We attempted to hike around the pinnacles of Montserrat in between lightning storms, but didn’t get very far. A rock hit the roof of our funicular cab on the way up and cracked the glass roof, while another rock shot down between us when doing some hiking above that point. So… we bailed out and had lunch instead.
Pyrenees reflections
We hiked alongside a series of three lakes near one of the higher passes in the Pyrenees, of which the following photo shows a nice reflection of a nearby hillside. It does not show the swarm of hikers along the edge of the lake, though.
Pyrenees majesty
The Pyrenees mountains may not look that big on a map, but the reality is quite a bit different. In the following photos, you can see the amount of volume between peaks - there is a great deal of up and down. In the second photo, our path led over the pass in the upper right corner.
Pyrenees color
The hillsides in the Pyrenees mountains were blanketed in flowers. The following photo of a wild iris shows just one flower, but there were fields of thousands in some areas. Also, note the unidentified yellow flowers on a distant hillside in the second photograph.
A happy running of the bulls
The running of the bulls in Pamplona does not seem to be a very big deal - at least, everyone in the following picture seems quite happy!
The Bilbao transformation
Bilbao is a city in northern Spain that used to be a rather gritty industrial town, but which has massively transformed itself by acquiring a Guggenheim art museum (pictured below) and then kept going by building out an excellent riverside walking path that leads people around the city and into its excellent old quarter, with narrow streets and dozens of eateries. A real pleasure.
Pork products galore
Spaniards seem to think that displaying a nice pig leg will get their customers salivating, so it’s quite common to see a restaurant with many of them hanging in the window. In the following picture, there’s also a small collection tray attached to the bottom of each leg, to keep any stray fluids from dripping. Yummy?
Air conditioned bear
We were sitting in a plaza in Madrid in really oppressive heat when someone in a bear suit walked by (to pose with tourists for money). It looked like the person should expire at once from the heat, but then we noticed the two cooling fans in the bear’s hindquarters, as shown in the following photo. Still probably a sauna in the suit, but the fans must have helped a little…
Religious cookies
We stopped in at a local religious institution to buy cookies. It’s located on a side street, with no sign to indicate that this is a business. They buzz you through to a courtyard, where there’s a lazy susan turntable set up in the wall. A nun on the other side piles up some boxes of cookies on the turntable and rotates it around so that you can see it, and send back payment. At no time is the nun visible. Seems like a tedious lifestyle, but the cookies were excellent - almost heavenly.
Notice of longevity
The following photo contains an example of a metal plate that is inserted into the pavement in front of a store in Spain when it has been in continuous operation for at least 100 years, and in the same line of work for the entire time. In this case, the business started in 1725.
Airbnb protest in Madrid
We passed a building in Madrid where the locals were not happy at all with the presence of a flat being rented out to tourists, as the signs in the following picture reveal. This type of protest takes a certain amount of coordination!
Zodiac diving in Indonesia
The following photo shows one of the two zodiac dive boats used by the Pelagian liveaboard, which visits dive sites in the Wakatobi area in Indonesia. Each one can take up to six divers. In our case, there were two snorkelers and three divers, so we had a lot of quiet dives.
Aboard the Pelagian
…and this is what it looks like in the main dining area of one of the best liveaboard dive boats in the world, the Pelagian. We spent a week diving from it in the Wakatobi area in Indonesia. And yes, that is a spiral staircase in the background - OK, it’s a really small one, but still…
Fish for lunch
Our dive boat was tied up north of the Wakatobi resort when this local fisherman in a dugout canoe stopped by to clean the fish he had caught that morning.
Temple by the lake
While quite pretty, what the following photo of the Ulun Danu Beratan temple complex in northern Bali does not show is the incredible number of tourists (including us) clogging the roads to and from the area.
Fire dance time!
As if it wasn’t hot enough in Bali, then they turned on the fires. The following photo is from a wildly over-subscribed fire dance near the coast, where the audience was jammed in right next to the performers, with another 500 people waiting to get in.
The monkey forest
One of the local townships on Bali maintains a monkey forest, which is quite a well-run area containing a massive number of well-fed monkeys - and well-fed tourists. Here is a photo of one of the former:
Shaving coconuts
We stopped off in a local market in Denpasar to see where everyone actually shops, and found this extremely popular vendor who made lunches - including a topping of coconut shavings. Here, she is grinding down a piece of coconut against a grater.
Cute Bali kids
One day, our guide on Bali took us to his sister’s house, where these two young ladies were kind of interested in getting their picture taken - while still text messaging, of course.
Rice harvesting time
Here we are at a UNESCO world heritage site where they are taking in the rice crop. The farmers show up on motor bikes, stop periodically to check their cell phones, and otherwise work incredibly hard in the fields. In the second photo, a local rice merchant has set up a portable scale in the field to weigh rice.
