Day 2 - Ibon de Sabacos - A day of Fauna

Looking across the valley of Panticosa

Day two was a loop walk through the mountains above Panticosa. This day was 16km with only 550m in elevation gain, but 1050m descent. I was so glad to have my poles, this descent was brutal on the knees. In summer there is a gondola running so we didn't have to slog it up through the ski field. This was a really great day walk. Today it really felt like we were in the Pyrenees, mountains all around, an easy ascent to 2295m, and blue skies for pretty much the entire day.

The trip up was done in a gondola, it was quite clear the difference in the levels of infrastructure between Spain and Switzerland. True Switzerland is higher, the peaks there are in the 4000m range, though the Pyrenees have quite a few over 3000m, but it seems that it is a lot easier to get a lot higher

We walk down to that hut, then up the other side. Montana del Verde is the 

peak overlooking the lake.

in Switzerland. I mean they have a train station at 3450m, which is higher than the highest mountain in the Pyrenees. I would have expected more ski lifts and gondolas in Spain, just because people enjoy getting into the mountains. This gondola was the only time we saw a way into the mountains, other than walking, during our whole trip. And it's not as if the Spanish don't enjoy the outdoors. They seem to be bigger ramblers than the British are, and it's a full family affair here, with grandparents through to grand kids walking together.

Looking out to the mountains on the other side of the valley

The view from Montana del Verde, looking down at Ibon de Sabocos and the hut

This was a day very much with a lot of up and down and it was also probably the busiest day we had. Probably because of the gondola, so more people could easily get into the mountains. From the gondola station we walked along a big fire trail, this was a bit of a walkers superhighway. In fact there was even a bus that could take people from the gondola up to Pico Mandilar, that's only at 2211m, we scoff at those small peaks. Luckily our walk was avoiding this bus route, and the majority of people. As we split off to the left and towards the Ibon de Sabocos. I think Ibon must mean mountain lake in Spanish, but I was never able to confirm this.

Looking down on Panticosa

The not so abrupt top of Montana del Verde

We come over the ridge and you can see the lake down below you, with a pretty little hut, and then you look further in the distance and see the next ridge you have to climb, and the big mountain to the left. That is Montana del Verde, and is 2295m high. So a bit of a climb from the lake edge, which is at 1900m. Montana del Verde was really quite steep, luckily we could leave our bags at the base. You also had to approach it from the back since there was a lot of scree on the other sides. It seemed that is a feature with the Spanish mountains, the approach is quite important. Not that this was at all difficult, just a bit taxing on the lungs and legs. The views from the top were amazing though, even though we still aren't really in the big mountains. There is a ridge of 3000m mountains that pretty much defines the border between Spain and France, but that was still a couple of days further north from where we were.

The top of the mountain was actually quite cold, since there was a very strong wind up there, I guess there weren't many other peaks at that height in the area. Though there were also a lot of sheep, I guess they are fairly safe from being harassed by people up here. It was also much less peak like up there, more like a narrow ridge. After dropping back down from the peak it was pretty much downhill all the way. By the end of the day I was really not enjoying that much down. I have to say I often prefer going up than down. It's a lot less painful on the knees and ankles.

More great views

As well as the sheep this was about the only day that we saw marmots. These are really funny little creatures, kind of like a cross between a rabbit and a rat. Probably as big as a rabbit, but with a longer body and small ears. They make this really strange screeching noise, we thought it was birds at first, but there weren't any birds around us. Though we also saw some really big birds today, we were hoping for golden eagles as apparently they live in the Pyrenees, but I think they were just a vulture of some kind. This was definitely the day of fauna.

There was also this massive cave in the cliffs, it was a really obvious cave from hundreds of metres away, so it must have been huge. I'm guessing it would have been a favourite for neolithic people. Another reason for them to hang out in this valley.

Montana del Verde, looking a bit more like a peak here

Day 1 - Biescas to Panticosa - A day of History

Ermita Santa Elena

The real reason we had visited Zaragoza was to do 6 days walking in the Pyrenees, I mean Zaragoza is not really on the tourist map. These were such great 6 days, man if I could do 6 days of walking like that every year I think I would be pretty happy. We ended up with 107km walking and 4.6km elevation gain over the 6 days. I don't think I had ever been so sore. But I also have never slept so well. It was a really well organised 6 days, staying in these great little villages along the way.

After Zaragoza we were driven about an hour and a half to Biescas. This was the biggest village we stayed at during the week. And it really wasn't that big, two little streets were the main town though there were some nice places to eat. This was where the route through the Valle de Tena was to start. You are really at the start of the valley here, so you can't see the big mountains yet. They come later on.

Not yet in the big mountains.

A dolmen - neolithic stone structure

The first day was 20km, each day we were given options as to how long and how high we wanted to go. We had decided to go long and hard each day. It got pretty hard further on in the week, but I think it was definitely worth it. You could really feel your metabolism speed up as the week progressed, by the end you could have a bottle of wine with no hint of hangover the next day, definitely useful with all the wonderful Spanish wine.

We didn't have great maps, there was a fairly large scale one of the mountains further on, but nothing really on the first couple of days. So we were relying on walking notes. I'm never a massive fan of notes without a map to back them up. For the first couple of hours we were never entirely sure we were following the right path. And it's entirely possible we weren't, but since we made it to our destination there was no harm done. The walking notes had things like "after 10 minutes you pass a pack of huskies to your right", well I didn't see or hear any huskies, and they are something I was on high alert for too.

Dave and the waterfall under Santa Elena

To be honest the first day's walk wasn't super inspiring, there were some good views, but it was quite long, it had a bit of a feel of a filler day - in that it was easiest to start at Biescas so they had to kind of make up the distance. This day was quite historical though, which was a bonus. In that today we saw the most historical sights out of the whole week. The first part of the day was a bit of a slog through quite thick trees, which was a surprise for Spain. Then we came across this big meadow, there we saw a dolmen, it was unfortunately destroyed during the civil war, but reconstructed in 1975 using the original stones. When they excavated the area they found human bones and various other neolithic artifacts. Apparently this area has one of the greatest concentration of neolithic stone structures in the Pyrenees. I can get why neolithic people would want to live here, it's so lovely and warm, and not too wet. Man I would live there too if I could. There was also this neglected natural calendar, this was a bit sad, but a nice idea. There are plants in different segments of a circle that are meant to flower in different months. Not much was flowering when we came past though, and it just looked generally neglected.

After the dolmen we climbed up to the church of Santa Elena, this is a sacred site from prehistoric times, there is a spring that flows intermittently and is meant to have healing properties, it wasn't really flowing when we were there. The church was built on top of the cave where the spring originates, to try and Christianise it I suppose. It does mean that you can no longer access the cave, which is a shame, but I guess that's the church for you.

Looking back towards Biescas - with the dam wall. We were down at the
dam before ascending to the current height.

Below the church there is this great waterfall and another cave, which you can crawl in and then look out from behind the waterfall, that's pretty cool. It was also a nice relief from the heat.

We were so lucky with the weather, though maybe that's just Spain, in that it didn't rain on us once the whole week. And we were basically walking in shorts and short sleeves the whole time. It made a nice change from walking in the UK, where every expedition is a bit fraught with the possibility of exposure. Here the biggest decision was whether we should carry our sunscreen with us each day, as terrible sunburn was going to be the biggest danger.

After returning from the church up at Santa Elena we carried on towards Panticosa. Along here were really obvious fortifications built in the 1950's. These apparently stretch the length of the Pyrenees as Franco was paranoid that he would be invaded from France. They were heaps around Santa Elena, and looking at the scenery you could see why, the valley was quite narrow here, and you could see for a long way north towards France.

Some big mountains in the distance

Just a bit further on there is the start of a via ferrata, that's the other way up to the church of Santa Elena. A via ferrata is a bit like a designated rock climb, but a lot easier and all the anchor points, steps and hand holds have been attached. It seems that you are meant to do them with ropes and harnesses though.

It was also here that we first noticed the Spanish approach to going to the toilet whilst in the bush. I had always been taught to go away from the path and always make sure you are something like 100m from the nearest watercourse. It seems that's not what is taught in Spain. Apparently the track is a perfectly legitimate toilet. There must be a very different attitude to the toilet in Spain, since regardless that it's pretty disgusting to go to the toilet on the track, or right next to it, there's also just the embarrassment factor that you are quite likely to have someone walk up to you whilst you are in the middle of your business. Maybe they are just a lot more comfortable with that then us English. Gotta say I wish they had a bit more of the Victorian prudishness in them though, since it's not so nice to see toilet paper along the trail.

Black Cuillins - Skye

The peaks in the distance

Our final walk on Skye was another long one, but this one was much easier than the mega ridge walk we had done. This involved very little elevation gain, it was a bit of a walk in two parts. The first half of the day you are walking down a wide valley with the Black Cuillins off to one side. The second half of the day was a pure coastal walk. There's this thing called a Munro in the UK, which is a mountain in Scotland with a height over 3,000ft (or 914.4m for those not stuck in the dark ages). There are 282 of them, and some people make it an ambition to climb all of them. What is important about the Munros and the Black Cuillins is that one of them is called the Inaccessible Pinnacle, good name. Apparently it's the hardest Munro to climb, because it actually involves some rock climbing. Though some guy took his mountain bike up there, so perhaps it's not really that hard. Check it out here, you can see him scaling the pinnacle at about 4:20.

Looking towards the Cuillins

Great views, but the seaweed really stank here. Or it may have been a dead

sheep. Either way, not that inviting for a swim.

So that's not what we did. Though watching this video definitely makes me want to go back and do that ridge, maybe skipping the pinnacle. Aaah if only there were more holidays, and fewer awesome places to visit in the world.

Our walk was much easier, though still quite long. You walked alongside these great mountain ridges for the first three quarters or so, then the last bit was along the coast. This last bit seemed to take forever, there were all these little inlets that you had to keep following. Since it really was a cliff face you were walking along you couldn't cut down to the beach to take the easy way out. At this point we were all pretty tired so just kind of trudging along without thinking too much. Then you look to your right, and it was a sheer drop maybe 50m down to rocks at the bottom, the only reason we hadn't noticed before was these little shrubby trees. They wouldn't have stopped you if you had fallen, just blocking you from seeing the danger. Apparently a couple of people have died along this section. Realising that certainly woke us all up.

Last view of the cliffs. I'll be back!

Even though this cliff section did feel interminable, it did have some great views. It was kind of like Fiordland National Park in New Zealand, it reminded me of the area around Mitre Peak. Pretty good that you can get that level of beauty and wildness in the UK.

I really did enjoy those 5 days in Skye, it may be a fair way to get to, 3 hours from Inverness, but I really think it's worth it. I think the next stage is to start embracing the backpacking, that way we don't have to keep walking out. Man I reckon you could string together some good multi-day walks on this island.

New York

Welcome to New York - from the Staten Island ferry

I had a crazy few weeks at the end of August, in fact it's only just starting to calm down now, 2 trips to the US in a month, and out of London for 5 weekends in a row. That was a bit full on. I'm looking forward to just hanging out at home for the rest of the year.

The first trip to the US was completely unexpected, work suddenly needed to send me over there for a week and a bit. I say suddenly because the flights were booked on Tuesday and I flew out on Wednesday. That's pretty crazy for my work, I'm not really in the business of tight deadlines afterall.

But I'm not going to turn down a business class flight for anything. Thankfully work doesn't send me to enough places for me to get sick of some business class. Man is it nice! This whole post is probably going to be devoted to how nice business class is :). A flat bed, don't mind if I do. And actual cutlery to eat with, why thank you. And what do you mean there are 4 courses in this meal?

The business class lounge in Heathrow was pretty good, free food and drinks, comfy seats. Definitely a nice place to wait for your flight. The lounge in New York was actually really bad, and I was flying American Airlines, so I would have thought New York would be like their flagship airport. But it was terrible, you had to pay for everything! Screw that, has my work not already paid enough!?

Now that's a view - and for free too

There is a real deer inside this, it's surrounded by 

perspex bubbles - at the Met.

I found New York a bit of a weird city, in saying that I was there on my own, and for work. I think if I'd gone there with someone it would have been quite a different experience. I don't think I realised it was going to be so different from London. I think it's more similar to Sydney, which I really didn't expect. Everyone drives for one thing, what is up with that! How can you be in the middle of New York and there's 3-4 lanes of traffic zooming along beside you. It's insane.

And then there is hardly anyone on the subway. I'm used to the underground in London, where there are always people around, no matter how late it is, granted they don't run 24 hours, but you always feel pretty safe. Not so much on the New York subway. For a start it's really dingy, like scary video game dingy, there are dead rats floating in pools of water. And there is nobody around, you are walking down these long corridors and it's just your footsteps echoing. Then you come around a corner and suddenly there's a homeless guy begging for change. It's a bit confronting after the ease and wealth of London. Then on the platform there are no other people. The train pulls up and the carriage is completely empty. It kind of freaks you out, I like other people around, at least ones like me, safety in numbers after all.

How is that scene!

But walking around is quite different from London, on the streets there are always heaps of people around. And up on street level you always feel totally safe. So that's pretty cool, just make sure your hotel is within walking distance of everywhere you want to go and you never have to take the strange subway. Which is made completely of stainless steel and has a bed bug infestation, so there you go.

The Rockefeller Centre - and some massive topiary

The bars and restaurants are also really good, again I probably would have enjoyed them more if there was someone with me. I'm not one of those people who likes to drink alone. I was loving the burgers there, London really hasn't mastered the burger yet. And over there they are just so dirty and delicious!

The museums are amazing and the buildings are really spectacular. It was nice to be working there, my office was on the 20th floor in mid-town, just a couple of blocks south of Central Park. And from the meeting rooms you could see both the park and the Hudson River. And you are just surrounded by these amazing buildings. But then you go down to the street level and it's just covered in garbage and it stinks. It's a really weird city of juxtapositions. Though at least there were a lot less homeless people than in California. Perhaps it's because the weather is worse or perhaps there are better services, I don't know. I was expecting a lot more in New York.

The incredible interior of the Morgan museum

One of the other differences I noticed just walking around is that there seem to be a lot fewer parks around the place. There's central park, and then one by the library and one right down town at Battery Park, but apart from that the parks seem very sparse on the ground. But even though there are many fewer parks, they seem to have a lot more benches to sit, just around the city. It seems that businesses really fill the gap left by the government in providing this sort of social infrastructure (if you can call a bench social infrastructure). So all the big buildings would have this plaza out the front, and there were a lot of places to sit there. I think these plazas were still technically private property, so I'm not sure what would happen if you weren't the type of person they wanted sitting around.

Also the insides of some of these buildings were amazing, the Rockefeller Centre for one, you really got an idea of the robber baron kind of era that the US went through. You can really see that in these really ostentatious lobbies.

New Yorkers crowding into one of their parks

The Staten Island ferry is another complete juxtaposition from the rest of the city, in fact their whole public transportation system was not what I expected at all. The subway was only $2.50 per ride, and you could go as far as you wanted, they didn't have an idea of zones.  New York is the first place I think I've been to where it wasn't an insanely expensive ride to get to the airport. I could get from the centre of the city to JFK for $7.50 in about an hour. That's some good transportation. I even got a seat all the way.

The Staten Island ferry goes maybe 6 times an hour and is completely free! That was one of the weird things about New York. You go over there thinking how it's going to be this completely capitalist society and the market always wins. That there's no such thing as government provided services, and then you find the public transport is really cheap. It may look incredibly scary, but it's cheap and it seems to run really well. I just wish a few more people caught it.

The Staten Island ferry, at least on the weekend, is then this completely free service provided solely for the pleasure of tourists. I mean I'm sure that there are a few locals going back and forwards. But when you land at Staten Island, 95% of the boat gets off, and then walks straight back on. That's quite nice of the government, to provide a totally free tourist attraction. And you do really get a great view of both the Statue of Liberty and the New York skyline. I didn't realise Manhattan was so low, you would think New Yorkers would be all over rising sea levels, since they really don't have much lee-way.

Weird smashed dinner set at MOMA. It was dropped on the
ground then pieced back together. Now that's some modern art!

I walked so much whilst I was there, I nearly wore my feet out. New York is definitely a city for walking. The subway is not quite dense enough, so even if you do use it to get around, you'll end up walking a fair way. Especially around the Central Park area.

I went to the New York Public Library, I've really been getting into the public libraries here in London. I was feeling hopeful that given the public transport situation, that actually the government does spend money on public services. And then you go into the library. Great building, but where are all the books?

Apparently the main branch is just a research library, so I guess you have to request any book you want to look at. It was just a really weird feeling, walking into such a great building, and it just being an empty shell of a library. Especially given the great libraries in London, granted they don't look like that building, but at least there are books in them. I haven't visited the British Library it's true, perhaps that suffers the same dearth of books (at least on the publicly accessible shelves). I mean I get why you need to have research libraries, where the books can't be messed up by just anyone. And perhaps the tourists would just steal all the books if it was a normal library, but I can't help feeling that it would have been a great place to take a book from a shelf and just read for an hour or so.

Even SimCity made it into MOMA. Check out those old school graphics.
Aaah it takes me back!

There is a park surrounding this building. And it was here that I really noticed the lack of green spaces for Manhattanites. The whole week I was there the weather was amazing, 28 degrees and not a cloud in the sky, perfect weather. So on the weekend everyone wants to be outside. Unless you want to lounge around on hard concrete you are really limited to where there are lawns. So this tiny park was jam-packed. I've never seen such a packed park, it was like Bondi beach, except in the middle of a city. I think what I realised the more I was in New York, is how much I like living in London. It's very similar to New York, I think anyway, it's just so much more livable, for me anyway. It really made me appreciate what I have in London.

Just a casual book from the 1200's sitting in the Morgan museum.

But back to New York, it definitely has grand buildings over London. The skyscrapers and lobbies of these buildings are unbelievable. I guess that's the bonus of not having any history to preserve. You can just bulldoze whole blocks and start again. Which does give New York a different energy to London, there's a lot more renewal going on. Though I do wonder now that they have these great skyscrapers, if the renewal is kind of stopping for them. I mean would you ever be allowed to redo the Empire State building, or the Rockefeller Centre?

That's the signature of Elizabeth I in the Morgan Museum.
And why not really

I tried to do a bit of shopping there, I mean everyone says New York is the place to go. I tried Macy's first, I mean that did get a Christmas movie made about it, so it can't be all bad. For all those who have ever lived in Canberra, it had the same feel as the Target in the city. Just clothes lying around in big piles, everything on the ground. It was late at night, so maybe the tourists during the day had completely trashed the place. So that was a little disappointing.

I do like the late night shopping though. In London it's as if opening on Sunday is this great taboo. Let alone late night shopping. New York really is open all the time. My final shopping adventure was Bloomingdales's I mean that's another famous mall. And it was definitely better than Macy's, it felt a bit like Selfridge's though, so not really that much different from what I can get in London. I mean I'm not a big shopper at the best of times, but I think you would appreciate it more if you were coming from Sydney perhaps.

Warhol at MOMA

Enough about the downsides of New York, on to the good! The museums have to be up there, they are amazing, worth a trip just for them. And there are still so many that I haven't visited. Maybe the next time I go, I'll manage to convince Dave to come with me. But the ones I did manage to see were all really good.

First up was the Museum of Modern Art, which was two blocks away from my office. How good is that! So I popped along the first evening I was there. And it was good. Massive too, I did not expect it to be so large. There really are some good modern American artists, or at least famous ones; Liechtenstein, Warhol, Pollock. As well as the really well known artists, there was a section on Architecture and Design which was surprisingly good. Somehow Sim City and MineCraft got exhibits. I guess games really are art. It was real old school Sim City too, the one I played when it first came out. It was just a really nice building too, they do buildings well in New York. It had this courtyard where they seemed to put on little music performances, so you could sit out there amongst their sculptures, drinking some wine and listening to a band. A pretty nice way to spend a Thursday evening.

A garden on top of the Met - with a view of the city. What a place!

One of my favourite pieces at the Met. This sculpture is
actually bolted to the wall. 

One of the surprising museums of the trip was the Native American museum. I guess technically it is the Museum of the American Indian, since it covered South America as well. My only real interaction with native American culture is old western movies, and maybe Twilight. Not good examples I imagine. So it was great to be able to visit this museum and get a feel for just how many tribes there were. It didn't go too much into the more recent history, which was a shame. I really want to find a good book on that era. It was just full of objects, and really interesting stuff, the outfits mainly. There was a little description on each tribe, and some objects from each one, so you could also see how they were quite different.

J. Pierpont's study. You can't see the massive vault in
this shot. This guy had some serious wealth.

The second surprising museum of the trip was the Morgan Museum, which started as the library of J. Pierpont Morgan, of JP Morgan bank fame. The wealth this guy must of had was incredible. The things he had in his collection were astounding. He even had a vault in his study, to keep his more valuable possessions. And not just a little wall safe, this was like a walk-in wardrobe, probably as big as our whole study in our last place. He had books from 1204, he had a letter signed by Elizabeth I, as well as an original score of Mozart's. Forget the Bodleian Library, this place is in another league. Definitely worth a visit, and again just a really great building. Even without the incredible treasures.

But my museum visiting was far from over. There was still the big one to go, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. This place is like the Louvre, it's enormous. I really didn't expect the scale of the place. You could easily spend 2 whole days there. I spent nearly one, and still felt like there were things I had missed out on. It's like the British Gallery, Tate Modern, British Museum, Natural History Museum and the V&A museum all rolled into one, to give you some idea of the scale we are talking here. Really incredible.

There were so many good pieces at this place, I had originally planned on only spending the morning here and then moving on. I ended up leaving at 4pm. It was just amazing. It did mean I ended up getting to my last museum of the trip rather late.

The Guggenheim museum

Last up was the Guggenheim, I think perhaps the best part about this museum is the building. Sorry Guggenheim, but I'm not really interested in 8 floors of Italian futurism. Even with the whole museum devoted to this subject, I'm still no clearer as to what the main objectives, themes, background to it all was. And I even had an audio guide. So good work there whoever curated that one.

How it seems to work here is that the majority of the museum is given over to changing exhibitions, so I got Italian futurism, lucky me. Then there are a couple of rooms with the permanent collection. The permanent was so much better than the changing exhibit. I'm so glad I didn't rush out of the Met to see this.

A Turner at the Met - why is this not in the Tate Britain? I thought the British
were the ones who do the pillaging around here!

And that was my trip to New York, man I'm exhausted just thinking about it. It was so good to go, and I'm so lucky to have a job that gives me (admittedly very rare) trips around the world. I think I would definitely visit again, it's just not on the top of my list. And next time will have to be with someone too, I'm not a great solo travel, it's the restaurants that intimidate me.