A Gradual Return to Civilization
On this day I visited 4 new towns, each one about 4 times larger than the previous one, and employed 4 progressively faster means of transportation between them, from walking to minibus, to coach bus to train. It was a smooth way to ease back into the mechanized world, at least for the time being.
The first transport out of Torla was not until 3:30 pm, so I decided to spend the morning by walking down to the nearest sizeable town, Broto, which boasted an internet cafe. The route lay along a valley with ripe blackberries, hazelnuts, apples and even walnuts aplenty, so that by early afternoon I had given myself quite an uncomfortable stomach ache from the hundreds of hazelnuts I ate. I got quite adept at cracking the shells without crushing the nut inside, but calculated that, at best, I could peel a dollar's worth of nuts per hour, which was not an easy way to make a living.
When I reached the small town, Broto, it turned out that everything there, including my internet cafe, was closed for Broto's annual holiday of some sort. When I asked someone in the street how the townspeople celebrated the day (hoping, at least, to see some ancient Aragonese rituals to pass the time), the man replied that they celebrated by doing absolutely nothing.
Disappointed, I returned to Torla, where Mark and I hopped on a shuttle bus to SabiNanigo. From there we took a coach bus to Huesca, and then a train to Zaragoza, Aragon's capital and home to half of its population. We arrived in the city quite late, and were lucky to find an open pension. Zaragoza, it turned out, was just starting its own week-long festivities honoring the Virgin of Pilar.
The first transport out of Torla was not until 3:30 pm, so I decided to spend the morning by walking down to the nearest sizeable town, Broto, which boasted an internet cafe. The route lay along a valley with ripe blackberries, hazelnuts, apples and even walnuts aplenty, so that by early afternoon I had given myself quite an uncomfortable stomach ache from the hundreds of hazelnuts I ate. I got quite adept at cracking the shells without crushing the nut inside, but calculated that, at best, I could peel a dollar's worth of nuts per hour, which was not an easy way to make a living.
When I reached the small town, Broto, it turned out that everything there, including my internet cafe, was closed for Broto's annual holiday of some sort. When I asked someone in the street how the townspeople celebrated the day (hoping, at least, to see some ancient Aragonese rituals to pass the time), the man replied that they celebrated by doing absolutely nothing.
Disappointed, I returned to Torla, where Mark and I hopped on a shuttle bus to SabiNanigo. From there we took a coach bus to Huesca, and then a train to Zaragoza, Aragon's capital and home to half of its population. We arrived in the city quite late, and were lucky to find an open pension. Zaragoza, it turned out, was just starting its own week-long festivities honoring the Virgin of Pilar.
posted by Dmitri Evseev at 8:33 AM
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