Güesa
The next morning we boarded a train to Pamplona. A friend of Ben's family picked us up at the station and took us to her country house in the Pyrenées.
Their house is in a tiny, tiny Basque village called Güesa. It has only one street, and no businesses.
Next door to Becky and Mikel's house is the old schoolhouse, now a cozy town social center where ice cream, snacks and drinks are sold at cost. You put the money in an envelope on the counter. There is a kitchen that's used for the town fiesta, Christmas meals and the like.
Thhe Pyrenées loom large above tiny Güesa. They are beautiful and cruel looking -- huge naked rocks that ooze greenery from giant fissures. There's something about the light, the distance, the weather - something - that makes the mountains glimmer a tiny bit, like the watery mirror landscape of a fijord. The shimmer gave me the feeling that at any moment the surface of the water would be broken and the mountains come crashing down.
We spent an idyllic couple of days taking trips to the swimming hole, a hike straight up a mountain to a small chapel where tradition dictates that those who reach the top ring the chapel bell, which rings out across the valley and lets the people down in Güesa know that you've arrived. We had big lunches and quiet siestas. At night we gathered on the lawn to watch the falling stars.
I spent some time alone by the river. I waded around, poked things with sticks, let the minnows nibble on my toes. It was the same kind of dreamy, constructive nothing I engaged in as a child.
Their house is in a tiny, tiny Basque village called Güesa. It has only one street, and no businesses.
Next door to Becky and Mikel's house is the old schoolhouse, now a cozy town social center where ice cream, snacks and drinks are sold at cost. You put the money in an envelope on the counter. There is a kitchen that's used for the town fiesta, Christmas meals and the like.
Thhe Pyrenées loom large above tiny Güesa. They are beautiful and cruel looking -- huge naked rocks that ooze greenery from giant fissures. There's something about the light, the distance, the weather - something - that makes the mountains glimmer a tiny bit, like the watery mirror landscape of a fijord. The shimmer gave me the feeling that at any moment the surface of the water would be broken and the mountains come crashing down.
We spent an idyllic couple of days taking trips to the swimming hole, a hike straight up a mountain to a small chapel where tradition dictates that those who reach the top ring the chapel bell, which rings out across the valley and lets the people down in Güesa know that you've arrived. We had big lunches and quiet siestas. At night we gathered on the lawn to watch the falling stars.
I spent some time alone by the river. I waded around, poked things with sticks, let the minnows nibble on my toes. It was the same kind of dreamy, constructive nothing I engaged in as a child.
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