River Rafting in the Pyrenees and an Amazing Dinner
When you travel for an extended period everyone has a low energy moment. Today was my turn. I woke up feeling exhausted. I am usually the most up of the group, but not this morning. Luckily Jim, Sean, and Sophia realized what was going on and got me laughing and moving around in no time.
They were all excited about the day’s adventure. “Mom get up and let’s raft!” 
We booked a raft trip with Adventura Raid Sarratillo, www.sarratillo.com, 974-500-725. Javier was booking guided trips. His english was great. (Isn’t it sad how important that was for us.) We booked the trip in Ainsa and drove to Campo to raft. The four of us were in one raft with our Italian guide Mimo. Mimo admitted to Sophia and me that the Spanish cannot seem to make a good Italian red sauce. For some reason it tastes like Campbell’s tomato soup on pasta ;P. With all the high quality vegetables in this country I don’t get it. The red sauce they make could not taste good to anyone older than 5.
Rafting was fun. It was a nice mix of tranquil, work, and excitement. There were quiet stretches and white water rowing and floating.
When traveling, like this, we have learned that everyone appreciates the historical, cultural side of things more if we break it up with something different in the middle. When we walked in to the guide shop and Sean saw all the options he wanted to do it all! We limited him to three. It was a family decision what those would be, with Sophia and I opting out of the next days kayaking.
When we returned to Ainsa, we moved to an apartment Javier rents. Javier built two apartments at his house in the small (very small) mountain hamlet of Guaso, about 15 minutes outside of Ainsa, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guaso. Many people in this area have apartments or rooms for rent. Our decision to break things up resulted in our staying at an apartment in the mountains and not the historic town of Ainsa. We were very happy with our choice. Javier calls his house La Cicuarala, http://www.lacicuarala.com/www.lacicuarala.com/Bienvenida.html. It had the most comfortable beds of the entire trip. La Cicuarala is off the grid. It was nice to stay in a house in the mountains Once again we found a spot that was warm and welcoming. A place that felt representative of an aspect of the area where we were staying. In Barcelona, we stayed in and apartment in the city. In Girona, Casa Cundaro was like stepping back in time. At the Abbaye de Capservy was a respite in the French Countryside. At La Cicuarala, we stayed in a mountain aerie like many of the inhabitants of this region. Guaso is up in the mountains overlooking a valley and across at a series of peaks.
We asked Javier for a restaurant recommendation. He called the restaurant, explained we wanted dinner sin carne, and that we were American. We went into the town of Ainsa to Restaurate Callizo, http://www.viamichelin.es/web/Restaurante/Ainsa-22330-Callizo-217208-41102. When we arrived we were greeted and then passed off to a waiter who was a native of Great Britain now living in Spain.
When they started making this Sean and Sophia said, “This is so super cool!”
The meal and experience of dining at Restaurante Callizo is unique. (I must apologize about the dearth of photos. I left my camera at the apartment, and no one else is good about taking photos.) While we were deciding between the Land menu or the Stone menu, we were served a small cocktail made with dry ice served in a cucumber. We were then told we had to choose Land because we did not want meat. The chef was adapting the Land menu to prepare a special meal with no meat for us. Once we chose between these two options there were 4 courses that we had no choice over what we were served. The entire table all needs to choose the same of one of these two. Sean and Jim decided to eat meat, so they chose a meat item for the 5th course and a dessert item for the 6th course. The artistry and creativity of the presentation of the dishes can only be truely appreciated by experiencing them. Here are a few photos of what was served. At the very end a case about the size of a small antique suitcase is brought out. It contains a sweet after dinner drink and little deep fried cake balls with melted chocolate in the center. This meal involves your sense of taste, sight, smell, and hearing. If you have the opportunity, I recommend you try this one of a kind dining experience.
These delicious olives were served 1 to each of us, hanging from the branches of bonsai trees.
These are spun sugar over goat cheese with strawberries lightly around the goat cheese. They are designed to look like parasitic catapillar balls that you see in trees around here. Once the trees get these on them, it kills the tree.
The salad served to Sophia and me. They have the best asparagus in Spain. There was a salsa, saffron, and seaweed salad.
We were too busy eating to take any more photos. Sophia and I had tempura vegetables for our main course and fresh fruit for dessert. Sean and Jim had an entree they loved and with a caramel something for dessert.
The old city of Ainsa is a lovely small historic town set on a hill. It over looks the small modern town of Ainsa, http://www.villadeainsa.com. It is different from Girona, in that it does not feel like it is full of full time inhabitants. It is different than Carcassonne, in that it feels quieter do more accessible. They are all so different a comparison is not fair.
Check out our previous post from Spain here.