Puente weekend

All Saints Days (November 1) was a national holiday here. Because it fell on a Thursday a lot of people got Friday off hence the name ´puente` meaning bridge. We were thinking of going to Barcelona for this long weekend; however, after spending the weekend in Moral and not returning until Monday night we hadn´t done much planning. By the time we started planning we found there was very limited availability in hostels. We decided to go somewhere else. We ended up going on a rockclimbing trip. We left Thursday morning for Huesca in the Aragon region of northen Spain. The train from Valdepeñas to Madrid was sold out so we took the bus. Then the highspeed train to Huesca. It took two people 40 minutes at the ticket office to book our train tickets. Amy had her rail pass from her Paris deal and they mixed things up for me to get a better price on a couple of legs of the journey. The highspeed only took two hours.

After arrival we wandered around Huesca and found a hostel. We then went out and grabbed a light dinner at a bar. I had some pintxos (or pinchos), which are pretty much the north´s version of Tapas but at this bar they were pay per pintxo and were all set out in self service glass boxes on the bar.

castle ruins

The next day we went around town looking for a tent so we could camp out at Huesca. We are kind of picky about a tent because I want a light weight one. I didn´t have room to bring my backpacking tent from home. We didn´t find a suitable tent. We decided try to make our way to Rodellar, the village where we were going to climb. We picked up my stove fuel (I´m still using my Pepsi can stove) and some food. Then we went for a nice little hike (with our packs) to a mountain road which goes to Rodellar. We discovered once there though that no one goes to Rodellar via this road so hitching with some other climbers was not going to work. So we hiked back to town and rented a car. They had a weekend deal so the price was quite reasonable and saved us from spending any more money on hostels.

Bierge, the town where we missed our turn

It felt great to be driving a car (I picked the Volkswagen Polo over the Fiat figuring I would feel more at home with a VW). It is a beautiful 40 minute drive to Rodellar from Huesca, mostly on a small windy mountain road (with no center line) which goes through some awesome little villages. We took the scenic route and ended up having to backtrack but we arrived safely and joined the row of vans (think VW camper van types) and a few small RVs. We decided to sleep in the car as we are poor and besides we don´t have a tent.

Rodellar is an tiny village perched on the edge of a beautiful canyon with hardly anything there besides a few bars and campgrounds. The grocery store is at the campground, they had awesome bread. There are many hiking options and beautiful limestone cliffs and a couple of arches. We climbed Saturday and Sunday and left early Monday morning to catch our train back to Madrid. I really wanted to stay there longer. Reuben had shown us where the Valdepeñas climbing gym is, so Wednesday I went and climbed there.