Blind Sun VI: Ice Water Under Moncay

Torrellas

The morning behind the hospital was slow.

No one was in a hurry.

That was odd. It was eclipse day. The day we flew to Spain. The day we slept on the beach in Barcelona, buying guitars before sleeping bags, standing in a motorcade near Barcelona, sweating in Aragonia and ending up in a small mountain village under Moncay.

And yet we got up slowly.

Maybe that's why.

You know he's in for something big, and the body says, "Take your time." Not yet. Stay here for a while.

We were behind a historic hospital in Torrellas.

Mirek and Lego slept on a soft rubber mat in a children's corner. Me and Robert on the bench. The trees above us. Next to the drinking water. Around the silence of a little Spanish village, which the night before took us to her place without asking questions.

We got up slowly.

We cleaned our teeth by the water.

We pulled out breakfast.

Peaches.

Salami.

Something you can eat with your hands when you're sitting on a bench behind the hospital in the morning and you still have sand in you from Barcelona.

Sand everywhere.

All the time.

In shoes, in backpacks, in clothes, in a blind stick, maybe even in a soul.

Torrellas was calm in the morning. So peaceful, you almost didn't want to believe that in a few hours, thousands of people are meeting on a hill and watching the sun disappear.

We went to get a beer.

For our expedition fridge.

We left it in a plastic bag in the water duct by the car last night. We tied the plastic behind the ear to a steel rod because this is what the technical creativity of the Czech expedition in Spain looks like.

There was beer all the time.

And not just that.

Someone tied him up overnight with a rope.

So it doesn't swim.

We watched it for a while.

Someone from the locals came by, saw our beer bag in the water, and instead of taking it, throwing it out, or thinking we were idiots, he improved her fixation.

This is Torrellas.

Nobody tells you anything.

Nobody makes a big gesture about it.

Just someone tying your beer with a rope at night to make your expedition fridge work better.

I think that's when we loved that village definitely.

We drove the car all the way to that little spot where we slept. The locals told us they didn't mind. They were just warning us that the road was being repaired downstairs, so we're not going through the bottom. They told us where to go.

They looked at us with a smile.

They said they liked it as much as we did.

I don't know exactly what they liked.

Maybe that's where we came in.

Maybe it's that we slept over.

Maybe Mirek in a vest.

Maybe guitars.

Maybe our whole unlikely routine.

Four guys.

A blind stick.

Guitars.

Ford Puma.

Beer in the sewer.

And the day of the eclipse ahead.

Tarazona

But we stopped in the historic city of Tarazona before Borobia.

And that's where things slowed down for a while.

For the first time in our entire journey, we only allowed ourselves to be tourists.

Not an expedition.

Not logistics.

Not transfers.

Just people standing in a strange city looking up.

Tarazona breathed on us right away.

Narrow alleys.

Old houses.

Stone facades that have borne centuries without the need to explain.

Mirek went through a sore knee with us up to the top of the city.

Slowly, but I did.

And we didn't drive him this time.

We weren't talking about time.

We weren't dealing with azimuth.

We didn't discuss where we were going to be tonight.

We were just walking.

And for the first time, we really enjoyed the beauty of history that breathed on us from every building and small street.

It was weird.

It's like something came back for a while that we lost in the sand in Barcelona.

Easy looking.

No purpose.

Just the present.

And we just bought a melon in Tarazona.

A big, heavy, absurd piece of summer that we then carried on as a little symbol that this is not just a path to eclipse, but also a path between things that can be eaten with hands.

Then we went to Borobia.

We had already had two nights of adventures, but only now was the part that we actually came here for.

We weren't sure where the eclipse was coming from yet this morning.

We had a plan.

We had maps.

We had azimuth.

We had tips on places.

We had Moncayo.

But the plan is no place.

The place isn't until you stand on it and see the horizon.

Borobia

Borobia offered to us before.

She was high. She had a good view. And most importantly, there was a observatory.

That sounded like a sign.

When you go to the eclipse of the sun and you find a village with a starfish on it, the brain says, "This could be it."

And when the azimuth and the spine and the open horizon come into it, it becomes more than a feeling.

We didn't come to Borobia alone.

We understood that quickly.

A small village turned into a place where people used to get high from all sides. Cars. Organizers. Roadblocks. Bills. Tape. Program. The bands. Lectures. Watching the sky. Together waiting for a thing that cannot be repeated.

Borobia was suddenly a festival.

Astronomical pilgrimage.

A village that grew above itself for a few days.

We've reached the information center.

We brought Mirko.

Yellow vest.

A blind stick.

Knee post-op.

And we made it simple.

We have a blind friend with us.

She's out of knee surgery.

There are roadblocks upstairs.

We need to go all the way up the hill where there's a common observation.

Can you let us do that?

I expected all sorts of things.

Paperwork.

No.

Problem.

Unsure.

Someone who's gonna have to call someone else.

But they said sure.

No big drama.

Without making Mirko a problem.

Without making us the exception they have to beg for.

They gave us the certification tape.

Permission to pass through.

The opportunity to go all the way up.

Sometimes you just need one little yes to relax in your shoulders all day.

And this was it.

We had room.

Or more specifically, we had a way to the place.

That's enough for now.

We went upstairs.

We checked that Borobia is really right.

A hill.

Open horizon.

Dry country.

Loins in the distance.

The village below us.

The observatory was like a white dome in a landscape that seemed to belong there forever.

It was clear we were coming back here.

Only then could we go to the water.

Not because the eclipse stopped being important.

On the contrary.

Just because all of a sudden we knew where we were going to be tonight, we could afford not to conquer for a few hours.

Just be.

Cueva de Ágreda

We chose Cueva de Ágreda's swimming pool.

Mountain swimming pool on the spring.

About 25 or 30 kilometers from Borobie.

At 1310 meters above sea level.

This number means something to the Czech Republic.

1,000, 300, ten meters.

It's not just a hill anymore.

That's the height around the Rabbit Snowman. And you're still standing over Moncayo, taller than Snow.

For us, such things are great.

Maybe because we don't have high mountains at home.

Maybe because every mountain higher than Snowbell makes us feel like we're further away than we really are.

Maybe because in the heat and dust, the height seemed like a promise of cold.

And that promise came true.

The water was cold.

Not refreshing.

Ice.

It flowed from a mountain spring and could have been 12, maybe 15 degrees.

On a warm sea in Barcelona.

40 degrees in Aragon.

Sweat, dust and road.

That was something fancy.

We went in there and the body didn't know for a second whether to scream or say thank you.

So we did both.

The pool was quiet.

Minimal people.

Big shadow.

Moncayo view right above us.

We brought food.

Every guitar under the butt.

A bag of stuff.

We spoke Czech.

And all of a sudden, it was like,

"Hello."

Or maybe just:

"Hi."

Czechs.

Of course.

Man is in a small mountain village in Spain, at a height like on a Czech mountain, below the peak higher than Snowball, on the day of the eclipse of the sun, and still somewhere someone will say "good day."

They were over 3,000 kilometers behind them.

They were driving.

They've been on the road for two weeks.

And we met at the water below Moncay as if it were completely normal.

We talked.

They laughed.

We told them about the Blind Sun expedition.

About Mirko.

About going to the eclipse.

About having four guitars because Mirek decided that everyone had to have one.

They liked it.

And we liked that they liked it.

Then we pulled out a watermelon.

The one from Tarazona.

Half a mil.

And they poured bourbon into it.

I don't know if there's a proper gastronomic recommendation for the day of the solar eclipse in the Spanish mountains, but a bourbon melon should have its place in it.

We split up with them.

We brought them cold beer.

Sometimes traveling sharing doesn't need big rules.

You got a melon, you got a melon.

You got a beer, you get a beer.

You have a story, you give a story.

And all of a sudden, you're not strangers at the pool anymore.

You're people who met a few hours before the sun goes out.

Then the Brazilians came.

They were lured by guitars.

Or laugh.

Or both.

They wanted to talk.

They were nice, open, curious.

In fact, that day, people were strangely open everywhere.

It's like everyone knows we're waiting for something bigger than our own program. Bigger than the state. Language. Plan. Car. Vacation.

Something that happens to everyone at once.

And that makes it easier for strangers to talk.

We were sitting in the shade.

They bathed in ice water.

They ate.

They drank.

We did.

They were talking.

Mirek was resting.

Moncayo was standing over us.

Everything was quiet.

And there was something tense behind the calm.

It's like breathing in and not knowing when to breathe out.

We spent five or six hours there.

Maybe less.

Maybe more.

Time started acting weird that day before the light.

The morning behind the hospital was slow.

Tarazona was historic.

Borobia was organizational.

The pool was out of time.

And somewhere in all this, from the expedition, which up until that moment mostly drove, bathed, ate, improvised and laughed, something became quieter.

Not more serious.

That wouldn't be accurate.

We weren't serious people.

But we started to feel like there was something coming tonight that would make us serious people for at least a minute and a half.

We got up around 5: 00.

We packed our guitars.

Towels.

We gave the remaining watermelon to the Brazilians.

Food.

Things.

One last piece of cold.

We said goodbye to the people by the water.