Emma Lodes

Summer part 2: taking the most efficient route possible, we drove to Spain from Poland through Berlin, Cologne, Koblenz, Paris, Toulouse and the Pyranees. Since Paris is boring here are some photos from a week hiking through the French and Spanish Pyrenees, whose geology Wikipedia page is about 400 pages long. Some geological highlights: 1) the Pyrenees form a “fossil” plate boundary between the Iberian peninsula and the rest of Europe and formed during the collision, 2) there is a serious rain shadow cast by the mountains, where the French side is rainy and green, and the Spanish side is dry as bone! 3) Karst systems (limestone caves) sprinkled throughout the mountains cause rivers to disappear and reappear all the time and quite mysteriously. Some how we avoided rain the whole trip and *narrowly* avoided heat stroke and attack from terrifying (but apparently completely benign) bulls that basically stand in the trails everywhere and stare at you like they want to skewer you alive 🐄🤠🇪🇸