10 Weeks in a Box - Day 2

Watching the river flow - 10/072007



The following morning, Miki ventured outside to do some sketches, while I ventured out of bed to grab some breakfast. I can’t start the day on an empty stomach. Come to think of it, I can’t finish the day on an empty stomach either, and therein, I suspect, lays the root of my problem. Still, it’s only been a couple of days since our daily swimming regime was interrupted, so the signs of my decline and fall are barely showing at this stage. Miki returns to the Boomobile with what was to be the first of hundreds of sketches and then, secure in the knowledge that we’d put the best part of 300 kilometres behind us, we made for the Pyrenees, and our third different tunnel through the mountains, Miki believing variety is the spice of life.(Or perhaps she was just lost.)

The inland route we chose was at Miki’s brother’s suggestion, and it allowed us to follow rivers almost continually after leaving the Autovia. Initially, we tracked the Ebre, one of Spain’s biggest rivers, a beautiful turquoise ribbon meandering its way through the heartland. Eventually eschewing the lovely Ebre for the equally scenic Cinca, we moved ever northwards. Some kilometres short of the foothills of the Pyrenees, we pulled over and gazed out over a vast valley through which the Cinca ran. The waters seemed to have reached out and claimed the entire valley basin, hundreds of trees were poking through the surface, with some almost completely submerged, only their uppermost branches showing. Their reflections in the water gave the whole scene an otherworldly quality, and I was reminded of the Florida Mangrove Swamps. Although I know we were in Northern Spain, the sight of so much water amid this arid landscape lent the image an incongruous beauty. We left regretfully and followed the road into the Pyrenees themselves.

Emerging from the comparatively short tunnel, we found ourselves on a beautifully scenic switchback road down the mountainside into the Haute Pyrenees region of France. Just after the village of Fabian, which may or may not have been named after a sixties has-been, we chanced upon a picnic area, that turned out to be some kind of outward bound centre and campsite – and it was free! Spain already a memory, we parked up for the night, and dreamt of the next part of our journey.



Text by Kev Moore
Drawing & Photos by Miki
Both on Planet Goodaboom