Iter Facere

Tuesday July 17th Alquezar

This morning the goal is the Alpan cave painting complex. We learned about in the Turismo is Barbastro. It is a Levantive culture painting, with human and animals. We pick up our guide at the Interpretation center in Colunga. Its all very low key. We show up, say we want to go, she fetches her car and we follow her to the trail a few miles away. The trail, describes as an easy walk is actually rather tricky, steep, uneven and in the heat a bit of a challenge. But it is worth it. One deer is very clear, with delicate antlers and a very lifelike form. The other deer are only partial, and a little cruder, the antlers aren’t as fine nor the legs as lifelike. The human forms are hard to see, but the bows and arrows are well done again. One interpretation is that the deer are following a path (done in ochre with finger tips, you can just make out a few dots) in to an ambush. The conversations with the guides were great fun, as we searched for the words to use. They’d toss out a Spanish word, or try to explain, we’d come back with the English word, throw in some Spanish and then we’d all move on to the next sentence. Along the path in we learned about the geology and the plant life in the same way. Unfortunately, no pictures are allowed of the cave art.
By now it was 12:30 and we wanted to get to the town of Naval for lunch and to see the pottery shops there. There is also the Camino del Sal, the Road of Salt, which we want to walk to learn about the salt mines in Naval.
Since we arrive at siesta, we have lunch at a local hotel. Just before we arrive, thiry kids from a day camp arrive at the restaurant. Lunch is delayed. No problem, we have to kill 2 1/2 hours. After a pretty nice lunch, with a very nice Carinena rosado, the waiter asks me a question about the wine. I nod my head and answer bueno. Soon, another bottle arrives, so our dismay. Obviously he wanted to know if I wanted another. Oops. My Spanish is a double edged sword. We’ll have a little, walk it off on the Camino del Sal and take it back to the hotel.
The Camino del Sal is a hoot. Each local tourist office clearly has the mandate to identify things for tourists to do. In the brutal heat, we walk along looking for the guideposts out of the town, into a field, to the (dry) river, along the river, read a sign about a big tree, walk some more, read a sign about the woods next to a copse of trees, walk some more to the salt mines. Salt mines aren’t very interesting we discover. Then back to town.
The ceramic shops are great. We have a nice conversation with one Dutch potter and loaded down with our acquisitions head back to Alquezar. We end up having the oddest dinner ever in Spain. The restaurant has a menu that features game meats. Looks great. We walk in and are the only people in the place. We’re seated and a women silently walks over and plops some bread and water on the table, along with a crummy bottle of wine. Ah, the prix-fix menu. Still wordless she plops some first course food down. And so on. No words, we are trapped, the food that arrives isn’t what is on the menu until the denouement with the over-cooked lamb and pork. During dinner the silent one has been sitting at a nearby table smoking and watching TV when not stoically delivering our rations. After the silent dessert she suddenly brightens up and offers us some orujo on the house. Bizarre.

posted by Jim @ 5:25 PM