The way

We didn’t have time to think before we left, think about what we were going to be doing. So having no expectations, the journey comes as a star spread, naked, face down in white snow kind of shock. 

Suddenly on the boat at sea we had space, the bright English late day sun on the wooden deck, we sit for the first time for a drink, sheltered by the glass, blinking. And then in the morning, fresh and still ship windy but the chill subsided, we spot clear white mountains approaching out of the blue.

From silky water, through mountains, on snaking white edged, silver divided tarmac we slide into Spain. 

Mountains are held back by material, pin cushioned so we can make our way into opening sky and flat-bottomed basins. At first these are contained on one side by snow smoothed peaks and the other by gnarly shards of rock scratching their way high into the sky. 

We listen to Zoe Muth, Caitlin Rose, Gillian Welch, Amanda Shires, Justin Townes Earle and Eilen Jewell on the 6 hour journey of space and music and the haze of diminishing seasick pill drowsiness. 

A channel opens up like a crack in a rock, inspiration comes flooding as crisp water down a dusty bed, soaking and spreading and nourishing as the miles pass by, and you remember how to see again. 

See the square stone block of a castle or a spire piercing the valley, shouting through time their unchanging message. In the early spring sun the wriggly vines are brown still. White century men punctuate the taller slops, waiting for the basin uplift in their wings. They loom up as we approach, fall in and we cross their east west line. Another group of friends, silver, punctuate the horizon like needles and share their wind as suntrap blackness stare towards them.

Blue sky expands as the valley opens wide and the sun through the window feels weirdly hot compared to the snow on the mountains where the clouds huddle. Jason continues to sing and the sentinel’s wings beat happily on another horizon. One stands stiff not joining in, like a philistine refusing to join the revolution. 

Another group ahead with the sun at a different angle change from needles to white straws drinking wind. Sad songs sing but two magpies drift lazily in our path. A steel line races beside us, the light reflecting keeps speed in the corner of my eye.

Monegros brings cement farms, more sky, sucking and blowing of a harmonica and miles and miles of grey chalky fields peppered with white huts, unfarmable small rubble peaks and sad chicken sheds in an expanse of nothing that turns into Heuseca. Thank fully there is a break in the colour, of purple blossom strapped by white or light blue bands and then the momentum builds as we see lorries snaking on the free road and we hit our final payment, then we are in.

The boat

The land

 The doggy deck

The James Bond boat that came along side the ferry

The port

The road