Dryads of mist rose and swirled among the trees and around the tent as the previous day’s torrential rain had left the ground sodden and the air decidedly chilly. But above the canopy we could see clear blue sky that hinted of a fine day to come. This Sunday was certainly not a morning for lounging around with the papers, so nothing else for it but to rouse The Pack and get down to our more or less eternal task of enlarging our list of ‘Favourite Walks’ that we leave for guests at Casa Rafela.
In its brief life the river Noguera Pallaresa passes through several distinct landscapes; high Pyrenean meadows, deep ravines like the Collegats (see ‘Gaudí on a Natural High? August 18th), or the spectacular Congost de Terradets. Terradets is in limestone country but here, on the stretch between Gerri de la Sal and Baro, there’s a swirling mishmash of rock types in the interstitial zone between the pre-Pyrenees and the granite massifs of the Pyrenees proper. Outcrops of red ironstone mingle with swathes of conglomerate and schist. The river, oblivious to this primordinal drama, meanders along the narrow valley, indolently slicing the harder rock into steep cliffs and depositing silt along quiet intermediate level stretches. The cliff sections hardly qualify as ravines, many are only fifty or so metres long with cascades of white water over the still eroding substrate. These stretches make the area ideal for rafting, specialised outward bound companies operate out of the nearby township of Llavorsi. Several are ‘one sided’ as the river simply worked its way around obstacles, following a pre-determined path of softer rock. Here the forest sweeps majestically down to the riverside and at odd places huge oak trees have been undercut by the swiftly flowing waters and lie at crazy angles, their upper branches dipping into the water and making little dingles of shale and gravel in their wake.
Our route follows the trail from the roadside village of Baro to the hermitage of Mare de Deu d’Arbolo. Baro was an ancient fording place that grew to become a village from around the XIV C as the Medieval Warm Period gave way to the Little Ice Age of the XVIII C. This made life in the higher villages untenable in winter. In the upland valleys important settlements, like the Bronze Age village of Santa Creu de Llagunes, which is thought to have been inhabited from around 1500 BCE, were completely abandoned as early as the turn of the XIII C. We are able to cross the river at Baro by the new Pont d’Arcalís, which lies alongside the earlier suspension bridge there. If the name sounds familiar there’s a well-known folk music group who have adopted it as their moniker.
From here the track winds in and out of the forest, sometimes running alongside water meadows where small herds of the indigenous Pyrenean Brown Cow, the Vaca Bruna, idly chew the cud. The great asset of this walk is the way the path is endlessly varied, climbing gently up and down the hillside and giving alternate views over the surrounding mountain scenery, or peering down to the river almost vertically below. The presence of the road is swiftly forgotten as the noise of the rushing river drowns out any hint of passing traffic, and in any event there are two tunnels where the road disappears entirely, leaving the riverbank to the wildlife and occasional visitors like ourselves. These reaches of the river are known for otters (Lutra lutra), called Llúdria in Catalan, and the woods are a haunt of Capercaillie (Tetrao urogallus), or Gal Fer.
This sylvan reach of the river ends abruptly at the hermitage, which is perched on a shoulder of rock high above the river at a ‘real’ ravine. The hermitage is well preserved and mass is still held there during fiestas. There are numerous hermitages in this region, I can think of a dozen off the top of my head. Although many are completely in ruins and very difficult to access several are the focus of meetings called ‘aplecs’ where as well as doing the pious bit the locals very sensibly settle down to a good meal! Here are Arboló there’s a lovely terraced area with a built-in picnic table and we settle for elevenses under the watchful eye of a dozen or so griffon vultures circling above the cliffs on the opposite bank. Meanwhile a heron took off along the river far below, much too far for a photograph, even if I had kept the camera switched on!
Later, while Mrs Simon explored our El Carillet walk in the nearby Val Fosca, I was reflecting on the morning’s walk when another heron flew slowly down the adjacent riverbank, just under the canopy of trees. I’m no birder but I’ve always been lucky with herons; as a schoolboy I was on nodding acquaintance with one as I cycled to school of a morning (hard to imagine that journey now in this age of the ubiquitous ‘School Run’, a two-mile ride into the village to catch the bus there for the remaining six miles into ‘Town’!). I love the heron’s quiet dignity, a far cry from the raucous gregariousness of the griffons. That word ‘raucous’ put me in mind of the Catalan, ‘rauxa’, which is much more than just a word! Rauxa and seny represent the duality of the Catalan character. Many newcomers to Spain, and we were all newcomers once upon a time, come expecting all Spaniards to have the fey bravado so well summed up by Ian Gibson in the title of his book ‘Fire in the Blood’. So it comes as a shock to find a people notorious for their diligence, level headedness and, if you believe what many other Spaniards say about them, a rather slavish regard for money. These anglosajón qualities, or rather anglosaxó as it would be said here, are summed up by the word seny, which implies a canny, common sensical pragmatism (the Scottish word, nous, is probably the best translation) that is indeed highly valued hereabouts. But life would be very boring, anglosaxó indeed, if this summed up the entire Catalan mentality. Fortunately for them, and ‘tourists’ like ourselves, this is counterbalanced by rauxa, which has been feebly translated as ‘rashness’. But rauxa is far more than this. We’d been having a seny weekend, getting back in touch with the earth and the stars and recuperating from a manic summer, but more than that preparing ourselves for the rauxa ordeal to come. For back home in the city of Tarragona, in secret caverns, mysterious beasts are stirring, literally warming up for the mayhem soon to be unleashed upon its citizens!
Catalan Pyrenees, Catalonia, Favourite Walks, Lleida, Uncategorized | Tags: Baro, Casa Rafela, Congost de Collegats, Congost de Terradets, Fire in the Blood, Gerri de la Sal, Ian Gibson, Lutra lutra, Mare de Deu d’Arbolo, Noguera Pallaresa, Pont d’Arcalís, Rafting Llavorsi, Santa Creu de Llagunes, Tetrao urogallus, Vaca Bruna|
We walked into our nemesis quite casually. What had started out as a rendez-vous for a look at one of the better parades of Sant Magi, Tarragona’s Festa Major Petita, and a quiet drink in the Plaça de la Font began to take on the all too familiar fiesta fever as friends passed by, stopped, suggested the next place along the trail of the parade . . . Innocent fools that we were, we all thought we’d be safe. After all, this wasn’t Santa Tecla, the city’s Festa Major proper, who’s Chatreuse-charged, pyromaniac debauchery is not for the fainthearted. In contrast, Sant Magi is a staid affair. Both fiestas have their due portions of piety, or course, but their corresponding profane elements, a very necessary counterbalance, are profoundly different; Santa Tecla is above all else about fire, whereas Sant Magi is based around water.
Sant Magi* himself was probably an III or IV Century hermit who lived in the Sierra de Brufaganya, his hermitage is hidden among cliffs overlooking a delightful secret valley near the headwaters of the Riu Gaià. After the dramatic ravines encountered downstream the landscape beyond the Sierra de Brufaganya opens out to reveal the rolling hill country that separates the Segre basin from the plains of Tarragona. This is wheat and sheep country where the horizons stretch away to the distant Pyrenees. There’s a curious similarity with the English Cotswolds, however, maybe it’s the honey coloured stone of the buildings and the drystone walls that stretch away in all directions. Or perhaps it’s the sense of ominous desolation; in winter this area is bleak, with unstoppable cold dry winds and the few villages have a closed, shut-away atmosphere about them. Life must have been hard indeed for the likes of Sant Magi. Nothing is known in detail about his exploits but it appears that from the early XII Century a cult grew up around his tomb, resulting in the establishment of a monastery or ‘Sanctuary’ alongside. Magi appeared in papal lists of saints in the XVI Century with over 300 miracles accredited to him. By the early XVIII Century the number of pilgrims was such that extra wells had to be dug to cope with the demand for healing waters and it was during alterations to the crypt in 1735 that his remains were found to be uncorrupted and have the ‘odour of sanctity’.
One curiosity from Sant Magi’s iconography is that he holds an Arab scimitar. There’s no possibility of him being involved in the reconquista if we accept that he lived at least two centuries before the Moorish invasion in 711CE. Perhaps his name was invoked as part of a blood-curdling battle cry by subsequent re-conquering heroes. Brufaganya is just about within the sphere of the Counts of Urgell, a rough lot who used to smite the Moors with a will, when they could tear themselves away from smiting each other, and when they smote their enemies stayed well and truly smitten!
The link with Tarragona dates from 1588, when the city’s bishop made a pilgrimage to mark the departure of the Spanish Armada. Perhaps he had family among the ships’ crews as Tarragona had a history of naval jaunts; Catalan King Jaume I, the Conqueror, launched his invasion fleet, said to consist of over 500 vessels, from this coast in 1229 and,
We set sail on Wednesday morning with the land wind behind us . . . and when the men of Tarragona and Cambrils saw the fleet getting under way from Salou, they too made sail, and it was a fine thing for both those on land and for us to watch, for all the sea seemed white with sails, so great was our fleet.**
Pilgrimages to the Sanctuary are also recorded from other towns and villages, and that of nearby Santa Coloma de Queralt is known to have been continuous from those days. A feature is that water from the spring at Brufaganya is carried back. This water is noted for curative powers, most notably for venereal diseases, so it’s always handy to lay a bottle or two. What is certainly true, as proved in actual tests, is that it tastes revolting.
Nowadays the route of the aigüa miraculosa, or miracle water, is followed by a caravan of horses and carts, which carry the water itself. The passage takes two days and its progress is eagerly reported in the local rag, the Diari de Tarragona. As one of Tarragona’s two Festes Majors, the celebrations start well before this, but when the cavalcade finally arrives in the early evening of August the 18th the party really begins. The caravan is joined the seguici popular, or entourage of bands, giants, caps grossos, colles of castellers . . . All in fact, but for the city’s Mythical Beasts, who are kept well and truly under lock and key until they ‘break out’ at Santa Tecla in late September and all hell lets loose! The seguici does several circuits of the mediaeval city centre. One notable feature is that the drovers and crew of the carts bring huge amounts of basil, so as to disperse the fleas, flies and other beasties that they might have picked up in the countryside, and to scent the city with its sweet smell.
There comes a moment in all fiestas when, sometimes after a long gestation as the fiesta really gets in to the swing, one finally just let’s go; the mind losses all sense of being sensible and earnest and all one’s other anglosajon virtues. It happened to our little party when we unwittingly entered the Plaça del Rei, where huge set pieces of carts, barrels and watermelons (another ‘icon’ of the Fiesta, on the first big night, literally called La Sindriada, crowds queue up to buy slices of deliciously refreshing watermelon for a token 5 cents to a musical accompaniment - it’s all completely silly!). We’d passed this way in previous years and seen the illuminated fountains of water gushing out of the sets, but we had no idea of what was to happen next; a deluge of 35,000 litres of water suddenly soaked us to the skin. There was nothing for it but to go completely crazy and what followed is a blur of recollections; walking through the city, still soaked, passing amongst all the ‘respectable’ folk in their big-night-out night finery going to or coming from the cities packed restaurants, straying into a late night bar and freezing as the powerful air conditioning chilled our damp clothes, falling on a gut busting Full English Breakfast next day with lashings of brown sauce, red sauce, Worcestershire sauce . . . getting stuck among the Xiquets de Tarragona achieving a new personal best tres de nou (nine ‘storeys’ of three persons each, a very fine ‘castle’ indeed!), running into our ‘gang’ during the lethal l’ora del vermut, when the only hangover cure on offer is the proverbial hair-of-the-dog . . .
Postscript: we were flattered reading the report of the fiesta that the Plaça del Rei was filled with jóvenes, as none of our party will see fifty again, and some not even sixty, or maybe even seventy! Having got our guests well and truly slaughtered at Sant Magi I was somewhat dubious about accepting an invitation for a day’s sailing, a first time for me, on their retirement home, the twenty-two ton ketch Samothrace***. But I needn’t have worried, having fixed the date the fickle weather did its worst and laid on a dead calm. But at least I could learn the ropes in peace and the subtleties of keeping her head to the wind, achieving a personal best of 2.4 knots - no match for the automatic pilot’s effortless 2.8!
* With thanks to Dr Graham Jones of Leicester University
** From Jaume’s autobiography, El Llibre dels Feits, or Book of Deeds, translated in Robert Hughes’ Barcelona (1992)
*** Photo courtesy of Dave Gayler
Catalan Culture, Catalonia, Tarragona, Uncategorized | Tags: Add new tag, Brufaganya, Castellers, Jaume I, Riu Gaià, Sant Magi, Spanish Armada, Spanish Armada Castellers, Urgel, Xiquets de Tarragona|
