It took a couple of nights in an apartment in Cartagena to get a better sense of how long repairs were going to take. Given that a delayed tourist season was on us, and when repair days stretched to weeks, we headed north to the Pyrenees Mountains.<\/p>\n
We made an executive decision: that Marlon would be happier with our favourite dog sitters, Brian and Lynn, rather than rolling around in the back of a rental car. He\u2019s been having a wonderful time. Even enjoying a summer bromance with Tiger, a seven-year-old Staffordshire terrier. I\u2019m sure he\u2019ll be invigorated enough to blog about it soon.<\/p>\n
Covid restrictions have lifted all over Spain and we excitedly drove north out of Murcia for the first time in months. Spain\u2019s approach to the crisis has been justifiably cautious. The pandemic death rate spiked fast and settled down slowly. As constraints relax, requirements for physical distancing, mask-wearing in public, and the constant use of hand sanitizer are met with only a modicum of grumbling. The horrifying news out of the United States, a country once capable of walking on the Moon, is everywhere. As a result, even the few hardcore deniers here fell in line.<\/p>\n
The Pyrenees run the length of the French-Spanish border. Like a putty knife on glass, France moulds mountains out of Spain\u2019s topsoil as it slips under le pays de la belle <\/em>on its way north. At their highest, the Pyrenees top out at just over 3,400 metres (11,100ft). The middle part, centred in Aragon<\/a>, is the most rugged.<\/p>\n Traffic was light. As of July 1, it is possible to cross borders within the Schengen area, but a tsunami of French tourists has yet to appear. Hotels either opened for business on Thursday June 26 or have chosen to remain shut. Many places still offer off-season rates hoping to attract people, but we don\u2019t expect that to last long. Meanwhile, we are not complaining. Not at all.<\/p>\n Crossing the Pyrenees on foot is an entirely reasonable prospect. Trails, just as in the rest of Spain, are clearly marked, while villages and refuges sit reasonable distances apart. Thanks to its lower elevations, days and nights in the Pyrenees are warmer than in the higher passes of the Alps. If we\u2019d planned a little better, we\u2019d probably be tripping along the GR-11, the 840km Transpirenaica<\/a> footpath right now. Tripping being the operative word – and I don\u2019t mean in a Timothy Leary kind of way.<\/p>\n Sandwiched between our first stop in Torla (see Swifts or Swallows<\/a>) and Toloriu, our third, lay the very modern ski resort of Benasque<\/a>. Like a bear waking from hibernation, the town was just reopening when we arrived. Situated on the southern edge of the huge Parque Natural Posets Maladeta<\/a>, Benasque is one of Spain\u2019s busiest ski resorts. Eschewing all the modernity, we stayed in the venerable Hotel Casa Cornel<\/a>, a few kilometres uphill in the village of Cerler.<\/p>\n Surrounded by the last remnants of winter high up in the couloirs of the mountains, the deciduous trees shone brightly. Like they had just donned their late spring celadon pullovers. We found a trail starting inside the park boundaries that promised a bit of adventure, providing we took the high road. It didn\u2019t disappoint.<\/p>\nBENASQUE<\/a> and CERLER<\/a><\/h6>\n