Barcelona Valencia

After we left the Basque country we continued to Catalonia. The hitch-hiking here was very difficult. First Javier from Argentina picked us up from Pamplona to Zaragoza. Traveling with him was really interesting. He told us how he hitch-hiked South America and how he plans to make eco-farm in Patagonia and to live there. He was our type of guy and we promised to come to visit him at the farm ... some day. Next day we waited quite a lot on the exit of Zaragoza, we moved 3 times in different places, walked a lot, until finally we took a 40-year yellow hippie van VW Transporter 1. The drive was short and slow, but the feeling was great, the guy was cool but we spoke with mimics, gestures and bad Spanish. Then another South American from Ecuador picked us up with his truck, we passed through a large desert area with no villages and rivers and scarce yellow vegetation. He left us in Lleida, where we waited all day and all night until the next morning a Romanian boy gave us a lift to the next petrol station.  

There the hitch-hiking became better,  a Catalonian guy took us with his new car and shared with us his new homegrown. He told us about his trip in Mali, where we think to go after Morocco and Mauritania. He stayed there two months, climbed 1000 meter high rock in the middle of the desert ... they couldn't climb up for one day and had to sleep in the middle of the rock. 

Then another Catalonian guy stopped to show us his new crop and his beautiful country. It was the day of national strike and he was driving home, disappointed that there will be no lectures in university. He said he is snowboarding, even showed us the season pass for Andorra that he won on a freestyle competition. We understood each-other difficultly, but we shared the love for the mountain and he decided to take us up to the nearest mountain Montserrat near Barcelona. Small, funny shaped mountain with many tourists аnd 2 trains. We spent a happy afternoon together and he dropped us near Barcelona.

Then another South-american picked us up, this time Peruvian and we drove down to the center of Barcelona, although it was not his direction. We arrived at the evening of the strike, the main streets in the center were closed, crowded with people, fires, flags  ...  . Barcelona's madness hit us with full power in the first minutes. We heard an explosion, shooting and the whole crowd started running away. We decided to get out of the protests and to find a quiet place, which is not easy in Barcelona. 

Thе party never stops and it seems that no one ever sleeps. In the streets everywhere Arabian men offered us cerveza (beer), chokolata, even at 5 am, even in the most remote districts. Tourists are more even than in Venice. The city is full of graffiti everywhere, some said: "Turisto terroristo!" or "Tourists go home!" We stayed here for 5 days at another Bulgarian friend who had found her fortune far away from home.

there are many "Casa Okupa" in Barcelona

In Barcelona art is everywhere in the streets - starting from the buildings of Gaudi, musicians, street artists, graffiti, modern statues and installations and come to the smallest details such as a gutter, resembling petrified tree, benches in the shape of shells, hanging sneakers on the wires (was this art or an accident ?!).

The last day we decided to go to the beach somewhere far from the central beach Barceloneta, but as we walked  kilometers on the coastline we saw thousands of people all over the beaches in the city, facing the sea...

It turned out that there is an avio show and we had to lie on the beach under the roar of all kind of airplanes, helicopters and the colorful sky...

From there we headed south to Valencia. After a few cars for short distance a camper van took us directly to Valencia. The driver David and his two dogs - Maya and Bubu were coming from Minorca. He traveled all summer in Corsica and Minorca and trim palm trees by climbing with rope. The dogs, his family, as he present them, traveled everywhere with him. In the middle of our travel we stopped at a beach to sleep and the next morning we continued to Valencia together. 

Police or Guardia civil quite brutally stopped us for check, sometimes they inexplicably block the road and check everybody. Maybe they pretend to search for terrorists.

We said good-bye to Maua, Bubu and David in Valencia, where we went our second host from Couch surfing - Alejandro. We stayed two nights with him and get to know Valencia. The most astonishing thing was the empty riverbed turned into a huge long park, which meanders through the city. In 1957 people decided to move the river after a big flood and made a new artificial riverbed, which goes around the city. So there is a 7-km long park, full of running, jumping, cycling, skating people. There are all sorts of sports fields for all ages. There's even a huge, giant Gulliver for children can climb and play. There are ponds, fountain, benches. The bridges still stand, the walls too, but the river is gone!

Another amazing thing is the buildings of Santiago Calatrava at the end of the dry river - bizarre modern buildings with a minimum utility take you into the future and in the middle of this cosmic scene - huge life-size dinosaurs that move, open their mouth and squeak constantly. ..