Pyrenees

My lack of entries has NOT been for lack of anything to write about. In fact, it is quite the opposite. I have had so many experiences, revelations, and self-discoveries that when thinking about synthesizing them into a few words for an entry I have felt so overwhelmed that I have avoided it completely. Yes this is the ultimate procrastination, and every decision to wait longer makes finally starting even harder. After Morocco, Italy, Granada, Madrid, and Barcelona, my good friend Kendra finally reminded me harshly the benefits of making yourself document and synthesize traveling experiences and I am once again motivated to start, although I have some serious catching up to do. Although I keep this blog to update the people in my life who I love and who care about me, I am selfishly also keeping it to develop the way that I process life. Through writing about my experiences I hope to gain the capability to see life in new and unique ways, to capture more irony and humor in the day to day experiences, and to be able to look back at my adventures and thoughts and monitor personal growth.
Skipping all the previously mentioned adventures (perhaps I will be motivated enough to write about them later), three friends and I trekked out to the wild Pyrenees mountains for a long weekend of hiking luxury. We appropriately call European hiking this for its emphasis on convenience and comfort that I have never experienced before in the ¨Great Outdoors¨ of the United States.
To begin, our rental car was called the Panda and was about the size of one too. The car fit perfectly in our vision of a European road trip, and we eagerly crammed our four backpacking backpacks and our oversized legs into the undersized legspace. We brought an ungodly amount of food including Chorizo, olives, and full loaves of bread. Feeling very Spanish we set out for the town of Torla and only made one pit stop for a ¨cafe con leche¨, realizing that while Americans have big gulps and tar-tasting coffee at every gas station, Spaniards allow you to have espresso and liquor along with tapas (small apetizers, typically involving an overabundance of mayonaise).
We eventually set out on the trail about two hours behind schedule and hiked into the pitch dark, following a friendly group of Spaniards who had been to our refugio once before. At first we thanked God that we found them because in the dark we would have been lost, but we spoke too soon, because the too ended up lost, and the seven of us wandered aimlessly with excessively heavy backpacks for at least an hour at the top. Luckily it was a pleasant temperature, the stars were magnifiscently radiant, we were all in decent shape, and highly accustomed to staying up until 2 in the morning, because we didnt happen upon our refugio until 1:30 am. The luxury began as we took off our hiking boots and stepped inside the warm refugio to recieve comfortable slipper-sandals provided for us by the Federacion of Aragon. We slept in comfortable matressed bunks with warm blankets and hot coffee ready by 8 in the morning for us. Due to the weather we were not able to do our planned route, but instead lounged around, explored a new view of the striking canyon and ate lunch next to a huge waterfall in the sun with our new Spaniard friends. Now that we could see where we had hiked before in the sunlight we were blown away by snowcovered mountains, waterfalls, impressive rock formations, goats, marmots, lizzards, and a gigantic canyon with snow on the top and a river running through it.
We spent our next night in a little hostel run by an old couple. It was clean and quaint, and the best part was that it had the most amazing view of the Pyrenees mountains and was close to the hike we wanted to do the next day. We ate a feast of bread, cheese, and beer while Roberto taught us a popular Italian card game. The village we stayed in consisted of about 9 houses and 2 shops, both of which were old men´s woodshops, selling wooden spoons and combs. Even our tiny little Panda couldn´t handle the narrow roads of the town. Thankfully, one of the woodworkers came out to see what all the ruckus was about and directed Robert to reverse up a steep hill, the lovely smell of burning rubber filling our noses. Before we were led to our hostel though, the man led us to his shop and we politely looked around pretending to be very very tempted to buy the honey stick he had wittled.
Now that I have done a fair amount of traveling by myself I believe I have earned the right to make an opinion about whether or not it is for me. In general I am thankful for the experiences I had on my own, as I know I grew more traveling by myself than I could have with friends, and I also have gained a new appreciatin for traveling with other people. I can safely say that the group of people for the Pyrenees trip was enjoyable as we were all very relaxed and there was plenty of room for peaceful reflection and independent appreciation of nature´s beauty, while at the same time lots and lots of laughter, someone to point out new things to, and company for meals. Roberto spent his time telling us in detail about all the rocks, plants and animals we encountered, and encouraged a trip to the geology museum. Tyler took charge of reservations and navigating and then proceeded to keep us entertained with poop jokes. Kendra´s dry sense of humor never ceased to have us chuckling, and the entire group kept a positive attitude through rain, getting slightly lost, and even getting stopped by Spanish police in ski masks and gigantic guns.
Sunday we wandered along a loud river finding more waterfalls, and a chapel built inside a cave. I was reminded of why I feel more human in nature by the soothing sound of the rushing water, the sweet smell of the unusual spring flowers, and the awareness of how small I am in comparison to enormous canyon walls jutting up on all sides.
We made a pit stop in Pamplona on the way back and luckily Tyler had his ¨gore radar¨ turned on because we found the Plaza de los Torres, where the bull fights are held, the streets where the running of the bulls takes place, a famous statue, and a Citadel. Pamplona had a medieval feel, and the Citadel felt like walking inside the ruins of an old castle. It was very green and a variety of people enjoyed the public park inside, including a wall of climbers traversing along the old stone walls. Although only spending a few hours there, I immediately understood why Hemingway admired it so much, and I think I may have found another place that I would like to live (Barcelona is still the first).
While the entire weekend was fantastic, one of the most enjoyable things was the game that we Americans invented. We have yet to come up with an official name, however it mainly consists of trying to erradicate all contractions from your speech. While spending time with Spaniards attempting to speak English, I have realized that one, we use contractions A LOT, and two, that we generally say ¨yeah¨ instead of ¨yes¨, thus from this realization we created a game in which the only one who had an advantage was Roberto, who´s first language is Italian. Each player begins with 5 points and the goal is to be the last player with points remaining. A conversation is started and the topic completely unrestricted and unstructured. The only restriction is that you are not allowed to say yeah or use contractions, because each time that you do so, you lost a point. At first it seemed easy, but just as Kendra was making fun of me for talking like a robot, she made two mistakes in one sentence. The car was an erruption of laughter for a good 20 minutes, as the game proved to be almost impossible. Roberto was quite animated by the game as he had apparently been suffering slight depression because he felt like his English skills were not where they should be, until he discovered that as soon as we started the game he could understand 100% of what we were saying! He of course won the game and put us all to shame, leaving us Americans with the realization that we are slaves to our contractions unless we want to start sounding like foreigners ourselves!