J > This year my time in Navarra has been much cloudier and wet than last year : in fact it’s been exceptionally wet.  But yesterday was a cheerful day of clear skies, warming sunshine, and – if barely above freezing, it was defnitely dry.  Perfect for a day out exploring : I’ve scarcely more than a week left before I must return to Scotland. I headed to the Basque far north east of Navarra, about an hour’s drive away, a land of jagged sierras, soaring viaducts, dry barancos, narrow twisting gorges, vultures, circling overhead, roads switching sides across roaring mountain rivers …

Textbook Spanish only gets you so far.  ¡Hola! ¡Adiós! ¡Buenos Tardes! ???  Hereabouts, in the Zona Media of Navarra (Estella – Tafalla/Olite – Sangüesa, roughly) – and northwards, the universal hello/goodbye seems to be …   Well, until a few days ago, I just couldn’t make out what word or words were being said, by almost everyone, so casually and at any occasion.  But then I was in Estella …