a month in the mountains

I think, along with St. Ives, Sauto is one of my favourite places we’ve been so far. (Maybe I have a thing with the letter S, because I really liked Santorini as well) The tiny, friendly village on the side of a mountain in the Pyrenees where we stayed in “La Fougere“; a cozy, fire-place warmed house that used to belong to Catalan shepherds in the 1700’s. When shepherds lived there, the bottom floor was a barn that housed 2 cows, 1 pig, 20 chickens, and 50 rabbits! Probably the thing I like best about the Pyrenees mountains is the nature. The terrain is just one of my ABSOLUTE FAVOURITES. The season probably has a lot to do with it though. I love all the dead grass, dead trees, tall pine trees, rocky areas, lakes and forests. And there are so many Awesome Animals! (like my alliteration?) At a wildlife park, we saw Red Deer, Fallow Deer, Reindeer/Caribou, Marmots, Wild Boars (which are, Jenna if you’re reading this, the ultimate mud-wallowers), Brown Bears, Bison, Ibex, Chamois, Mouflons (the last 3 are all types of goat-ish creatures), and. . . WOLVES!!!!!
I love wolves. The Fallow Deer are also adorable.
And we did see some Red Deer and a Weasel in the wild. But the most common animals around are farm animals. The hills are full of cows, goats and sheep all with bells around their necks, grazing where ever they please. But if they go too far, you’ll see a border collie or another sheep dog bounding across the fields to round them up. There’s also a very pretty plant called the Sun Thistle – like a sun flower but on the ground.
One night, while my sister, Darragh, and I were in our cozy bed in La Fougere, we made up. . .

THE REGINA STUFF
(No offense if your name is Regina)
How it started: Back in Canada, we watched a TV show called Switched at Birth. There are two mums in the show. One of them has orange hair (I forget her name), and one of them is half Spanish, Regina.”Cherie FM”, the Pyrenees radio station, is always playing a song that reminded me of Regina – The Regina Song.
We couldn’t remember the other mum’s name, so we call her Orange Mom.
Then we thought “imagine if everyone was obsessed with Regina!” So we made up The Regina Fun Pack!
It includes a CD of the Regina song, the Regina Jeans box set (book 1: Regina Zips, book 2: Regina Re-Zips, book 3: Regina Zips Again, book 4: Regina Zips Once More), a life-size Regina magnet, a bottle of Ribena, 3 Regina trading cards, a booklet of all the versions of Regina (Wallace-and-Grommit-style Regina, Lego Regina, bobble-head Regina etc.), a piece of Orange Mom’s hair, and a black box labeled in shiny purple letters: The Thing Regina Left on the Stair. (it includes any possible random thing that Regina happens to leave on the stair, with Regina’s face stamped onto it! It could be anything, socks, a rolling pin, a bed sheet, a hair brush, a plate, an apple, a dime, a lunch box. . .

Anyway, back to Sauto. While we were here we went to Andorra and Spain, Font Romeu and Mont Louis, the Hot springs and the solar furnace.
Andorra: We could not, sadly, find the Andorra sheep skin slippers we had been looking for.
Spain: Got our purple Picasso fixed twice.
Font Romeu: Major skiing village but there wasn’t much snow while we were there. Home of the world’s biggest Solar Furnace
Mont Louis: Walled city we discovered half way through our visit. Home of the worlds first Solar furnace.
Hot Springs: Water that comes out of the snow-topped mountains at 36 degrees C.
Solar Furnace: Using hundreds of little mirrors, it can reach 3000 degrees C on a sunny day.

We were there for a month but didn’t fit in quite as many hikes as we would have liked. Even so, the ones we did do were wonderful. Darragh and I are already making plans to come back to La Fougere in 10 years with our friends!