The path less traveled

After my relocation to the Pyrenees mountains in northern Spain I have found myself surrounded by mountains yet again.  Unfortunately, unlike my relatively cushy job in Bilbao, I find myself putting in 10-12 hour days between teaching English, planning lessons, and coaching basketball.  In turn, I have little to no time to explore the abundant nature around me during our work week, so when the weekend came I jumped right on the opportunity.

After speaking to the cook at our hotel we decided to start off on a hike to the north of Bellver de Cerdanya.  Luckily, when we were about to take off on our adventure, he had just finished work and was heading our way.  He was kind enough to take us to the sign and explain the marks that we had to follow.  When we got there, he recommended us the easier green and white trail.  We began off down the road that we were expecting to turn into a path, but then Pedro stopped us and pointed up.

That's when it hit us that there wasn't going to be a clear, dirt lined path that we had imagined, but rather a green and white marked mountainside.  On the bright side, at least the trail was marked.  We passed 4 markers before the marks disappeared.  We went left, then right, then left again until we figured that our best option was to continue up our unpaved route.  After another 20 minutes we reached an area where we could see the path that Pedro was talking about.  We cursed Pedro and decided that the only thing we could do to salvage the hike was to reach the flag of independence on the top of the mountain.  And we did.  Until next time.