First thing that you read about healing your heartbreak is to surround yourself with friends and family and keep yourself busy. I got a call from a friend suggesting I join the canyoning expedition to Sierra de guara. Well, it couldn’t be better timing. I needed to get myself back into good old Ziga, who is fun to be around. So I kicked myself in the ass and booked a plane ticket from Bergamo to Zaragoza. After initial stress how to pack all the canyoning and camping gear (fuck, it is always same story, I could already get used to it) I was ready. And Spanish canyons where there, waiting for me. Open season!
However, quite soon after flying in we got the info, that there was quite rainy for the last couple of days and that there will be more rain to come in following days. Well, that was kinda problem. It is true that I have athletic skinny outfit, but I am always overweight when it comes to packaging for the canyoning trip. And the tent had to stay at home. I reckoned it would be hot and sunny anyways… And a bit of the panic kicked in when I heard the news. The solution was: lets go to nearest Dechatlon and get myself a tent. It didn’t took long and I exited Dechatlon with smile on my face, new tent under my armpit and about 100EUR less on the bank account. But that’s what Slovenian “Regres” is for, isn’t it? For your vacation. Why spending it on hotels if you can spend it on awesome “two seconds” tent that outlasts your holidays. And boy is it a good tent. Well, it doesn’t really take 2 seconds to put it up – more like 20, 🙂 but still, you are set up and ready in no time. It has also very neat packing system that is almost fool proof. Much easier that with an old one… OK, enough about the goddamn tent.
So where did we tramp around? Everything started in Zaragoza but we left it ASAP, made a quick stop in Huesca to get some foodz for the following days and then off into the wild for the first night. Well, on first night the encounter with the fox happened (see post “Why do I still bother doing canyons?“). The tent was tested and it performed great. I decided I will not leave it in Spain and also started thinking that I will use it in Bovec on the campground… You know the joke: How do you call canyoning guide that becomes single? Homeless. 🙂 Well, it sounds funny, but it is also goddamn true.
On the night number two we decided to spent it on San Miguel rock. It is the rock that raises above canyon Palomeras del Flumen. It was one of the best calls in the whole week. The view up there I amazing. You can just stand at the edge of the rock and it looks like there is at least 300m deep straight drop. Would you dare to walk on the edge? We didn’t :). Up there you can observe really amazing sunset and also sunrise. But we weren’t that lucky since there were quite some clouds in the way. Eventually I managed to make one sunrise shot that is quite decent.
We also did a little walk around artificial lake Embalse de Vadiello. It suprised me how high in mountains this water reservoir is and how much water does it contains. By being artificial lake it forms steep walls on its shores. It reminded me of Lake Powell. But Lake Powell lacks of conglomerate pillars which make this scene even more amazing.
But seeing just nature isn’t enough. We also sneaked around small local villages and explored how is rural life in this god forsaken places. We learned two things. One was, that it was good that car rental had only Volkswagen Polos for us, since we could squeeze them literary everywhere (let’s pretend that we don’t care that we were also squeezed in them with bigger density then sardines in a can). The second thing was that villages are like ghost towns during the day. I guess the locals had siesta at the time.
The more you travel the more rich you are. And this travel made me richer. For some time I forgot about the situation back at home. I lived for the moments and spend all days fully. My friend reminded me: now you have to use your time 100%, do as many things as you can. Otherwise you will be mad at yourself when you get home that you didn’t do everything you could. I guess that’s also why I need a bit longer to recover my body from all the hiking, canyoning and taking photos :).
Final tough about Sierra de guarra? If you are canyoneer or not, if you only just love nature and the amazing views, Sierra de Guara is a destination you should at least consider visiting. It is cheap (if you go for camping it is about 10 eur / person / night), accessible and there are many things to see or/and do. Not to mention the canyons are really beautiful.
