeah that's right. What's the problem?"

InnerVoice: "These would be the same ones that you left lying by the TV at home then?"

Me: "Shit."

So a big thank you to those who were working in the Pirineos ticket office who took the time to look me up in the system and provide us with substitute tickets. I have the feeling that in many other places the response would have been "Oh that's terrible, because now you'll have to buy new ones".

Three Valleys In Huesca

Taking advantage of the mid-August “puente” in much of Spain, we managed to do 3 days of walking in the Pyrenees of Huesca, using the village of Benasque as our base. All of this left me a bit footsore, two of the routes we did were a bit longer than what I'm used to. Fortunately, the scenery compensated for the effort involved. Day one started with a walk up the valley of Ballibierna, which is one of the possible approach routes for climbing the peak of Aneto. There is a bus service that will take you up to the refuge of Coronas, we found out about this service about 10 minutes after the bus left and the alternative is a 9 kilometre walk. The weather wasn't very promising as we set off, it had rained for most of the previous day and the clouds coming down the valley looked threatening. As it turned out we were lucky and after a brief shower the weather cleared.


The walk up the valley is easy on a good trail, and we made it to the refuge in less than two hours. From there we decided to go up to the Ibones de Coronas, a steep climb up to the lakes lying below the summit of Aneto. This was as close as we would get to the highest peak in the Spanish Pyrenees.


It was cold up there, forget any ideas of summer as a biting wind brought back memories of other seasons. We even got a bit of sleet at one point. The stop by the lake was short, we admired the determination of those who climb up there to camp overnight for an early ascent of Aneto, but we didn't feel tempted to follow their example.


Going down the mountain by the same route, we decided not to wait for the bus and walked back down to the campsite where we had left the car. All of this effort had to be compensated for by the big chuleton we ate at night back in Benasque.


Day two took us to the valley of Estós, which leads to the other major peak of this area; Posets. A trail leaving the main path up the valley makes for a beautiful detour around the Ibones de Ballisielle.


Here we got a bit over confident, trying to do a circular route of all of the lakes left us improvising a path across a field of huge boulders; just when it started raining. Boulder hopping is one of my least favourite activities, a combination of vertigo and a keen survival instinct mean that I avoid it whenever possible. This time there wasn't much choice and it made the round route a bit more exciting than I needed it to be.


From the bottom lake there is a path that leads up the valley to the refuge of Estós. This is what I call a proper mountain refuge, it sells beer. The return route was a path gently returning down the opposite side of the valley. Another long route, but amongst the best we have done.


On the third day we went to the frontier. From the inappropriately named Hospital de Benasque (it’s a hotel) a path goes up to El Portillon, a historic crossing point between France and Spain. This route passes opposite the other side of Aneto, and offers as convincing a reason as I need for not trying to climb it; the glaciar that runs across the breadth of the peak.


They predict it won't be there any more in 50 years time, the glaciar that is, the views from the border side were stunning and we could see all the way up the valley to the beginning of the Catalan Pyrenees.



Benasque makes a great base for walking, we only had to do a few kilometres in the car to cover all three of these routes. As always, GPS recorded routes are available on request for those who want them.

Behind The Mountain Lies Another Mountain

I'm off to the Pyrenees again for the puente. This time the destination is Benasque and the (very imposing) peaks of Posets and Aneto. We'll see how I get on, in the meantime these are some of the images from my trip to the Valle de Tena the other week.

When you stay in the Valle de Tena, the classic accessible high mountain route to do is that which takes you up to the Refugio de Respumoso, surrounded by the high peaks of the French-Spanish border. You can start this route from the village of Sallent although you might find it easier to drive up to the Embalse de la Sarra and start from there.


As we'd done the Respumoso route at least three times, we decided to take a variant of this that shares the beginning of the route but then goes up to the Ibones (lakes) de Arriel. Don't confuse the turn off for the ibones with an earlier one that takes you up to the peak of Arriel, the lakes path comes further up the Respomuso walk. It's a steepish but not very long climb to the first lake.


Walking past the first ibon there is a second one slightly higher up, and then in turn there is a further lake surrounded by the peaks of Arriel, Palas and Balaitus.


If you walk around the final lake there is a path, slightly difficult to spot, that takes you up to a ridge and suddenly you are in France! It's a bit colder on the other side, the lake you see in the image below was still partially frozen even though we were there in the middle of July. This was one of the best walks I've done in Spain, and with the late rains this year I had never seen the Pyrenees looking so green.


We stayed in the village of Lanuza, which is not even supposed to exist. It was supposedly doomed by the construction of the reservoir on the River Gallego and part of the old village now lies beneath the water. However, the lake never reached far enough to engulf the entire village and what remains has been restored in typical Pyrenean style for tourism. This was the view from our hotel, La Casueña is not the cheapest hotel in the area but its a lovely place to stay.

My Friends In The North

The high peaks of Huesca are my destination for this weekend. It's not going to be easy, that special June diet of football and beer has left its mark, and I'm not sure if I'm ready for this. The evenings will be spent at the Pirineos Sur festival in Lanuza.

Fago

I don’t normally watch many things on Spanish television apart from news, football and films. However, I’ve made an exception for a short series running on Monday nights on La Primera based on the killing at the beginning of last year of the mayor of a tiny village called Fago in the Aragonese Pyrenees.

The series portrays a village divided in two between those who support their mayor and those who hate him. The mayor himself, an outsider from the big city of Zaragoza, is clearly not using his powers in an impartial way and his refusal to register newcomers as residents in the village only helps to increase resentment. When he is murdered on an isolated road the list of suspects is not short as there are plenty of people with reasons to dislike him.

The odd thing about this series is not just that it is based on real events; it is also the fact that the man charged with the murder of the mayor of Fago is still awaiting trial. In Britain I think it would be completely impossible for a television company to produce a series about such events before the trial takes place; the principal difference being that the trial would take place with a jury. Here in Spain the series had to be approved by a judge after the Guardia Civil were sent to seize the tapes of the production before it could be shown. The family of the dead man wanted to stop the series being shown. Even though the names of the main characters have been changed, the name of the village is the same and it is completely clear that the fictional series is based on the actual events that occurred.

The village only has 34 registered inhabitants, and they got completely fed up with the invasion of journalists and the curious that they suffered following the killing of their mayor. It is a feeling that can only be reinforced by seeing their village portrayed in this way on prime time television every Monday for three weeks.