The weekend after we arrived back Pete and I went up to Huesca in the mountains where my stepbrother Dave and his wife, Roz, live in a cave! It’s a very civilised cave however with all the mod cons. When they bought it 15 years ago it was a very different story as you can see in the photos. They have done a great job getting it really comfortable and liveable. They took us to Castril Gorge where we walked along a narrow wooden pathway and over a swing bridge and through a tunnel to find the restaurant was closed – oh, well there were plenty more. I found out what all the rows of trees are sometimes about – they were planted ages ago to give shade to marching soldiers. The landscape around Huesca (pronounced Whekka) is very High Chaparal and cow boyish. They did in fact make a lot of westerns here including The Good the Bad and the Ugly apparently. The almond trees were all in blossom, hundreds of acres of them. Everyone is very happy that all the California trees died of a blight just recently.
Apart from a few shopping trips and returning the rental car we didn’t do much for the next bit of time waiting for a weather window to get to Ibiza. We decided against going up the coast then across as the weather has been cold and very changeable so decided to stay put then overnight to the islands. We did manage to have another very nice paella meal with Gonzalo and his girlfriend and caught up with Pete and Bee from Jubilate Mare who drove up from Cartagena for the day. Bee had two old school friends with her – we all had a noisy fun lunch on a cold rainy day. Kevin and Marion took us one night to an English restaurant up the coast. It was hilarious seeing all the Poms out eating all their home food. The menu read like an English pub and none of the staff looked Spanish. For some it is definitely a case of “when in Rome don’t, whatever you do, be Roman”.
