Meagan's World: Sea Kayaking

Monday, August 22, 2005

Sea Kayaking

The very first day we were in Barcelona, we were wandering through the Gothic Quarter near our hotel, the Hotel Canton, searching for flip flops for Matt. We walked into a store that sold and started to talk to the owner, who happened to be from Oregon. His wife was from Alaska and they run a tour company called Spanish Trails. They ended up helping us in a lot of ways, some of which back fired! First of all, they warned us about the El Canton and offered for us to stay at their friend's apartment who was out of town. That was what led to the hotel switch on Saturday right before Kelly's wedding. It turned out badly because Charles had an emergency and didn't bring us the keys until 2, but we had to check out of the El Canton at 12! So we were running on no sleep, and lugging our bags through the slightly seedy gothic quarter. Then there were no sheets on the bed and the owner came home while we were still staying there...but that is another story!

In addition to offering us this apartment, they booked a hotel room for us in Girona and put us on their list for a sea kayaking trip in the Costa Brava area. We had a wonderful time: the weather was sunny and gorgeous, the water was clean and cool, the cliffs were beautiful and our guide Olaf was really nice. Also on the tour was a family from Minnesota. They were very friendly and nice, but the mother fell out of the kayak within the first ten minutes and turned back. Then the her husband and child did too. The woman's sister was there with her two twin daughters and she was slightly stressed and had never been out of the US before. She was extremely up tight the whole time...she wouldn't let her daughters swim in the water and she wouldn't leave the kayaks on the beach, she stood right next to them to guard them. Then she wanted to leave, so we had to cut our trip short. So we went back to the beach and had lunch and the family left and went back to their cruise ship. The owners of Spanish Trails, Charles and Stacy, came to the beach and hung out with Matt and I. It was a great day! Any time you are in the sun, swimming and doing active things, it is really hard to have a bad time. They brought 2 girls with them who were my age and from Canada who were working in Barcelona for the summer. That was real treat for me cause it is not often I run across anyone my own age any more, let alone girls that I like and have fun with. At least not in Hong Kong. We went hiking up on the cliffs. The terrain looked a lot like Torrey Pines Park to me. It was so much fun! It was extremely crowded though, I guess the Costa Brava is popular with lots of extremely tan, naked, Europeans who own luxury boats.