Aragón

Camino VII: Out of the Woods

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue de Peregrinos, Sangüesa. 16.06.

I overslept today – by Camino standards, anyway. I’m pretty sure I set both alarms last night, but I have a habit of turning them off and falling straight back to sleep. Either way, it was gone six o’clock when I woke up today. Mari Carmen, the seventy-eight year old Valencian who is the only other pilgrim on the road, had already packed and gone. I dressed quickly and had breakfast, which had been left out for me in the dining room. I wouldn’t exactly call two slabs of bread with butter and jam and tea-making facilities a bargain – that cost me 6€ yesterday – but Ruesta is so cut-off from everything and everywhere else that there were no other options, and beggars can’t be choosers.

Gronze (the Camino website I’ve been using to map out the Voie d’Arles and the Camino Aragonés) describes today’s stage as “melancholic”. I thought that was probably a bit melodramatic, but it’s actually a pretty accurate adjective for the first hour and half. Leaving the abandoned village of Ruesta behind (I was genuinely the only person in the entire village when I left), the Camino snakes downhill to ford a narrow stretch of the Embalse de Yesa before climbing slowly back up the other side over the space of an hour. I usually like the forested stretches, as they can be more mysterious and refreshing than the unforgiving plains, and yet… something was off about this forest. It was far too quiet. There’s usually some birdsong in the early hours before the sun crests the hills, but over the space of an hour, I only heard one sound, and that was the screech of a jay far off.

I’ve often experienced this feeling in the presence of Spain’s false lakes. The Embalse de Yesa and its surrounding pine forests are entirely artificial. I saw a doe racing through the trees near the summit, and a red squirrel high up in the branches of a tree, but the lack of birdsong was chilling. It’s as though they keep a mournful silence for the drowned valley below, unwilling to disturb the rest of the watery dead.

I sometimes wonder if nature is laughing at us when we try to shape the world like her, or if she is just quietly disappointed.

As for me, I was quietly relived when the trees cleared and I was in the sunlit fields once again. The quails had returned, along with a host of finches and larks, and with my spirits restored, I set off toward Undués de Lerda.

Undués looks like many Aragonese hillside towns: built of the same stone upon which it stands, it has a habit of vanishing from sight under the cover of cloud, becoming obvious to the eye only when the sun reveals the shadows of its doors and windows. I arrived shortly before nine, but the town was still fast asleep, and everything from the bar to the church was shut up tight. So I moved on.

Near the Aragonese frontier, I saw something in the grass at my feet that made me pause. It was a swallowtail, and it wasn’t leaping into the air as they are wont to do when people draw near. On closer inspection, I think it must have had a run-in with a predator, because one of its swallowtails was missing and part of the same wing was damaged.

Known in English as the scarce swallowtail (on account of its rarity as a migrant in the British Isles), this species is actually fairly common in Spain. It’s not often you get to see one so close outside of a butterfly sanctuary, however, and the markings on its wings are really remarkable. They’re actually made up of thousands of scales, each one containing pigments like melanin or papiliochromes, that create a vivid array of colours used for sending messages, either to potential predators or partners. I saw a sign in a butterfly sanctuary on Tenerife where somebody had managed to make an entire alphabet just from close-ups from butterfly wing patterns. With nearly 20,000 specified of butterfly in the world, perhaps that’s not surprising.

This little fella was in a dangerous spot, right in the middle of the road, so I gently coaxed it onto my hand and then found a more sheltered spot in the verge where it might be out of harm’s way. Unless it recovers the ability to fly, it will probably end up as a snack for an enterprising bee-eater – a bird both large and nimble enough to deal with a swallowtail – so I hope it finds its strength.

A small stone marker in Basque lettering indicated that I had left Aragón and was now in the former kingdom of Navarra. The landscape has changed: the high mountains of Aragón, ever at my side for the last few days, have been replaced by a series of endlessly rolling hills, a patchwork of gold and olive green. This will be the scenery for the next week and half, until I reach Burgos and the meseta begins in earnest.

I was lucky to see one of Spain’s oldest traditions in action shortly after crossing the border. One of the cañadas reales crosses the Camino here, specifically the Cañada Real de los Roncaleses. These are the old migration routes across the country, where shepherds have led their flocks from north to south in search of fresh pastures since the medieval period. A source of milk, cheese and the precious merino wool, Spain’s sheep were a highly valuable commodity and the cañadas received royal protection and their own guild, El Honrado Concejo de la Mesta, which had tremendous privileges.

Nowadays, of course, merino wool can be found all around the world – you can thank Napoleon’s invasion of Spain for breaking that monopoly – but the shepherds still use these ancient pathways, as their ancestors have done for over a thousand years.

It’s been a pretty mild walk today, so it was surprising to see a mass of estivating snails on the way in to Sangüesa. They must have done this during the heatwave, when temperatures in some parts of Spain soared into the forties. They’re not dead, as such, but in a state of dormancy, waiting out the worst of the summer until they can return to life when the temperatures cool down.

Well, Sangüesa is the busiest town I’ve seen so far. The albergue is nearly full, though not with your usual pilgrims: these are almost entirely Spanish bicigrinos, a term used to describe pilgrims who travel by bicycle. It’s a portmanteau, but one can’t help the feeling that it’s almost always just a little pejorative, with many pilgrims feeling that their lycra-clad one-night companions are not true pilgrims in the strictest sense. The decibel count in the albergue has certainly gone up since they arrived, just in time to replace the building site next to the albergue and the slamming windows.

Still – it’s a good ease-in to the popularity of the Camino Francés, the most popular of all the roads to Santiago. I’ve enjoyed my own company for the last week, and though I’m looking forward to meeting all sorts of interesting people on the road, I will miss these long stretches of quiet. BB x

Camino VI: The Ventriloquist

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue de Ruesta. 16.20.

Picture this, if you can. Call upon all of your senses.

First, sound. Wind, cool and dry, blowing in the branches of the pine trees above, their branches coated in trailing clumps of lichen. A blackcap singing an enchanting solo in the forest, and an endless percussion of cicadas, assailing the ear with their rasping ostinato from every side. You can’t see them. But they’re there. Hundreds of them.

Next, smell. The fresh scent of pine bark, mingling with the dusty trace of crumbling masonry. The occasional coolness of water blowing in off the lake. Mingling with taste, a hint of fried fish from the bar, which closed up shop half an hour ago.

Touch, then. The feel of carved wood, nearly two centuries old. The trace of numbers in stone, chiselled in many hundreds of years before even that. The uneven cobbles of a road long since neglected, and the powdery feel of the houses that line it, within which a thousand plants have weaved a citadel of their own.

Finally, sight. Picture an entire village abandoned a hundred years ago. See the stone balconies, carved with Roman triumph, presiding over an empty world. A church, with fragments of brilliant blue still visible in the decaying fresco above the spot where the slate once stood, stripped bare and opened to the heavens. A lonely watchtower, manned now by thirsty crows, their beaks agape in the heat of the afternoon.

This is my stop for tonight: the abandoned village of Ruesta, one of the last stops before leaving Aragón.

I left on time this morning, shortly before six, sent on my way by Lulu and Nicole with a packed sandwich, an orange and a boiled egg. It felt like being sent off to school. Some hospitaleros really do push the boat out to make you feel at home during your brief stay!

I missed the sign in the darkness and so headed north for a kilometre before joining the road and returning to my westward trajectory. It added about fifteen minutes to my time, but it did give me an unrestricted view of the morning.

Camino sunrises are something of a tradition on the way to Santiago, but I am going to miss these Aragonese mornings. There’s something about the mountains that makes them that much more mystical. Maybe it’s the way the light turns each row of hills a different shade of blue, always fading toward the base.

I spent a considerable part of the morning chasing quails. They’re almost impossible to see with the naked eye, standing at around 16cm tall (that’s just over half a ruler) and seldom taking flight when alarmed, preferring to sit tight and rely on their cryptic camouflage to avoid detection. They were all over the place, though – I must have counted at least forty individuals calling from different spots along the Camino in the hour or two after sunrise. They can throw their voices around 150 metres, which can make them very hard to locate, especially when there are four or five in the same field calling at once. I flushed one completely by accident at the side of the road and it took off into one of the vast wheat fields on sharp, whirring wings.

England must have sounded like this, a long time ago. There are places you can go in the UK and hear quails, which do migrate that far (some make it all the way to Scotland), but not on the same scale as you can here in Spain.

Along with the quails, I saw a grey partridge – a rarity in Spain, confined to the north – and goodness knows how many corn buntings, but I think it’s the foxes that stood out the most. There must be plenty in the area, as I saw three within a rather short space of time, including one sprinting across a field near Martés.

A major feature of today’s walk were the badlands de yeso: strange, wrinkled mounds of gypsum, a distinctive feature of Aragón, Navarra and Almería. This is the kind of terrain that contains fossils like the shell I found yesterday: a prehistoric stockpile of marine life, buried deep beneath the soft grey hills. They’re really quite striking, and since there are no Caminos that pass through the Bardenas Reales to the southwest (one of the strangest lunar landscapes you can find in Europe), the Camino Aragonés does at least provide an introduction.

I stopped for water shortly after a brief exploration of Artieda and its gypsum hills (to the great confusion of a local who thought I’d lost the Camino). Here, at my feet of all places, I found one of the ventriloquists: not a quail, but a cicada. They usually conceal themselves high up in the trees, where their voices carry and their mottled bodies blend perfectly into the bark. This one was clearly an amateur, however, as the motion of its churring was trembling the blade of grass in its legs, making it stand out like a sore thumb.

Not to be outdone, my final hour was a butterfly parade, with a scarce swallowtail taking centre stage. I have fond memories of this little creature as it’s one of the ten animals I recorded on my first trip to Spain as an eleven-year-old. Contrary to the famous adage popularised by Muhammad Ali, most butterflies don’t “float”, having a rather manic and jerky flight. Swallowtails, however, are on the larger side, and they do float, or at least seem to, fanning their wings out midflight to glide on the air. They’re skittish, like most butterflies, so it’s hard to get close, but their size, acrobatics and striking colours make them a delight to watch.

Which brings me to Ruesta. There’s really all sorts on the Camino, and Ruesta is very much one of the sorts. Abandoned in 1959 after a lengthy decline – largely because of the construction of the nearby Yesa reservoir, which flooded most of the agricultural land the village depended on – the village has largely fallen into a slow state of disrepair.

Ruesta’s church had some spectacular frescos, which were carefully transferred to Jaca’s Diocesan museum to prevent them from being lost forever. I imagine the place might once have looked not too dissimilar to Artieda, a hilltop town not too far from here. From some angles, you can still just about imagine life as usual: children running down the street to school, the bakery in full swing, old locals gathered at a street corner to gossip…

Ruesta has two functioning buildings: a casa de cultura (of all things) and an albergue, complete with a lively bar/restaurante. The secret to Ruesta’s survival is its acquisition by the CGT, the Confederación General del Trabajo, one of Spain’s larger trade unions. There are plenty of clues for those who don’t recognise the red-and-black flag: the raised fist, the quotes and dates graffitied across the walls and the plethora of signage in Catalan, Galician and Basque (the CGT, being anarcho-syndicalist in its outlook, has strong ties to the local separatist movements).

To their credit, they’ve done a wonderful job. The regional government won’t step in to rebuild Ruesta, as it’s just one of over two hundred abandoned towns in Aragón, so the syndicate has stepped in. They’ve carved out a fully-functioning community in the heart of the old village and are carefully coexisting with the place, without feeling the need to develop or bulldoze what doesn’t serve. The result is a very unique staging post of the Camino de Santiago. There’s not many places along the profitable pilgrim road that have been allowed to fall apart, and yet at the same time been so carefully curated.

I wonder how the future will see us? The creatures of the past left their traces in the rocks by chance. We’ve been deliberately stamping our seal on the earth for thousands of years. Will they marvel at tyre tracks in the mud and put them in museums? Will they weave fantastical stories around the objects they find, like discarded vapes and perfume bottles? What will we make of it all, a thousand years from now?

The Camino gives you a lot of time to think. Six hour walks through the countryside, every day for six weeks… It’s a test of resilience, if not of your sanity. Thank goodness I’m perfectly happy with my own company! BB x

Camino V: Along the Aragón

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue de Peregrinos de Arrés. 13.48.

I bid Mariano adiós at around 5.45 this morning and left Jaca just all the young folks were finding their way home after an enjoyable Friday night on the town. Far away to the south, a summer thunderstorm lit up the sky every four or five minutes, and by counting the seconds between flashes, I was able to catch one of the strikes with my camera.

With Jaca behind me, I am very conscious I am headed into a world of great distances and tiny villages, so I did double-check to make sure I had enough cash to last at least three days – the time it will take to get to the next town with a functioning ATM.

With the thunderclouds rumbling away in the distance, I had to keep turning back to watch the sunrise, which was singularly spectacular this morning. The sky was a shade of pastel pink normally reserved for Renaissance paintings, and the clouds building up above the mountains could only hold back the sunburst for so long. When it came, it pierced two gaping holes in the clouds, like gleaming eyes, before ripping an almighty gash right through the centre and sending a hundred golden rays into the morning sky.

I had a choice to make today – to press on to Arrés or take a lengthy detour via the Monastery of San Juan de la Peña – but in the end it was the weather that made my mind. A gentle summer rain began to fall shortly after sunrise – not the heavy, sheet rain that makes any outdoor activity miserable, but a light, warm, refreshing rain. The kind that provides relief after a long morning on the road – but makes cross-country hikes hard and soggy work. Rerouting to San Juan de la Peña turns an already reasonable itinerary (24.6km) into a trek (38.4km), and after my ascent and descent of the Pyrenees in one go two days ago, I thought it wiser to forgo the monastery this time – after all, these feet have to take me all the way to Santiago. I have to be careful!

The Camino from Jaca mostly follows the road and the river, but it does provide several forested cross-country stretches that offer some relief. On one of these, in the hills south of Ascara, I stopped for a breather and there I found a most remarkable thing: a symbol of Santiago, a shell, but ancient. A fossil from an ancient sea, perhaps ten million years old or more, just sitting at the side of the Camino, waiting to be found.

I’ve always wanted to come to Aragón for its fossil beds. Teruel, Aragón’s southernmost province, is believed to have the highest concentration of fossils per square metre in Europe, and there’s even a sauropod named for the region (Aragosaurus). There are some incredible relics from the ancient world to be found in this vast region, including a large number of well-preserved dinosaur footprints at El Castellar and Galve. I wasn’t expecting to have any luck with dinosaurs on the Camino, as the fossil beds themselves are far from the pilgrim road and pretty hard to reach without a car, so I can’t believe my luck in finding a Miocene scallop shell – and in such good condition!

Today’s hike was a pretty solitary one. That’s not to say I’ve met many pilgrims on the road – today I saw one, and that’s one more than the last four days – but the distances between the towns today felt immense. That’s fairly typical of the Spanish interior, and Aragón is no exception. What makes this part of Spain so striking is its singular orography: so many of the hills in the Río Aragón basin are perfectly flat on top, forming an alien landscape that reaches its peak in the Bardenas Reales to the southwest.

Naturally, in this land of shifting frontiers, many of these mesas have a hilltop town or castle sitting neatly on top. I can see at least one from my stop for tonight in the hill town of Arrés: Canal de Berdún, away to the north. If Arrés had proved to be a ghost town, I would have tried my luck there.

Fortunately, it isn’t. Arrés is little more than a hamlet tucked away in a cleft of the long wooded sierra that runs the length of the Río Aragón, with some fifty permanent residents or less to its name, but don’t let its silence deceive you (even on a Saturday afternoon when everything seems to have ground to a halt). The municipal albergue is fully operational and perfectly equipped, allowing for a stay in possibly one of the most beautiful corners of the Camino Aragonés.

I’ve done my washing by hand, as usual, and it’s hanging out to dry. In this heat, it already will be within another ten minutes or so.

To end the day, the French hospitaleras, Lulu and Nicole, gave us a tour of the village, showed us the sunset from the highest point (which was spectacular) and cooked up a wonderful dinner which we shared between the six of us (including two Aragonese bicigrinos who showed up five minutes before dinner).

I’m just penning the last details now, drinking a chamomile tea, and listening to the night sounds of crickets, a distant dog barking and, somewhere in the valley below, the ceaseless extraterrestrial churring of a nightjar. It’s blissfully quiet here. I’m looking forward to the sociable side of the Camino Francés, but I’m so glad I came this way. It’s been spectacular. BB x

Camino IV: The Dark World

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Casa Mamré, Jaca. 20.08

Well, first of all, dinner last night was phenomenal. Heidi, one of our hospitaleros, cooked up an absolute smorgasbord supper, and still under the banner of donativo. I hope the other pilgrims also tipped generously, because it must be really hard to whip up a spread like this without the generous donations of the pilgrims themselves. Remember, donativo doesn’t mean free – pay what you can, and what you feel the place deserves!

I was one of the last to leave this morning, as I was hoping I might score a few more stamps in churches along the way. as a matter of fact, they were all shut – every single one of them – so I needn’t have dawdled. I did only have 19km or so to go today, though, so I was in no hurry.

Leaving Canfranc behind, the Camino follows the river through the Valle de Aragón all morning, only turning away for the ascent to Jaca at the end of the road. What was only a mountain stream yesterday is already a powerfully flowing river, carving an impressive series of gorges in the granite along its course.

The next town along is Villanúa, where you are confronted with a strange sculpture in the shape of a many-limbed tree stump. On closer inspection, it’s actually an abstract representation of the women of Aragón who were persecuted for the crime of witchcraft during the Middle Ages. A single face carved into the structure drives the message home. There used to be a rope hanging from one of the branches, in a nod to one of the favoured methods of execution of witches, but it looks like that was removed.

During the Middle Ages, Aragón was knee-deep in tales of witchcraft. The Inquisition tasked itself with purging the region of heretics – a very broad umbrella that encompassed Protestants and “Judaizers” as well as witches – but such was the strength of belief in the occult in this remote and mountainous corner of Spain that witchcraft remained a talking point until as late as the 19th century, as can be seen in the pinturas negras of the Aragonese painter, Francisco de Goya.

The reason Villanúa comes into this can be found just off the Camino a hundred metres or so before entering the town. A series of steps cut into the rock lead up to a cave, accessible only via a guided tour. You can feel the chill of it as you climb towards it, and while there are plenty of perfectly reasonable scientific explanations for the drop in temperature near a cave mouth, it’s easy to see why such a place might have instilled a sense of fear in the ancients. The steps go deep, and in its heart is a large cavern lit by a great hole in the ceiling. It is believed that this was where the witches of Villanúa came to practice their akelarres – Witches’ Sabbaths – summoning evil spirits and bathing naked in the moonlight.

Of course, it’s just as likely that most (if not all) of those accused of witchcraft in the Middle Ages were completely innocent. Some local pedant seems to think so, anyway, adding a footnote to the information, claiming the accused were “too busy being burned and hanged by the misogynists of their time” (#romantizandomasacres).

It may well be true, even if it does take away from the mystery, but it’s worth bearing in mind that curanderos – folk healers – were frequently called upon throughout the Medieval period, especially in times of environmental stress. It’s plausible that some of the so-called witches really were trying to bring about some kind of change in their own way.

For me, it’s never been about their innocence. Whether or not they were witches is of no consequence (though I’d rather believe they were). The real demons of the story are the ones who were so strangled by their own fear that they saw fit to send these unfortunate souls to their deaths.

Either way, peregrino, if you feel a chill on your approach to Villanúa, it might just be the lingering malice of the Cueva de las Güixas on your left.

I had to double-back today, not because I’d forgotten something, but because I’d missed something rather special. The boulder-strewn fields before Villanúa harbour more than just witches’ grottos. There are older and more mystical relics by far, though I’d wager the average pilgrim completely passes them by, fatigued as they are from their three-hour climb down from the mountains.

It’s a dolmen – an ancient burial site from the Stone Age. There are quite a few of these in the area – large stones (or megaliths) being plentiful in the Pyrenean basin – but at least one can be visited from the Camino without too much effort. Dolmens like these can be found all over Europe, from the islands of the Mediterranean to northwestern France and Britain. In a way, they are just as much a symbol of the Camino as the yellow arrows, since they mark the westward expansion of our earliest ancestors as they moved west across Europe, until they could go no further.

The remaining fifteen kilometres or so to Jaca are easy to follow, if a little rocky underfoot. I’d spent so much time exploring the caves, dolmens and ruins of long-abandoned villages that I now had quite a long march beneath the risen sun, and my feet were definitely starting to complain after yesterday’s exertions. So, for once, I plugged in and listening to an audiobook – William Golding’s The Inheritors – as a way to push on. I hoped I might pop in on a few churches along the way, but as I suspected, they were all shut, so I got to Jaca by midday without further delay. Mariano, the musical madrileño from the albergue in Canfranc, had got there just before me, but we still had a little wait before the dueña showed up to let us in.

I bought lunch for myself and Mariano (I’ve had an easy ride with others treating me so far, and it’s only fair to share), before giving myself an hour or so to explore Jaca. The cathedral is austere but impressive, as Spanish churches often are, but its real treasures were in its Diocesan museum. At 3€ for pilgrims – with a stamp for the credencial thrown in – it’s a steal, especially when you see what it contains.

These Halls of Stories are bewitching beautiful, recreating scenes from the Bible for the illiterate masses while the holy words were kept in the jealously guarded secret language of the elite, Latin. I’m not normally one for religious art – the Renaissance obsession with ecstasy in its subjects is a major turn-off for me – but anything Gothic or earlier and I’m all in. The world was a darker and more mysterious place back then – and doesn’t that make it so much more interesting?

Latterly, I’ve become a lot more interested in ancient depictions of monsters, and the Devil definitely falls into that bracket. It took me a little while to realise the crowned imp in the image above – a detail from the mural of Bagüés – is a representation of Satan. I wonder what their reference was? With the red skin, narrow eyes and the feather-like crown, he almost looks like a Taino Indian, but that would be anachronistic in the extreme – these paintings were created four hundred years before Columbus sailed to the Americas.

Are there elements of Pan, the pagan god of the wilderness? It’s no secret that the goat-legged minor deity had a huge impact on the Christian devil, with the early Christian scholar Eusebius of Caesarea claiming the two were one and the same in the 4th century. Pan represented all that Christianity sought to suppress: vice, sin and animal instincts, crystallised in Pan’s half-beast limbs.

It’s not always goats, either. Traditional depictions of the devil often feature scaly or bird-like legs, akin to a chicken or a hawk. Most paintings of Saint Michael feature the Archangel standing triumphant over the body of a demon, and it’s easy to see the inspiration in these paintings: pigs’ ears for greed, scaly skin for the deception of the serpent, and thick, knotted talons for the eagle, one of the most feared and respected predators of the ancient world (if you’re not convinced, just look at how many world flags feature an eagle).

The references are much clearer here, but what of the Red Devil from the Bagüés mural? He has neither the goatee beard nor the cloven hooves. Who was the artist’s muse? Perhaps we’ll never know.

As I worked my way round the exhibit to the exit, a solitary face caught my attention. Or rather, a pair of eyes. Amid a wall of depictions of a saintly and contented Mary – Inmaculada, Asunción, Madre de Diós – a little painting of Dolorosa follows you with its eyes, which are bloodshot and full of tears. Her Son, arrested by the religious authorities and sentenced to death for the crime of working miracles, was crucified before a baying crowd.

Over a thousand years later, the same story played out again and again across Europe, only now it was done in Christ’s name. There must have been a thousand Marys who watched their sons and daughters befall a similar fate. And still it plays on.

Critics may say the Catholic Church puts far too much emphasis on the doom, gloom and damnation, but there is wisdom in the Catholic acknowledgement of the darkness. We might have been created in God’s image, but that does not make us perfect, and history tells us that some of us stray very far from the path when we try to be perfect.

Mary’s grief is eternal: it ripples across time.

Wow, that got pretty heavy. Check back in tomorrow for some more light-hearted adventures across Aragón! BB x

Camino III: Over the Frontier

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

Albergue Elías Valiña, Canfranc. 15.10.

I’ve made it over the border and into Spain! Canfranc is a beautifully quiet Aragonese mountain town, but it was one hell of a trek getting here from Borce, way over on the other side of the Pyrenees.

I set out a lot earlier than usual this morning, leaving Borce at 5.40am, a full hour before sunrise. I needed the extra hour to make it up the mountain, over the border and back down to Canfranc, the third village down from the pass on the Spanish side.

My intention to bypass the usual stop at Somport wasn’t as mad as it sounds. There were some pretty scathing reviews online about the Albergue, which I’d been tempted to write off as foreign ignorance, but there was also the matter of the considerable descent, which would have required another early start – not to mention the dangerous terrain underfoot should the weather turn foul. So, a full hour earlier than yesterday, I set out into the darkness.

It took me about an hour to reach Urdos, the last French commune before the frontier, and along the way I passed the formidable Fort Portalet, a 19th century fortress carved into the mountainside to guard the pass.

Arguably the most impressive thing about it was the network of bunkers and tunnels that seemed to burrow their way down the cliffside, presumably to allow the French garrison to snipe at any attempted invaders. I don’t even want to think about how they managed such a feat in 1842.

The sun came up just as I reached Urdos, or at least I think it did, because the Lescun valley was shrouded in a thick belt of cloud. The mountains must work like some kind of giant bowl, trapping the cold air inside. The result was a vast moisture net, turning all the vegetation within the valley floor into a living, breathing lake. For at least the first half of the morning, it was very beautiful to look at, and nothing further.

The Camino deviates from the main road a lot – perhaps a lot more than necessary – and one long deviation rides up the eastern slopes of the mountains above Urdos, where one of the tributaries of the Aspe river can be found. It also harboured my first non-Albergue stamp of the Camino Aragonés, in a small pilgrim station set out under a fir tree by a farmstead in the hamlet of Marrassaa. Some kind soul had put out some hot water, a selection of teas and sugars and a notebook with a stamp, along with a few walking sticks, should the Somport-bound pilgrim be lacking.

As it happens, as of twenty minutes before the stop, I wasn’t. Two hazel-wood sticks of near perfect size (one was a few inches shorter than the other) were lying in the road, the last remnant of what must have once been a fence, as they still had a very frayed but intact wire strung between them. Seeing an act of Providence – it would have been foolhardy to attempt the pass without them – I took them (and the wire) along with me, until they had smoothed enough in my hand to work the wire free.

When I was confronted by a far superior collection of sticks at Marrassaa, I was tempted to let the shorter one go, but found that I couldn’t separate the one from the other – it felt wrong, somehow. So I pressed on with my two fenceposts, which I dubbed the Palos de la Frontera – a play on the place I found them, and the Andalusian port from which Columbus set out for the Americas.

Boy, did I need them today.

The descent from the Urdos deviation was… costly. The sodden undergrowth all but drowned my feet, and as I was considering a change of socks, it provided a final challenge: a gauntlet of ankle-deep mud and nettles. I got as far as I could with both feet astride the ditch, until the gap became too wide and too dangerous to attempt. I could either endure the wrath of a tangle of nettles or face the mud. In the end, still feeling the sting of yesterday’s nettles, I swallowed my pride and sloshed straight through the mud. Vile.

Naturally, I washed my socks in the river at the foot of the valley, did my best to dry my sandals, and swapped in a pair of warm hiking socks. Thank goodness I had spares.

After a short stint along the road, the Camino climbed back up into the forest on the eastern side. I may have been cautious about leaving the road again – which wasn’t exactly heaving with traffic – but it was the fastest route to the top, so I stuck to it.

The cloud forest was mesmerisingly beautiful, especially as I hit the cloud level and seemed to be burrowing my way through the mist. The stretches of open grassland, however, were dreadful. Up here, in the thick of the clouds, the grass was even wetter than on the valley floor. I might as well have swum up the mountain. More treacherous by far, the path was so overgrown that it was perilously easy to miss the edge of the path and lose your footing – as I did at least once, very nearly tumbling down the mountainside. The sticks genuinely saved my neck.

It didn’t get any easier until I reached the road at the top of the mountain, where suddenly, as if by magic, the clouds disappeared entirely. It was easier to see why when I’d gone a little further, where the road turned to show me the huge belt of cloud trapped in the valley. Up here, above the clouds, it was as hot and sunny as any Spanish summer morning.

Somport itself was eerily quiet. I thought I’d earned myself a celebratory elevenses-lunch at the Albergue Aysa café, but a glance through the window showed no signs of life at all. The old border gate looked to be gathering dust, too, defunct since the arrival of the Schengen zone some forty years ago. No chance of an early lunch on the border, then – but I did say a prayer at the shrine of Mary, and I did appreciate the spectacular views down the Spanish side of the border.

In a heartbeat, I was suddenly in Spain. It’s amazing how quickly the world changes, national border or no. The lush vegetation of the French side was gone, replaced by a warm and dry boulder-strewn landscape, where the clustered forests gave way to spread-out stands of conifers. Crickets and cicadas replaced the chaffinches and blackbirds that had accompanied me up the other side, and all the hikers said buenas instead of bonjour.

Most striking of all were the carpets of English Iris, a Pyrenean flower of singular beauty that grew all over the place in the high meadows. They brought life to the place, which was much needed, as the ski station of Candanchú was little more than a ghost town. No shops, no traffic, no children in the park. All the ski lifts frozen in place where they ground to a halt several months ago. Just the sound of a door slamming shut in one of the apartment blocks I walked past. It was quite eerie.

It took me just shy of two hours to descend to Canfranc-Estación, the first living town on the Spanish side after Somport. Powered on by my fourth Nak’d bar (I brought eight out with me, but I was saving these for today’s trek), I made it down the mountain in reasonably good time. I changed my socks again just before descending, which was a very good idea – I wasn’t going to risk the blisters that might have ensued from a further three hours’ march in sodden feet. My sandals dried out quickly in the heat, which was a small blessing.

Canfranc-Estación is a curious affair, seemingly built around the enormous international railway station in 1928. The monstrous project paid minimal returns, and the station closed down in 1970 after a number of disasters included a fire in 1944 that destroyed almost all the homes in the town, driving the townsfolk to relocate to the village of Los Arañones further down the valley. There’s supposed to be plans afoot to get the station working again, but for now, the building serves as a rather grandiose hotel.

There are a few private albergues in Canfranc-Estación, but I had my heart set on the municipal in Canfranc Pueblo, which was still an hour’s walk away. It was already one o’clock, which is a silly time of day to be walking the Camino in summer, but I was adamant, so I decided to forgo the extremely tempting aromas coming from the asadores in town and press on.

Beyond the grand station, the Camino weaves its way down the mountainside through a series of shady forests and warm meadows. Quite a few locals had set up shop beside the pools created by the many rivers tumbling down into the valley, but I had a schedule to keep – I would have to be quick if I were to reach Canfranc in time for the 14.00 opening time of the municipal Albergue.

Fortunately, I had no need to check my phone to navigate anymore. The yellow trail markers have returned, almost as soon as I crossed the border. These flechas amarillas make it very hard to get lost on the Camino, making it surely one of the most welcoming of long-distance hikes in the world. I’ll tell you sometime about the man who came up with the idea. But that, I think, is enough for today.

The Norwegian couple who run this donativo albergue have offered to make both dinner and breakfast for the four of us sheltered here tonight. And what a donativo…! It’s one of the best set-ups I’ve seen in an albergue this side of Galicia. No wonder it was so highly praised online!

Time, I think, for a nap before dinner. At an estimated 1,300m of ascent and a further 700m of descent over 29km, I’ve earned it. BB x

A Farewell to Armchairs

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

The Flat, Taunton. 21.49.

Jumpin’ Jack Flash – The Rolling Stones

Tonight is my last night in the comfort of my own home. By this time tomorrow, I will have checked into my hostel in Bordeaux, the first of six weeks of bunk beds, temperamental showers and creaky metal lockers. Six weeks is as long as a half term – I have to keep reminding myself of that fact. Six weeks is a very long time to be on the road. But my bag is nearly packed and I’m starting to get itchy feet. Let’s hope that’s the only condition my feet suffer from over the next month and a half!

That’s me – a much younger version of me, that is – on my first Camino, some six years ago. A lot has changed since then! Back then, I was still a humble teaching assistant, without the PGCE or the workload that comes with it. I couldn’t walk more than a week or so of the Camino because I was being ousted from my house on site, which had caught the eye of an ambitious young minister, and I had my PGCE Numeracy skills test to revise for (which was nowhere near as hard as I thought it would be). The girl I was with at the time would also not have been overly keen on me staying away so long, so it was only an eight day affair, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Logroño.

I considered various Caminos this summer, including the Norte and the Plata. The fiendish heat forecast for the summer put me off the Plata, which would have taken me through easily my favourite regions of Spain – Andalucía and Extremadura – and the tarmac trails and relatively high cost ultimately dissuaded me from the Norte. Rumours are currently circulating that they’re filming the sequel to Martin Sheen’s The Way on the Norte this summer, so I think I’ve made the right choice.

I’ve done the Francés before, so why am I doing it again? For the same reason I second-guessed the Plata: you are more likely to find people on the Francés, and it’s the people who make or break the Camino. I met an ensemble cast of characters on my last run: Mikkel the Dane, Domenico the Carabiniere, the Professor, Mamasita the German drunkard and Simas, who walked with me to the end of the road in Fisterra. People from all walks of life can be found on the Camino, and especially on the Francés, which is by far the most affordable of all the available options.

But I’m not doing the same route. Not entirely. This year I’m starting in Oloron-Sainte-Marie, some sixty-five kilometres to the east of Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port. The Camino Aragonés – by some accounts, the “original” Camino Francés – starts a few days’ march to the south at the pass of Somport, but I want to enjoy the unbridled majesty of the Pyrenees, so rather than catching a bus to the border, I’m going to walk the last few days of the Chemin d’Arles, one of the French pilgrim roads that leads up into the mountains.

The more popular Napoleon Route from Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port begins with a monstrously steep climb up and over Lepoeder summit at the western edge of the Pyrenees. I walked that way years ago with three Italian guys. One of them had done the Aragonés before and was full of praise for its natural beauty, and so it is to him, I suppose, that I owe the seeds of this itinerary.

The scenery on the Napoleon route is spectacular, and the elevation is certainly nothing to sniff at, but if memory serves, it felt more like a giant hill than a mountain (or, at the very least, a Scottish highland). The Camino Aragonés, on the other hand, cuts straight through the heart of the Pyrenees.

I’m rather picky when it comes to mountains, largely on account of having been dreadfully spoilt by a year in the rugged limestone-scarred hills of the Sierra de Grazalema as a kid. Unless it’s sheer, craggy and haunted by the hulking shadows of an eagle, it’s not mountain enough for me.

Maybe I’ll get lucky and see a lammergeier – easily identifiable by their diamond-shaped tails. Maybe. Right now, I’d settle for some mountain air. My flat has only one window that can open, and all the others are frosted and quintuple-glazed – one of the downsides of living attached to a boarding house.

After Somport, the Camino Aragonés winds down to the Aragonese city of Jaca before arcing around to the west. I’ll be joining the Camino Francés at Puente La Reina, after which I will be on familiar territory as far as León. The meseta is legendarily testing, but I wouldn’t walk it any other time of year. There’s something powerful about taking the pilgrim road straight across the Sun’s anvil.

Well, I suppose I’d better start packing my bag, and then try to get some sleep. I’ve a routine to get into, after all. See you on the other side. BB x

Where to next…?

/ Benjamin Barnabas / Leave a comment

It’s getting mighty cold here in Tierra de Barros. I went to sleep clutching at my knees and somehow managed a decent night’s rest, only to wake up and find I’d left the window slightly ajar. I think I need to invest in a winter duvet more than a bike. I’m still not used to this system of alternating between summer and winter duvets. I almost miss the English climate. Almost…

We’re now three weeks away from the end of term. Yes, term ends on the 22nd December, and this year that falls on a Friday. Late, but not too late. Today’s a regular Monday. I’m sitting in the living room, easily the warmest room in the flat, having just turned the heating off after a generous couple of hours’ life-giving warmth. I have a private class with the kiddos at six (hopefully they’ll behave better this week – but then, they are only three years old), and I need to go shopping, as when I went this afternoon it took picking up the first item in the fruit and veg aisle for me to realise I’d left both my cash and my card at home.

So what’s to do? Well, it’s the time of year when I need to start thinking about where I’d like to be next year. Amongst other cards I have on the table – up to and including the JET programme in a few years’ time – the original plan still stands, which is to carry on with the British Council assistant jig for another year, albeit this time not in IES Meléndez Valdés, 06220 Villafranca de los Barros, Badajoz. The school has been wonderful to me and I could hardly have asked for a better host for two years, but I ought to spread my wings and discover somewhere new whilst I can. After all, Spain is a kingdom of many worlds: Extremadura may be one of her most beautiful, but there are other jewels in the crown!

So, for my own benefit – and for those who are interested in applying for the programme – I’ve decided to go through each region, in alphabetical order, to assess the strengths and drawbacks of working in each. Coming back to Villafranca was easy… it’s time to step back into the unknown!

(Ed.: I’ve used my own photos where possible – Andalucía, Cantabria, Extremadura and Madrid – but the rest are various stock images!)

Andalucía

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Where: South
Weather: Hot
Dialects: No (though Andalú, the regional accent, might as well be)
Visited?: Yes (far too often)

Ah, Andalucía. My old homeland! And, until recently, the region of Spain I knew best. In many ways the ‘classic’ Spain that comes to mind, Andalucía is – understandably – very oversubscribed as a destination. The Americans tend to have their eyes on it, and thanks to their system, which allows preferential treatment to consecutive-year assistants, they tend to end up there eventually, too (after doing time in equally beautiful backwater regions). Andalucía isn’t necessarily more spectacular than any of the other regions, but it offers a lot more bang-for-your-buck over the distance it spans: cities like Granada, Córdoba, Cádiz, Ronda and Sevilla ooze Romantic charm, and then there’s the natural beauty of the Alpujarras, Doñana National Park, the Sierra Morena and the all-too-often-overlooked beaches of the Costa de la Luz. It’s a fantastic region in which to fall in love with Spain, but because it’s so well known, it can be difficult to escape… unless, of course, you end up in somewhere like Olvera.

Probability: 7/10

Aragón

Where: Northeast
Weather: Cold
Dialect: Aragonese, Catalan (only in the high north and west)
Visited?: Yes

Alright, so a service station and a brief visit to Calatayud don’t exactly count as visiting Aragón per se… Aragón is a lot like Extremadura. Lots of people pass through it on their way to somewhere else. Zaragoza is probably its most famous city, but what of the rest of the region? Huesca in the north plays host to some of the most beautiful Pyrenean landscapes out there, and Teruel would kindly like to remind you that it does exist, despite what the rest of Spain will tell you. Aragonese, a local dialect, survives to the present, but as Spanish is the only ‘official’ language, there’s no cause for concern. High on the Spanish plateau, it gets mighty chilly in winter, but it is also the home of the Comarca de Monegros, a vast expense of semi-desert. And, like Extremadura, its comparatively unknown status makes it a very good place to go native.

Probability: 8/10

Asturias

Where: North
Weather: Cold
Dialects: No
Visited: Yes

A popular choice amongst second-years, Asturias is where modern Spain was born. With pretty seaside towns, Alpine comforts and forested hills that actually go brown in autumn, in some ways it’s the perfect antidote to the Spanish south. For those used to endless heat, readily available paella and Moorish castles, it can seem like a very different world… which it is. The Spanish is very clear here, and it has some of the most beautiful beaches on the peninsula, even if they aren’t exactly the warmest. It’s a little harder to get to, but Santander’s airport offers cheap flights and is only just across the border. It is, however, a little on the expensive side.

Probability: 8/10

Cantabria

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Where: North
Weather: Cold
Dialects: No
Visited: Yes

Cantabria, after Andalucía and Extremadura, is the region of Spain I’ve visited the most. No, scratch that. Technically speaking, Santillana del Mar is the third region of Spain I’ve visited the most, as for some reason I ended up there on all three occasions. A marginally less mountainous version of Asturias, Cantabria is a good choice for the British auxiliar who doesn’t want to leave behind too many creature comforts. Quesada pasiega, a local speciality, is unheavenly good (like most of the Iberian peninsula’s takes on the custard tart), and the stereotype is true: I’ve seen more cows and tractors here than in any other part of Spain. It doesn’t have the quasi-African feel of the south, but what it does have is a cheap and reliable train network, which is a huge plus in any world.

Probability: 5/10

Castilla La Mancha

Where: South-central
Weather: Hot/cold
Dialects: No
Visited: Yes

Like Aragón, Castilla La Mancha is a region I can hardly claim to have visited, having spent just a few days in Toledo a few years back. If Andalucía is the Spain sold to tourists, Castilla La Mancha is the one you find in picture books. It’s Don Quijote country, and any bus ride from Madrid to the south will show you that: seemingly endless fields stretch as far as the eye can see, dotted in various locations with mountain ranges and the iconic windmills (see Consuegra, above). It’s also, coincidentally, the land of my ancestors; my grandfather was from Villarrobledo, a town near Albacete. An immense region where it is very easy to go native, but perhaps not the most awe-inspiring on offer. Toledo, however, is easily one of the world’s most beautiful cities…

Probability: 4/10

Castilla y León

Where: Northwest
Weather: Cold
Dialects: Leonese (in León province)
Visited: Yes

Make no bones about it. Castilla y León is gorgeous. It has its less interesting parts (the Camino de Santiago goes through them), and is in part a mirror of sister-province Castilla La Mancha to the south, but drawn across the meseta are some of Spain’s most striking landscapes. The Duero river gorge is breath-taking, as are the old Roman gold mines of Las Medulas (see above), and the granite-strewn scenery to the north of Burgos looks like something out of a Lord of the Rings film (but then, this was where El Cid was born). Here they speak the ‘purest’ Spanish, so you’ll have absolutely no problems with the language here. It’s clear, crisp and, whilst no slower than the usual Spanish machine-gun delivery, easier to understand than, say, any of the southern accents. The cuisine is also spectacular; in my humble opinion, most of Spain’s best food is its earthy, country food, and you’ll find a lot of it here. The cities of León, Burgos and especially Salamanca are wonders in their own right. Just watch out for the slow-burning Leonese separatist movement.

Probability: 8/10

Cataluña

Where: Northwest
Weather: Warm
Dialects: Catalan (official language)
Visited: Yes

This year would have been a very interesting year to be working in Spain’s black-sheep region. Even after the failure of Puigdemont’s half-hearted rebellion, I suspect it’d be worth a punt for the next few years. I’ve been to Barcelona a couple of times; school trips on both occasions, so I’ve barely begun to scratch to the surface of the place. The Costa Brava is undeniably beautiful, with stunning Mediterranean coves and sparkling white beaches. The Catalonian interior, however, is what grabs me: like neighbouring Aragón, Cataluña has some spectacular mountains. This is Serrallonga’s country, and I’d sure like to find out some more about the gang warfare between the Nyerros and the Cadells of old… if it weren’t for the language barrier. Now more than ever do I regret taking a Persian module over Catalan at university! You should bear in mind that Cataluña’s relative affluence makes it a little more expensive than the other comunidades, especially so in Barcelona itself. But if you’re after a more cosmopolitan experience, this is the place for you!

Probability: 6/10

Ceuta and Melilla

Where: North coast of Morocco
Weather: Hot
Dialect: No (though strong Arabic presence)
Visited: No

Despite the fact that I lived in Tetouan for an entire summer last year, I never did visit Ceuta. For one reason or another, something always came up to stop me going. Which is a shame, really: as the Spanish territories go, they’re pretty unique. Expect a very Moroccan vibe, with the North African kingdom literally within a stone’s throw at any given moment. If it weren’t for their size and the general cost and difficulty in getting to and from them if I ever wanted to travel, I’d probably sign up right away. It would, at the very least, give me an excuse to keep my Arabic polished. Most of the placements are in the two cities, though, which is a bit of a turn-off for me.

Probability: 4/10

Extremadura

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Where: West
Weather: Hot/cold
Dialects: No
Visited: Yes

Of course, I could always stay put, but ask for a more northerly location: specifically, the green hills of Cáceres. There’s no denying Extremadura is by far my favourite region, and with good reason: it’s wild, it’s still relatively undiscovered, it’s lacking in other guiris and the people are some of the friendliest I’ve ever met. Plus, La Vera. Plus, Hornachos. Plus, the book. Heck, I’d stay just to be closer to Tasha and Miguel, who were pivotal in my return to Villafranca this year. With its welcoming vibe and its off-the-wall auxiliares, it’d be my top recommendation to anybody, though I’d concede you have to be prepared to be out in the sticks to be here. For me, however, it’s something of a safe option, and I’d much rather use this chance whilst I have it to explore some more of my grandfather’s beautiful country. Even if Extremadura is the best. Period. I’ll be coming back to this place for the rest of my life.

Probability: 7/10

Galicia

Where: Northwest
Weather: Cold
Dialects: Gallego (official language)
Visited: No

It rains a lot. Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s look at Galicia. Galicia is the Ireland of Spain, where the country’s Celtic roots are strongest. I mean, when their folk bands deliberately cover songs made famous by The Corrs, the ties are hard to miss. Galicia is about as far from the Spanish south as you can get on the mainland, in both distance and culture. Gallego is a thing, but I’m not above learning a new language. The word on the street is that the auxiliar programme there is one of the best in the country, if not the best. That, combined with the cheapness of living and otherworldliness that this region offers, make it the standout competitor for my attention this time around. And I never thought I’d consider it, which makes it all the more appealing. After all, I had no idea what or where Extremadura was, once upon a time. I’d very much like Galicia to be my next miraculous discovery.

Probability: 9/10

Islas Baleares

Where: Mediterranean Sea
Weather: Hot
Dialects: Catalan
Visited: No

Mallorca, Menorca and Ibiza. Party destinations in summer… and for the rest of the year? Well, EasyJet and Ryanair are always offering such cheap flights that there must be something to do there in January… right? If it weren’t for the fact that they’re islands, I might seriously consider the Baleares. But I like having room to manoeuvre, and I don’t know whether I’d feel trapped on an island. Plus, they speak a lot of Catalan there. Once again, I wish I’d not gone chasing Persian down the rabbit hole.

Probability: 2/10

Islas Canarias

Where: Off the west coast of Morocco
Weather: Hot
Dialects: No
Visited: No

First things first: it’s quite a long way from Spain. The Canary Islands, like the Baleares, can seem a very remote posting. Cheap flights are readily available to the UK and elsewhere, thanks to a steady flow of tourists, but I’m not sure I’d be thrilled if I were posted there – not least of all because it’s quite difficult to distance yourself from the touristic side, upon which the Canary Islands depend. I wouldn’t mind going in search of the islands’ Houbara bustards though, or taking a stroll in the misty laurel forests of the Garajonay National Park.

Probability: 3/10

La Rioja

Where: North
Weather: Warm
Dialects: No
Visited: No

I’m going to be perfectly honest. I know next to nothing about La Rioja, except for the fact that it’s a small region with a justifiable fame for its wine. Given its positioning, I expect it’s a little more pricey than what I’m used to, but don’t hold me to that. I’ll leave you to discover La Rioja in my stead.

Probability: 2/10

Madrid

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Where: Central
Weather: Hot
Dialects: No
Visited: Yes

One word. No. The surrounding countryside of Madrid is unquestionably beautiful, no doubt about that, but I would rather leave the country than work in Madrid itself. As cities go, Madrid’s not so bad, but I’m a country boy; cities are for visiting, not for living in. Auxiliares posted in Madrid earn 1000€ instead of the usual 700€ to compensate for the higher living costs and also work 16 hours per week instead of 12, though after calculating the going rate for private lessons and such, I don’t half wonder whether that’s entirely fair – or even financially viable. No; for me, Madrid is just too big a move. I’d recommend the Sierra de Guadarrama, El Rey León and the Parque del Retiro, though (pictured).

Probability: 1/10

Murcia

Where: Southeast
Weather: Hot
Dialects: No
Visited: No

This year’s auxiliares are complaining about the fact we haven’t been paid for October and November yet. If what I’ve heard about Murcia is true, the auxiliares posted there are never paid on time. Murcia is one of Spain’s hidden gems: like Aragón and Extremadura, it often gets overlooked because it has more glamorous neighbours that have more of what it has and better. In Murcia’s case, that’s Valencia and Andalucía. I know a few lovely people from Murcia and I’d love to visit one day, but as year on year it becomes a larger wing of Almeria’s enormous European greenhouse, I find myself drawn to the greener, wilder parts of Spain.

Probability: 4/10

Navarra

Where: North
Weather: Cold
Dialects: No
Visited: No

A former kingdom in its own right (which, you could argue, is an accolade held by most of the Spanish realms), Navarra sits at the feet of the Pyrenees as a less extreme though equally wondrous region in the Spanish north. A friend of mine was based in Tudela last year and had a great time there, so it seems to be to be a good place to work. Like the Canary Islands, it’s also more popular with Brits than Americans, so expect less encounters with scotch tape, candies and Fall. It’s also rather well situated, allowing easy access to several of Spain’s more attractive destinations.

Probability: 6/10

País Vasco

Where: North
Weather: Cold
Dialects: Basque
Visited: Yes

The Basque Country got a positive makeover recently in the film Ocho Apellidos Vascos and its sequel, not doing away with but helping to redirect attention from the ETA bombings of the past to the more attractive aspects of Basque culture. If the Catalans are independent, it’s nothing compared to the Basques, whose regional language – Euskera – is so far removed from Spanish that it feels as though you’ve skipped five countries rather than one region. Situated in the industrial north, the Basque Country plays host to much of Spain’s industry (just look at all the Basque banks), and is therefore afforded a more affluent lifestyle. That makes it more expensive, which is a drawback, but many would argue it’s worth it. The Basques are, after all, the stuff of legend…

Probability: 5/10

Valencia

Where: East
Weather: Hot
Dialects: Valencian
Visited: No

There’s a good deal more to Valencia than the corruption and the coast, even if that is the image most people have. I’ve never made it to El Cid’s triumphal city, it never having been quite on my radar, and though I have many friends who have been up and down the coast, I’ve never quite felt the pull to go. Another more costly region, Valencian – a variant of Catalan – is widely spoken here, though Spanish is also used in its capacity as the kingdom’s official language. It played a large role in the expulsion of the Moriscos though, and that’s something I’d like to look into, albeit over a short period of time. Maybe for holidays, but for me, not for work.

Probability: 3/10

I’m more or less decided on the northwest, but I’m still open to ideas. Now that Senegal is an option for language assistant placements, it’s that little bit harder to say no to the world beyond Spain (that would have turned my world upside down if it had been an option in my second year. I would very probably have dropped Arabic, studied French and continued to wing it with Spanish). However, a promise is a promise, and I’m determined to do what I can to become truly fluent in Spanish, however long it takes, wherever it leads me.

The deadline for next year is 12th February 2018. I have a couple of months to decide. BB x