Pyrenees..Pyrenees...Pyrenees...

Last night Liza and I pulled into the nouveaux-riche town of Calatayud and caught our first glimpse of the country that lays before us. We´re about a day-and-a-half ride from the base of the Pyrenees and we´re already getting shivers in the 100 degree heat from the majesty of the open skies and 360 vistas, the falcons and the mountain goats and wild boar and butterflies, the clear cool mountain streams, the speed at which our surroundings change - from aromatic pine-forest cliffs to rosemary/sage/lavender/thyme high plains to river valleys and now the giants off in the distance all in a few days, sometimes all in one day and back again. We´re working out our route now, cleaning our nasty clothes, and preparing for the ascent. A lot has happened in the past days. Once again too much to speak of in this short hour of internet use.
We are definitely stronger (even if we feel a bit weaker at times.) We have been way out there for the past many days, sometimes with hours between tiny towns and sometimes hours between seeing a car. We´ve had some very difficult climbing, varying terrain, plains with head winds that made me so happy we didn´t do the U.S. crossing cause then we´d have the Dakotas and Kansas to suffer through, more fun with late-night wildlife, mechanical issues, more delicious Campmaster LJ meals, our first contact with English speakers (which was fantastic for me since I haven´t conversated with anyone but Liza for the past two weeks - not that Liza hasn´t been fantastic company the whole time, but it´s hard when all you can say to people is what you want and twisted comments about the weather and lots of smiles and nods, but soon we cross over into French-speaking land and it´s my turn to assume the roll of translator (uh-oh)), castles, more and more beautiful spring-fed fuentes, the biggest solar arrays we´ve ever seen directly across the road from the biggest sunflower fields we´ve ever seen, we got to see wind turbines up close and touch them, we randomly stayed with a Spanish family on a rainy night, we´ve eaten lots and lots of bread and cheese (for better or for worse), drank not enough wine (though we have gotten a free bottle), and seen more stars every night than we did the last.

In Spain, the mullet is cool. A lot of men rock the mullet. We really should be taking more pictures of these men. Some have even had the sides of their head completely shaved with a jerry curl mullet. Some have nasty dread locks hanging down their necks in the back and straight hair up front. Very Oakland, actually.

When you enter a town, there is a small white sign bordered in black that tells you the name of the town you are entering. When you get to the other side of town you will find the exact same sign but with a red diagonal crossing out the name of the town, as in, "Not Cuenca."

In many of the towns we´ve passed through the quiet streets have erupted with the sound of a man´s voice blaring out monotone announcements from a slow-moving van as in, "I have fruits and I have vegetables. I have very good deals of nectarines right now. My carrots are fresh. I have fruits and vegetables..." on and on and on

We met Pepe in Millares. Pepe is the former mayor of Millares, which is a small town nestled in the valley of Spain´s equivalent to the Grand Canyon. Pepe was excited to talk to us when he saw us coming out of the vegetable market and when he found out we were Americans, he started asking all kinds of questions about our social security system and health care and explaining to us how it works in SPain. Liza´s attention was pulled by someone else in the street and Pepe starting rapping with me. The show owner shouted down to Pepe that I didn´t understand what he was saying and Pepe said "oh. okay" and then kept right on talking to me as he had been.

When you ask for directions in Spain, the person will either tell you that it´s more that way or will physically take you ALL THE WAY to your destination.

We stopped at a winery and tried to buy a bottle. The guy there told us that he only sold wine by 4 litre amounts. Many old men had walked out with huge plastic bottle jugs of the stuff. We told him we couldn´t carry that much and a little about our journey and he started laughing and gave us a bottle.

We gotta run. The sun´s going down out there. Gonna load on a coupld pictures first.