Tarragona and Andorra.. A good weekend

Hey everyone.. Sorry I haven't been great about updating. Here's a summary of last weekend (with pictures, finally!). The length here should make up for the delay. Don't be afraid to take a break to stretch while reading this novel:

Last Thursday (June 4th) we took a group day trip to Tarragona, Spain. We woke up and got on a bus, which took us about 90 minutes down the coast to this small town that is most well-known for being the capitol of the Roman province on the Iberian Peninsula during the height of the Roman Empire. Once we arrived, we took a guided tour through a museum that holds a plethora of Roman artifacts, and even a portion of the old Roman city wall on the bottom floor. After a while inside the museum, our tour guide took us on a walking tour through and around the town to some points of interest in the old Roman city like more of the city wall, the forums, the circus (chariot racing stadium, not clowns and trapeze in a tent), the amphitheater, etc. It was really cool that the modern city had been built right around and over the top of the old Roman stuff, but that we could still see a lot of the ruins, and kind of imagine in our minds how it used to look.

We ate lunch after the walking tour at a local buffet, which was fantastic. A lot of seafood, a lot of rice, a lot of things that I couldn't really identify, but they were all delicious. After lunch we had a couple hours of free time in the city. Christina, Scott, and I wandered around the city for a little while and found some more cool things ourselves. Sometime in the late afternoon, we hopped on the bus and headed back home (to the hotel, that is... Not to Texas). 

Up the Mediterranean Coast in Tarragona

The old Roman amphitheater in Tarragona. Still largely intact. To the far left of the shot you can see the ruins of a church built on the arena floor during the Middle Ages.

The path around the west side of Tarragona along the old Roman city wall.

The Cathedral in Tarragona that was built over the old Roman forum. Started during the end of the Roman Empire, finished in the Middle Ages.

When we got "home" after Tarragona, a handful of my group-mates hurried off to catch their flight out to Rome for the weekend, the rest of us continued the naps that we started on the bus ride. After the late lunch at the buffet, none of us were hungry early, so we went out for a late dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. This wasn't my first choice, but we had been looking at it right across the plaza from our Metro stop at Plaza Catalunya every day, and some of us were craving some good ol' American food.

As is usually the case at any Hard Rock, we had to wait a while, but once we were seated we were happy. We tried Sangria blanca for the first time (White wine- as opposed to the traditional red - mixed with fruit, fruit juice, and usually some added liquor.. Vodka in this case) and dined on nachos and burgers that tasted just like home. We hung out for a while then caught the 1:05 bus back to the hotel. Scott, Christina, and I got to bed soon after in preparation for our weekend trip.

Scott pouring up some Sangria blanca

Karen (a new friend form the trip) and I with our nachos and burger.

Scott, Christina, and I woke up around 7:00, grabbed some breakfast from the hotel spread, and headed to the Barcelona Airport to catch our bus to Andorra. We were all pretty impressed with ourselves after we navigated our way through 4 different trains on 2 different systems without one wrong "turn". We got to the airport in plenty of time for our 10:30 departure to Andorra. The bus ride was a little over 3 hours of headphones, napping, and occasionally waking up to what we then perceived as some amazing views. (We hadn't hiked up in the mountains yet.)

We arrived in Andorra la Vella (the capitol of the tiny country) around 2:00pm Friday and explored the city, half-looking for our hostel. We found it and got settled, but wanted to explore some more. Though we were in the largest (by far) city in Andorra, we were able to explore the majority of it on foot in one afternoon. As we walked, we scouted out restaurants and a grocery store and took in the beauty of what we deemed the Aspen of Europe, surrounded by Pyrenees Mountains and split down the middle by a river that powers the whole city. Along the way we stopped at an information station where we met a student from the University of Barcelona who was living in Andorra for the summer. He gave us some maps and great tips on where to hike, and between his broken English and my broken Spanish, we all had a nice conversation about college and Barcelona. The weather was fantastic.. There was a threat of rain all weekend, but the air was crisp and the temperature was in the teens and low-twenties Celcius (basically in the 50s Fahrenheit.

We headed back to the hostel around 6:00 to clean up for dinner and maybe grab a quick nap. Our quick nap turned into 14 hours of sleep.. literally. I guess that after a day of walking, all of that traveling, and a week of adjusting to the time zone and our late-night habits and missing sleep. None of us were too disappointed about missing dinner, and we all agreed that we felt much more able to hike all day Saturday after recharging the batteries.

So, according to plan, we headed out around 8:30 Saturday morning, stopped by a grocery store to pick up some food for the day, packed up my North Face backpack (thanks Aunt Pat and Uncle Al... the backpack has been perfect, especially in Andorra), and caught a short 20 minute bus ride to Encamp (another town in Andorra).

We had a couple of treks (they call hiking "trekking" here) in mind, but weren't exactly sure of how to get to them, so we headed in the direction we thought was right. We started to head up a switchback road on a mountain and stopped at a hotel for directions. (We've found that hotels are the best places to find English-speakers.) They didn't speak English, but between my Spanish and our maps they were able to tell us that we were headed in the right direction. We heard there was a bus that went up this mountain, but we just kept walking anyway and figured we'd catch it if it came by.

That is exactly what happened after about a mile of uphill walking. We flagged down the bus and found that the driver was really nice, At this point we just wanted to hike (not on a road), so (in Spanish), I told him to take us to the best hiking trail he knew of. He very kindly did so, taking us to the end of the road (about half-way up the mountain) and pointing us in the direction of Llac D'Engolasters (Catalan for Lake Engolasters, a small lake situated in the mountains). We all agreed that we were extremely blessed to have come across that bus and the driver, especially after he gave us such great advice AND didn't charge us for the lift up the mountain (would have taken us hours on foot).

We happily hiked the 3km trail to the lake, taking pictures and admiring aloud the wonder of Creation along the way. When we arrived at the lake, we decided it was lunch time. There were a couple small restaurants there, and it was really looking like rain, but we had our own food to eat. The restaurants were practically empty, so I asked a waiter if we could eat our own food at a table under the awning, and he very kindly welcomed us. Just as we sat down, it started to rain, so we thanked him again.

The three of us devoured the majority of our groceries (fresh baguette, havarti cheese, herb-flavored chips-- incredible!, nectarines, and nuts). It was all delicious and we felt very satisfied. Just as we finished eating, the rain slowed and then stopped. We were starting to realize out loud that God was on this hike with us in a very real way. It was pretty chilly up in the mountains, especially after the rain, so we decided to get moving again. After thanking the waiter and some other restaurant employees again, we headed for the trail that went around the lake.

This was about a 45 minute hike which included a breathtaking view of what we deduced was Andorra la Vella back to the south. After our lap around the lake, we headed back down the 3km trail toward the switchback road, remembering some more intense climbing side-trails that were marked along the main one.

We took a short one that lead up to a historical marker of sorts that explained (to the best of my translation) a sort of man-made cave that was (in the 17th-19th centuries) packed with wood, dead animals, plants, and other organic material and left to make a sort of quick-fossil fuel. We went back down to the main trail and came upon another side-trail that we decided to take. This one had us climb around 200 meters on a pretty steep gradient for the most part, but it was well worth the burn. We took about 45 minutes (stopping along the way to admire our surroundings and take pictures) to reach the top of the trail, where we sat for a while before heading down.

We ran into a couple from northern Spain doing some Nordic-walking (hiking with 2 sticks, basically) when we got back to the main trail and talked with them for a while after they asked us for directions. They were interested in what some 20-year-old Americans were doing there, and they seemed interested in our American-ness in and of itself. When they heard that we were from Texas, they started to bash former-President Bush a little bit (something we have grown accustomed to). The conversation was interesting and good-natured though for the most part, and we all shook hands and headed our separate ways.

The afternoon was growing late, so we headed back to the switchback road, and eventually all the way back down that on foot into Encamp, greatly fatigued but carried by our extreme satisfaction with the days' happenings. We wandered around Encamp for a while, ending up in a nice little park before catching the bus for a quick ride back to the hostel in Andorra la Vella. 

We got there, showered, and changed for dinner with a surprising level of energy. We found a very affordable restaurant and then a little pub and enjoyed the evening, the food (a Menu del Dia combination of seafood soup - very weather appropriate -  paella Valenciano, along with the olives and bread on the table and a beer for me), the drinks (beer for Scott and I, red wine for Christina - at the pub), the billiards and darts, some good company, and some great conversation laced with reflections from the best day any of us had experienced in recent memory.

We all slept easily that night and woke up the next morning around 9 to check out and take a leisurely walk on an elevated walking trail on the edge of Andorra la Vella - another great tip that we received from the student at the information stand from Friday. After walking for a couple of hours, we headed to a park in the middle of the city that we had found in our previous exploration. We hung out there for the rest of the morning and wound up buying another round of groceries to eat in the park before boarding the bus for our ride back to reality.

As we rode back, the three of us reflected on our weekend between snoozes and favorite songs on iPods on shuffle mode. We agreed that our weekend had been extremely blessed. Too many seemingly random things had gone right -- the train-rides, the weather, the student in the information booth, the 14-hour sleep, the bus-driver in Encamp, the trail, the views that we witnessed, the lake, the restaurant staff and the timing of the rain, the Nordic-walkers, the dinner, the pub, the park -- to chalk up our experiences to coincidence or luck. I have found that one of God's favorite ways to work is through seemingly random turns of events, especially in combination, tied together with perfect timing. On a lighter note, we all agreed that with a 40 Euro (round-trip) bus ride, a 15 Euro/night hostel, a missed dinner, two 4 Euro meals out of the grocery store, and good economic finds in the restaurant and the pub, we had done a great job of having a phenomenal weekend that was light on the wallet (much lighter, at least, than our Rome-bound friends had). 

Ok.. now for some pictures:

That boy Scott on the bus ride...

Welcome to Andorra.

Puts Colorado to shame...

Scott.. with an even better background.

Waterfall/bridge.. the path to the lake.

Christina likes waterfalls...

Llac D'Engolasters

Scott and I at the top of the trail.

Looking down from the top.

We saw these on the way down. Who knew?

Paella Valenciana

This is what 15 Euro/night gets you...

Playing pool at Pub Corinthian

Sunday afternoon picnic in the park.