I write this having just returned from working in northern Spain, where I experienced the Iberian Peninsula’s first total solar eclipse in over a century while working for Pura Aventura.
Several months ago, the Pura team caught wind of the magnitude of this event: An extraordinary astronomical phenomenon was taking place in the skies over one of our most beloved places on the planet. And so, a lightbulb began to flicker in our minds. We decided to run a giveaway that would award somebody with a tailored trip around the Basque coast of Spain and Rioja Alavesa, an area we know very well, and, as it so happened, an area that was set to offer optimum conditions for experiencing the eclipse in all its glory.
We didn’t want this giveaway to be decided by the arbitrary nature of a raffle. We wanted it to celebrate nature and Spain, but also to celebrate kindness and altruism. That’s when the bulb began to beam a little brighter. This was not to be a prize left to chance. We came up with the idea of having people nominate somebody whom they thought deserved a potentially life-changing trip. That way, it could be given to somebody who could truly benefit. We wanted it to make a real difference to somebody’s life, to have a profound and positive impact on somebody. Safe to say, the stars aligned and we found that person.
Over one thousand nominations came through, describing all manner of difficult situations and admirable deeds. People who had overcome significant ordeals and people who had gone that little bit further in life to positively impact those less fortunate. I personally read each and every entry before going over them with the rest of the Pura Aventura team, discussing who we felt could really do with this kind of experience. We then sent 20 nominees off to a panel of judges: chief travel writer at The Sunday Times, Chris Haslam, renowned broadcaster, journalist and author, Kate Humble, and Deputy Counsellor at the Spanish Tourist Board, Pedro Medina Ascensio. That’s when they happened to put forward the same person.
Fiona had been nominated by her cousin Alison having spent recent years enduring darkness following the loss of her husband Owen on a family holiday. Alison wrote that she felt it could be something that brings some light back into her cousin’s life. She explained that she would step in to look after Fiona’s 15-year-old son Isaac, allowing Fiona and her 18-year-old daughter Maisy the chance to adventure together, though she made sure to emphasise the likely scale of nominations and the slim chances of being selected. Fiona had evidently heeded this advice, as when we rang her and told her to start packing her bags, her voice wavered with shock and surprise before steadying into gratitude and, as she called it, a sense of being seen.
Roll on a few weeks and I greeted Fiona and Maisy at Bilbao airport and sent them on their way exploring beaches, towns, hills, wineries, salt mines and much more. We met up frequently throughout the following eight days, sharing coffees, food, and stories. They told me of the exceptional meals they’d eaten and the kindness of locals who had begun to greet them with morning smiles and friendly nods in the remote inland villages of Rioja Alavesa.
On Wednesday, August 12, the three of us had a picnic up by a chapel named Ermita de San Felices, near the town of Ábalos. We found ourselves setting up in the midst of a bucolic painting surrounded by families who had organised tables and chairs under low-hanging trees and begun feasting as they awaited the big moment. Wine bottles popped, relatives chatted, and children chased each other around the chapel giggling. We sipped on a bottle that we had bought from a local winery the previous day and Fiona and Maisy’s faces lit up as the moon edged toward the sun, and wonder rippled through the little hilltop haven around us. After the fleeting totality, the sky was washed in incandescent hues.
“It was truly, truly special. The whole environment. The beauty of the mountains. The valleys. The vineyards.” That’s how Fiona put it, but neither of us would claim to have the words to sufficiently paint the picture we were sitting in. What resonated most, however, from that little hilltop in the hinterlands of the Upper Rioja region, was the palpable positive light that was shining on Fiona and Maisy. A light, not to be overly metaphorical, that had long been obscured.
Shortly after, I asked them to explain that moment and what it meant to them. “The whole experience was mind-blowing, really. It doesn’t feel real, it feels out of this world,” said Maisy.
“Just absolutely beautiful. For me, I felt a connection with Owen in that moment. It was so special to be able to share it together with Maisy, we’re very grateful,” began Fiona. “For my journey, it’s symbolic of life being good and then the total eclipse of life being totally awful and dark, with no light at all. Then within that sparks of light begin. To begin to have hope and to see light and to be able to think that we could have a future beyond our grief and our loss is massive. Because you can’t see that at the time. The darkness and the cold, the stillness, the extreme loneliness. And then the light coming back with new hope. We don’t need to remain in the darkness forever, and that’s amazing because at the time it is very hard to see that.”
The following days Fiona and Maisy continued to find some respite in their storm in this beautifully serene and slow-paced area of Spain. I caught up with Fiona as we drank coffee outside a local café. “You’re happy here, aren’t you?” I asked her. “What’s it all feeling like?”
“Just to sit here in the beauty of Spain. In this beautiful place, looking at the mountains, the sky, just hearing the locals in the background. There is nothing like it,” she replied. “Just to be able to contemplate life and my journey, which is painful and hopeful. It is just a beautiful place to sit and heal. And to sit with my emotions and just to feel it. I don’t know really, there is just something very simple and yet absolutely beautiful about here.”
But as the magic of Rioja Alavesa continued to impact Fiona, awareness and gratitude never faltered. “I know all of those other people must have been obviously as deserving as we are, but this sense of ‘we see you’ and ‘we acknowledge what you’ve been through’, it is an amazing healing journey and I am very grateful for it.”
It won’t be Fiona’s last trip to Spain. She’s planning to go back with her cousin Alison in search of more of what made this experience so extraordinary. And so I’ll leave you with this quote.
I think for me one of the things is feeling more empowered. You know, I know I can do stuff but when you lose somebody I think you lose a lot of confidence and your world becomes very small and I think this has opened the world up to me again. Thinking I can travel, I can enjoy the world. Owen loved to travel and I did too. But I feel like this has given me a renewed strength, a renewed interest and desire to do that again.
It meant a great deal to share this time with you, Fiona & Maisy, and it was an honour to learn all about Owen.
Official publication: https://pura-aventura.com/travel-blog/from-darkness-to-light