Montanegros, Spain June 2012

For such a Garden of Eden, there are very few people in Valencia that have ever heard of the place.  It reminds me of Payson with pine trees, and has that rural feel.  Probably because it is rural - only 450 people live in the town.

The town itself reminded me of Basingnana, where my family comes from in Italy. 

Commonalities: 

a. Everyone seemed to know each other.  

b. cobblestone streets

c. buildings that seemed to becrumbling on the outside but were beautiful on the inside

d.  I didn't understand much of what was being said as they speak a different dialect than that of Spain, and Spain speaks a bit different than that of Mexico, and Mexico speaks a bit different than Spanish being taught in Memphis.

Other than that... everything was crystal clear!

We went on a hike that Zack had seen the day before and it led to a dam and a nice size pond behind the dam.  The water was colder by the dam and more difficult to get to, so we decided to just swim where we had been earlier.

To get to the dam, we had to go through a tunnel which was just long enough to be dark inside.  I don't think we would have entered if we had not had a flashlight.  Okay... I know we would not have entered if we didn't have a light.
Once in South America, I entered a train tunnel only to get 1/2 way through and hear a train coming.  Just barely made it out before the train came through!










Sometimes, it seemed that 1/4 of our budget went to food, 1/4 to transportation, 1/4 to hotels, and the 1/4 went to water!!
Looks like Zack is saying, "Is it safe to enter the cave?"
"Of course it is!" I'd reply, "You go ahead Zack, and I'll stay on the ridge 2 miles away and film what happens!"







The best place to swim was just at the edge of town.  The water got as deep as about 7-8 feet but most of the time it was about 3.5 feet.  The temperature was just cool enough to cool down in the hot sun, but not so cold that it took five hours to acclimatize.

























Huge trout were in the river and could be seen from far away because of the water clarity.  We never saw anyone fishing but we did see some wildlife.  Mountain goats were way up on the canyon walls and Zack was approached by a weasel/otter/rat creature.  Scared the bajesus out of the both of us!  It ran at Zack and then darted back into some weeds.






Okay, I'm all for this international sign thing, but really, what does this mean?
a. no fishing for jellyfish?
b. jellyfish towzone
c. if you fish here, you may catch a jellyfish
d. I'm hooked on sunshine

Whatever.  We bought some jellyfish bait and tried our luck but there didn't seem to be any jellyfish in the freshwater stream 90 miles from the ocean. Imagine that.