You can follow some of our quirky adventures by following the links below. You can click on the thumbnail images on the right to see a larger version.

• "So you want to be a vulture?"
• Mehmet's Dinner Dash
• Our very short-lived Polar Bear Club
• Photographic Fun
• "You know about Israel?"
• Something's amiss at Colomers

We saw and photographed several Egyptian Vultures on our hike, especially on our fifth day as we trekked from Refugi Ventosa i Calvell to Refugi de Colomers.  Thankfully we looked spritely enough to avoid being beset upon by the vultures, but their suspect circling nonetheless provided some fodder for entertainment.

In particular, one skit-style "monologue" emerged from the experience, largely on the basis of comedic verbal sparring between Mike and George, in which a veteran vulture counsels a vulture wannabe.  For some reason, this vulture monologue always had some sort of stereotypical mafioso accent attached to it.

Warning:  The following passage involves patented Vulture-Gore (TM) descriptions.  If you are disgusted by vultures and their feeding practices, please skip to the next story.

So you wanna be a vulture?  O.k., kid, well ya gotta have three things.

First, ya gotta have a three metre wingspan. Minimum.

Second, ya gotta be able to spot a dyin' marmot from the next valley over. There's no time for mistakes.  And when you arrive on the scene, ya gotta have a screetch that says:  "Hurry up and die, you sonnuva marmot!".  'Cause you ain't got all day! 

Now, third ... third, you gotta have a long neck.  You ever heard of Jimmy "The Neck" Gambino?  Jimmy could reach into a dead hyena and pick out its eyeballs through its arsehole.  Now that was a neck!

So that's it, kid.  Now if you think you got what it takes, I wanna see it.  You got two days.  Find me a dead marmot, and we'll talk.  Now get outta here. 

At Refugi Ventosa i Calvell -- our launching pad for our two peak attempts to Punta Alta and Pic de Lucia -- dinner was served between 7:00 and 8:00 p.m.  On our third day, we knew that we were in trouble as we arrived near the peak of Punta Alta hours later than we expected.  While some enthusiastic boot-skiing helped to shave off some time on the way back, the situation still looked bad ... the Escargots were in danger of missing dinner!

At 7:00, With perhaps an hour left to go, Mehmet, who was feeling energetic, rushed ahead in an effort to arrive before 8:00, after first getting some Spanish coaching from Anatole:

"My friends are still alive, they're coming, and we'll still want dinner".

The "alive" part of the comment centred on the fact that our Ventosa i Calvell host -- Mark -- had told us that the entire hike would take approximately 5 hours. We had pretty much doubled that (we arrived back at the Refugi 10.5 hours after we left). We were worried that he'd be worried. We were also quite concerned about getting dinner, because food was one of our main obsessions throughout the trip. Sweet, sweet calories.

Mehmet, bless his feet, arrived on time and told Mark about our predicament. The remaining Escargots rolled in about half an hour late, at 8:30 p.m., exhausted and hungry, but relieved to find dinner still being served.

Our route on the 6th day took us past many scenic lakes, some of which looked very inviting. We usually remarked "on the way back" or "maybe later" when discussing the idea of going for a dip, however. This day was one of several involving reasonably radical climate change, as it was warm and pleasant for most of the first half of the day but then hailed violently just as we reached our local maximum altitude for the day. This resulted in the following conversation between a wet, cold, and slightly bitter Mehmet, and a simply wet and cold George.

G:  "When should we stop for lunch? I'm hungry."
M:  "Maybe when it stops raining? I'm wet and cold."
G:  "What if it doesn't stop raining?"
M:  "Then I'll meet you back at the lodge."

Luckily it did stop raining, and we had a great lunch. After this episode the day got much warmer and the lakes looked more and more inviting. We finally stopped at a likely looking suspect, changed into swimwear, and began the long process of loitering at the water's edge contemplating the idiocy of what we were about to do.

George was intelligent from the beginning and refused to even consider taking part. Mike perched on the fence: he changed and was prepared but backed out after some initial toe-dipping. The other fools (the remaining three Escargots) wasted much time before their final awkward rush. As we suspected, the lake fed by melting snow was cold -- shockingly, painfully, mind-numbingly cold. George captured the deliberations and the agony on film.

Four cameras were brought (two digital, two film SLR). Over 700 photos were taken.

We were quite, um, enthusiastic about the opportunity to take photos of such beautiful scenery, and there were many pauses in our trek to take advantage of our photogenic surroundings. You can visit our full photo gallery (our favourite 100 photos) from the trip, but below we've just highlighted a few of what we felt were our most interesting photographic moments.

• On the last night, a distant thunder and lightning storm was visible from Colomers. With a bit of patience, a vaguely steady hand, and a 20-second exposure, Anatole managed to capture the sky lit up by lightning. The silhouette of a tree can be seen on the left, and a lake is faintly visible at centre-right.
  
  
• Christina was the Escargots' flower expert and delighted in taking pictures of any and all flora. The photograph at right is a nice composition, the rest of us thought, with crisp, vibrant colours, interesting shadows, and a creative mix of in and out of focus elements.
  
  
• On the first night at Refugi Ventosa i Calvell, Mehmet and Anatole stayed up to watch the full moon rise. Anatole brought down his tripod and snapped a handful of pictures as the moon rose.
  
  
• Mike Dobbin's camera had a nifty little panoramic feature that allowed you to stitch together landscape photos. Mike snapped two particularly nice panoramas -- one near the peak of Punta Alta and the other from the Pic de Lucia. You can find these elsewhere on our web site, but they are displayed at a larger size here.
  

One of the great pleasures of our trip was running into fellow hikers from around the world. We ended up socializing the most at Colomers, where dinner was a particularly communal affair. The sleeping arrangements at Colomers were also cozy. We occupied a top bunk layer of five mattresses, and below us were a group of five very friendly Israelis. We struck up a conversation when we first met and several times thereafter over the course of our two days at Colomers.

The moment worth recounting came very early during our first conversation, when one of the Israelis first told us his group was from Israel.  Anatole asked "Where in Israel are you from?" (effectively "which city/town?"), to which the Israeli replied, incredulously, "You know about Israel?"

They were surprised that we would know much beyond the existence of Israel as a country, and we were surprised that they were surprised.  We explained why we knew something about Israel's geography (everything from general following of the news to Anatole's policy studies to George's having spent a summer working on solar energy in Israel), shared a few laughs, and quickly made five new hiking friends.

Story by George coming soon ...

In the meantime, click here to read George's e-mail exchange with a Pyrenees expert about "the facilities" at Refugi Colomers.