We were naive.

above: Girona

Remember how we said we´d hike the whole way from Begur to Barcelona? Yeah, not as simple as we thought it would be. Here´s what happened.

Day 18: A resort with a camping option

Took a bus from Girona-->Palafrugell-->Begur, which is a really pretty town overlooking the Costa Brava. From there we walked all the way down to our campsite in a very small beach town called Sa Riera. Apparently in Spain, a campsite is basically a resort, complete with a pool, restaurant and bar, and very nice bathroom/shower facilities. At this campsite, we got a plot of land. Yes, a very square, very fenced in plot of land. Anyways, we headed down to the beach. Que lindo!!



And then we had really nice expensive 20 euro dinner to celebrate the beginning of our hike down to barcelona...or so we thought.

Day 19: Begur to Palamos in 5 hours 20 minutes? MY ASS. But we're probably the most intense people on Costa Brava right now. (And also the only Asians)

The title basically explains it all. This online source- and apparently it´s accurate because its sited on the guide book- told us that we could get to the next city, Palamos in 5 hrs 20 minutes. Maybe this is true for fast, long legged hikers with no luggage, thank you very much. We made about 1/3 of the way there in about 5 hours and we were exhausted. Hiking along coasts is beautiful, but it ain´t easy. We stopped for the night in a town called Tamariu.



(above: Claire being tired. The red and white stripe is what marks the trail all the way from the border of France and Spain to past Barcelona)

Day 20: Palafrugell, TWICE.

By now, we were already way behind schedule, so we decided to hike to a bigger town, called Calella de Palafrugell to catch a bus to get to SantFeliu de Guixols, where we had reserved a campsite. To get to Calella to Sant Feliu, we had to make a transfer in Palafrugell... making it our second time there without ever hiking through it, as we had planned to.



Another hippie moment as we waited for the bus in Palafrugell.
Day 21: Nevermind, we're the second most intense people on Costa Brava right now.

As we were packing up to leave our campsite in Sant Feliu this morning, another guy came into the plot next to ours with a bike loaded with some camping gear. He was the guy we mentioned before who programmed the Indiana Jones ride and is taking a bike tour of Spain and France. We realized that we were no longer the most intense people on Costa Brava, because he was way cooler than us.

And then once again, instead of hiking, we took the bus. No, we weren´t being lazy. We would have had to hike 21km of mountainous trail to get to any nearby town. And based on our past experience it´s not possible to hike that much. Sant Feliu --> Girona --> Tossa de Mar. Girona was waaaaay out of the way, plus that was our starting point!!! Here, see for yourself how ridicuous this all is.



Just trace your finger Girona --> Palafrugell --> Begur --> Tamariu --> Calella de Palafrugell --> Palafrugell --> St. Feliu --> Girona --> Tossa de Mar



and this is Tossa.

Day 22: Hiking! finally back on track. FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS, CLAIRE!

Using my lovely singing voice, I sung Claire awake. I´m sure it was a lovely way to wake up. We hiked from Tossa de Mar to Lloret de Mar. It was a really nice hike! And then we met our CS host Silvia and her other couch surfer, Victoria from Argentina. Had some great food for dinner, experienced the night life of Lloret, and had delcious bday cake. It was also Silvia's birthday on the 10th!



(Me, Claire, Victoria and Silvia)


Day 23: Paella! (picture blog from here on out)



Silvia took us to have paella for lunch. It was absolutely food-coma-inducingly delicious.



The hike from Lloret de Mar to Blanes!



Day 24: There must be a thousand people on this campsite, and only one dryer for all of us.

Today, it is raining. And we are hiking out to Tordera!

The campsite we stayed at last night and where we still are right now is like tent city, people come in their vans and set up tents with fridges and TVs inside and stay here for months. Our tent looked so cute and homey next to all of them. And the site is huge, there must be a thousand people! It rained and poured this morning so the clothes we were hanging outside got drenched. Right now we are waiting for the single dryer of the campsite to open up so we can dry our clothes. But there is only one and it doesn't tell you how many minutes there are left, so this whole process is kind of ghetto.

That is all for now.