Busy day

Backblipping … no time to catch up! Thankfully I slept much better last night, and felt revived this morning. We didn’t have to drag ourselves out of bed early, as we just did an easy and familiar walk through the woods above the ski lifts, up to a viewpoint with a great mountain view. Usually we meet people up there to chat to, but we must have been too early as we didn’t meet a soul until we were coming down again, when we met several groups on their way up. Gold star for S for finding G’s hat and hearing aid, which he had dropped on the way up. It would have been rude not to stop at the bar for beer and a bag of crisps.

At home we had a copious lunch of leftovers at the very Spanish hour of 3 o’clock. Then we dispersed for various forms of rest for a couple of hours before reconvening for evening activities. S, A and I headed for Rialp, while G opted to walk down to Tavascan.

We had a reason for visiting Rialp, but when we arrived we first explored the medieval streets. It’s a fairly obscure place which apparently hasn’t been spared by the scourge of overtourism. The first extra is hoardings around a long abandoned development evidently intended to be tourist flats.The graffiti reads, “People without houses, houses without people”, and there is other anti Airbnb graffiti around town. A more attractive view in the main blip and the second extra.

Anyway. The reason we were in Rialp is because it was the last day of an exhibition of photos by Ramón Baylina, the photographer we met with his partner Rosa while on a walk in the woods two years ago. The exhibition is only open from 7-9 pm, and we arrived shortly after it opened. We were pleased to find that Ramon and Rosa were actually there, and they remembered us once we had jogged their memories about where we met them. Ramón was giving a couple a guided tour of the 20 or so huge aluminum prints (A2 sized), so we joined them, and Rosa helped out by translating some of the Catalan into English.

The photos are remarkable. The exhibition was described as flora and fauna, but included other subjects too: landscapes, and a quite mind-blowing star trail photo (not something I normally appreciate, but this was mesmerising). His nature photos are particularly amazing — he is on Instagram if you want a look.

While we were in the exhibition we happily avoided a 15-minute downpour — I took my blip out of the window of the exhibition space as the sun came out afterwards. Features Rialp’s church and castle.

The day was not over! We drove back to Tavascan and met up with G at the village fiesta. This was somewhat underwhelming. When we arrived at the village hall, a few people were listlessly dancing a Madison-like dance to a live group. S and I wanted to go to the loo, and there were no facilities, so we used this as an excuse to go to a nearby bar for beer and a plate of patatas bravas.

Back at the fiesta, the ambiance was a bit more lively and noisy. To our surprise, G and A were dancing. We bumped into L, a friend of one of our neighbours at home. She lives near us, but her family is from Tavascan, so she visits in the summer. Small world!

To our repeated surprise, the band packed up promptly at 9:30 (“We have to get back to Girona”). Seemed a bit lightweight, but I was about ready to turn in anyway, so I wasn’t displeased. I drove us back up the windy road in the dark, and we had a nightcap of wine back at the ranch before heading for bed. The end!