QUEST 6

SIXTH TEST


Continue walking toward the rising sun. On a hill in the middle of a plain was born a king whose wife would mark the history of the country where you find yourself. On the top of this hill, look around you: in the distance you can see a long stone wall that is not a wall, it is stone. The wind has fashioned it so that it seems to be the vestiges of an Incan temple.

Your image in front of this wall is the sixth test.

The town of Sos del Rey Catolico has been declared a National Monument. It was the birthplace of influential nobles and of the great Catholic King Ferdinand (who married the equally famous Isabella). Isabella I was born on April 22, 1451 in the town of Madrigal de las Altas Torres. She died on November 26, 1504 in the castle of La Mota. She is often referred to as "La Católica" (the Catholic) a "title" given to her.

So from our history books HAHA google and speaking with some locals we knew we were in the right spot.

I have to say on arrival as we left vine yard fields and the snow behind us we reached the top of a huge mountain and as you come down the other side there in front of you in the middle of a plan is this beautiful hamlet on its own hill like a heaven itself.

Located in the far reaches of Aragon, Spain, the Parador of Sos del Rey Catolico is kind of "in the middle of nowhere." The result of this is that relatively few tourists ever find their way here to this sleepy little village of less than a thousand inhabitants (780). When you enter, you feel as if you've just stepped back several centuries in time. The village has a distinctly medieval feel.



We stood at the highest point of the hamlet and looked all around a 360 degree view of the mountains to the north and the wall of the Pyrenees in front of us. Or initial thought was the wall could be the answer but on closer inspection and thoughts were wrong. Then we thought perhaps the wind turbines had something to do with the clues. We decided to go into the Cathedral and ask some locals we went down into the cript which was beautiful and looked for clues. When we arrived back up we asked the priest who could not offer us any guidance. We went to the gift shop below they had heard about the quest and 2 people had been in before although they could not help us either! I was hungry and it was around 5 I fear perhaps the previous evenings hangover had also started to set in and it was going to be dark in a couple of hours. We decided to go for a drive down the mountain and look up. While driving down we turned to The Benedictine Monastery of San Salvador de Leyre. We walked up to the gates and a monk greeted us. He pondered for a while and wih a half smile and a glint in his eye knowing all these mountains and plains since he was a child explained if we followed the road further down we would come to a stone which nobody could explain how it had arrived but that looked like a wall. Excited we drove a further 5 km and there is was fashioned by the wind a stone which looked like a wall that you could just see Sos del Ray Catholico from we had found our incan temple!