How I landed in Escalona

I would like to declare that reading is bad for you - the more you read, the less you know (isn't that depressing?); you dream and start to imagine that the impossibles are within reach.

I was reading 'Hiking in Spain' published by Lonely Planet, a book which belongs to the library of my first host, Raphaella. I narrowed down the book's recommendations to 10 treks that I thought I can manage, jotted down the names of the nearest towns to these treks and began to search through the internet on how best to get to these places. I was hoping to further narrow down to, say, 3 treks.

Many days went by. When I left Barcelona for Cadaqués, I was still clueless as to where to go after Cadaqués. The main issue of not being able to decide "where" was due to not knowing "how to". Understandably, there are no train stops at the foot of a mountain and buses are infrequent but what is the probability of all treks that I have chosen being not easily accessible??? (whine...... I miss good old Lake District.) In any case, I came back from the walk to Cap de Creus and had a brilliant idea - I thought I should just pick 1 good trail, do it well and enjoy the the area (as opposed to rushing around to the Pyrenees, Basque Country and Asturias) (yeah yeah, I should have thought of that long ago). 

By that time, I had downloaded the pdf version of 'Hiking in Spain' (thank goodness for electronic versions of books or I will have to lug around X travel guide books?!?!). I was strangely drawn to page 121 (that is the telephone extension of someone very important):

Source: Lonely Planet

Source: Lonely Planet

The author, Stuart Butler, described it as his favourite single day walk. So Sestrales it is!

I googled and googled and googled for Sestrales, Bestué (the nearest village to the starting point on page 121), Parzán and Bielsa. Most searches came to nought or were not helpful in terms of transport. Even Instituto de Turismo de España's website did not have the names of these towns/ villages. I searched for trains, buses, internal flights and car rental. Nothing, nada, zilch, 0, ない, 没有... Sigh... you get the idea.

Sidetracked - Huesca

Oddly, the more difficult it was, the more I wanted to do it.（真是贱命一条）There were not many travel options from Girona and it appeared that I had to return to Barcelona. From Google Map, to get from Barcelona to Bestué, it looked as though one has to pass through Lérida (thank goodness for Google Map too). I started searching for transport from Cadaqués to Lérida. By some sheer stroke of luck,  I found that Bestué is part of the Huesca province. Logically, the provincial tourism office would have more information about its towns, villages, transports and what-nots. Consequently, I dropped Lérida and decided to go to Huesca instead to search for my answer as to how to get to Bestué and the Sestrales. (And it was a great move as you will see shortly!)

I searched the websites again for travel options to Huesca. The good news were - I was able to map out my route on buses and train from Cadaqués to Huesca and I would be able to reach Huesca within a day (Cadaqués ➝ Girona ➝ Barcelona ➝ Huesca). The bad news were - I had to pack my bags quickly, go to bed and wake up at 5.30am to get ready before walking to the bus station. Groan!

The bus ride to Girona was smooth and the bus station was next to the train station (nice!). I had time for breakfast before boarding the train to Barcelona.

Girona

At Barcelona, I had to wait for 3.5 hours before the bus departed for Huesca. I dumped my bags in a locker at the train station (€9 for 24 hours), had lunch and surfed the internet at MCD (free wifi that worked only on my mobile but not my laptop).

The locker is huge

Handwritten info from the Huesca tourism office

The bus trip to Huesca was fairly straight forward and so was following the signs and walking 15 minutes from the bus station to Huesca's tourism office. The lady from Ayuntamiento de Huesca was extremely patient and helpful (pity I did not get her name). She explained that Bestué is really a village and no buses go there. She thought I might have a better chance going to Escalona and asking one of the adventure companies based there to fetch me to the mountains. She then made phone calls and checked and gave me the bus timings, made copies of names and contact details of the adventure companies and hotels.

As I waited for her, I noticed that on the map of Aragón, there was a yellow symbol below Huesca. The symbol represented "Ruta de Goya" (Route of Goya). 

Source: Información Turística de Aragón 

 

I asked the tourism office lady "¿Goya - pintor?" and started drawing in the air. She then showed me Huesca's city map and told me that there were Goya's paintings at Museo de Huesca:

Source: Ayuntamiento de Huesca

I desperately wanted to go have a look but had to dump my bag somewhere. The tourism office lady showed me the locations of some of the hotels and I opted for the budget hotel nearest to the tourism office. She then gave a call to check the availability and price. I thanked her and rushed off without asking this very important and nice lady for her name (many many thanks to you again!). I walked quickly downhill to the hotel, checked in (a breeze), left everything in the room and made a dash uphill for the museum. (It was past 7pm. The museum closed at 8pm but I was not sure of the timing of the last entry).

Museu de Huesca - I know I know, the picture is not very impressive.
But I ran up, paused, took a pic and ran into the museum. No time to lose! 

I ran into the museum, surprising the staff and the security personnel who were chatting away. The security personnel showed me to the museum's brochures (he was very very nice and even asked if I like the exhibits after). I was a bit confused and wanted to pay for the entry. It turned out that entry was FREE! See Goya for FREE??? I was grinning from ear to ear.

The museum was founded in 1873 and moved into the current location in 1968. The history of the building dated back to 1690 and was a Sertorius old school. The building is octagonal and I was about to rush through everything to get to Goya when I got stopped in the tracks by the first room's archaeology displays:

Source: Museu de Huesca 

When I was very young, I wanted to be an archaeologist. It must not have been a serious enough phase because now I am unable to recall why I wanted to be an archaeologist (except that maybe because my mum told me an author, 三毛, studied to be one.) In any case, there is not much to dig around in Singapore and I did not pursue the dream. The archaeology section showcases items dated from 250 BC and found in the province. I was surprised to come face to face with cave art, wares, currency and other items. The collection is not huge and overwhelming (you know how some museums like the Musée du Louvre has too much good things and it overwhelms you?) but it is a good one.

The fine arts section displays items from the 13th century, the Sertorius old school to the more recent, Ramón Acín Aquilué (first time I have viewed his works but I quite like them). For me, the highlights were visiting 2 rooms that are bare and in their original forms (one can see how the stones laid on the floor) and viewing Goya's oil paintings and lithographs from his "Bulls of Bordeaux" series.

On the way back to the hotel, I had the chance to look at the façade of Huesca Cathedral more closely (I always find it amazing to see sculptures on old buildings. How did they do it back then?): 

And the street art too:

Overall, it was a great move to go to Huesca, wasn't it?

On track - Escalona

The next morning, I was on my way to Escalona. I reached Aínsa at noon and decided not to wait 8 hours for the bus to Escalona. I walked into the city centre of Aínsa, and by another stroke of luck, found the only English speaking taxi driver in the town, Jon. (He is from Gilbaltrar, a British overseas territory. He fell in love with Aínsa and moved there.) I took his taxi to Escalona, in time before my next benefactor closed his shop for siesta.   

After 1.5 days of travelling, I finally reached Escalona. To summarise:

22 May 2012

0700 - 0845h - Bus (Sarfa) - Cadaqués to Girona

0932 - 1109h - Train - Girona to Barcelona Sants

1430 - 1755h - Bus (Alosa) - Barcelona Sants to Huesca (there is an earlier option on train but I will not have much time for lunch)

23 May 2012

0945 - 1040h - Bus (Alosa) - Huesca to Sabiñánigo

1100h - 1250h - Bus (Alosa) - Sabiñánigo to Aínsa

1300 - 1315 - Taxi - Aínsa to Escalona

This sure felt like The Amazing Race. With the help of some new friends, the IMPOSSIBLES will soon become POSSIBLES for me.