Wednesday, May 28, 2008
Monday, October 15, 2007
15 October 2007
I'm finally back to school and real life and hopefully will begin blogging again with some regularity! Apologies for the very long absence. Particularly to Anna Xu, a wonderful and devoted reader.
A few weeks before our scheduled weeklong break from classes, my friends here began making travel plans. A few were headed to Prague, a few to Rome. Both places sounded great to me, but a part of me wanted to see more of Spain--a country that, besides Granada, I´d seen none of.
The day that I was trying to decide where to go, fate intervened in the form of three e-mails. One was from my friend Anna, who had found old outdoors magazines in a store and wanted to know if I was interested in spending the break hiking. One was from my friend Allison, who wanted to know if that week would be a good time for her to come and visit. And the last one was from my new Harvard English Department advisor, introducing himself and suggesting that if I have any free time I make it up north to Cangas de Onis--a beautiful mountain town, he said, that would be especially nice in autumn.
Plans came together after that, and in what felt like no time at all I found myself, Anna and Allison in a bus from Madrid to Oviedo. To clarify geographically, Asturias is a region in the north of Spain, Oviedo is the region´s biggest city, and "the Picos de Europa" is a mountain range through several northern regions including Asturias. We took my advisor´s suggestion and decided to hike out of Cangas de Onis, an access town that according to our guidebooks is famous for fabada (bean stew), siedra (hard apple cider), and its many varieties of queso de cabrales (goat cheese). The lush and quiet mountain town, whose trees were all just beginning to turn orange, yellow, and brown, exceeded expectations; I can´t imagine a more peaceful place to spend a few days.
Thanks to Allison, who had brought from the States a "walking in Spain" book, we found great-looking route that started and ended at Lago de Ercina, which is a taxi drive away from Cangas. We packed up our backpacks with fleeces, cheese, and nuts, left our suitcases with the nice old ladies at the tourist office, and hit the trail!
I took detailed notes of the trip, which I don´t have with me here at the school computer lab (where I´m writing from between classes), so I´ll finish this entry later today or tomorrow morning from the residencia. Hasta luego!
...
Our first day, we hiked 17km—from Lago de Ercina to Caín. Our day began in town, where we did last-minute grocery shopping and found a place to leave our suitcases (that is, with the very friendly old ladies at the Tourist Office). We caught a taxi to Lago de Ercina, and passed Covadonga, with its stunning salmon-colored stone church. We watched out of the taxi’s windows as we climbed up the mountainside and the lush, vermonty green landscape gave way to craggy mountains.
Lago de Ercina is a plush, boggy lake plopped pretty much dead center in the middle of these craggy mountains. From the trail head there, we ascended a very muddy slope to the tinny serenade of cowbells. Ankle-deep in mud that (not surprisingly) smelled strongly of cow, I asked myself the question that always comes up at least once during a backpacking trip: why the heck did I decide to do this again?
The good news is that when we reached the hilltop and Refugio Vega de Aria, the trail (and our shoes) dried out. A shepard stopped to point us in the right direction, and after a brief lunch of raisins and cheese, we carried on. Trails in the Picos have a different marking system than those in California's Sierra Nevadas—instead of looking for “ducks” or “
After a steep, shale-y descent down the other side of the hill that we’d just walked up, we reached the route from Poncebos to Cain—one of the flat-out coolest trails I’ve ever hiked. The sendero is of decompressed granite, and is easy to walk on. For a while, it runs along the Garganta del Cares, an impressive gorge. To clarify. When I say “runs along,” I mean in 1946 Spanish workers dynamited a path into one side of the vertical cliff that extends up from the river seemingly indefinitely. The result is a semi-circular tunnel (that at times actually becomes a series of tubular caves) carved into an otherwise steep rock face. This would not be a place to misstep; at times, the cliff curves away at a negative slope from the trail and the river is at least a hundred feet below. When the trail turns into tunnel-caves, at points windows are carved into the rock wall and we could see waterfalls cascading down over us. I’ll try to include a picture, because words really can’t describe how fun this path was!
We reached Cain, a small mountain town, around 7pm, and spent the night there. We woke up at 9am (early, Spanish time) and began our second day hike to Vega de Uriellu!
...
The day began with an hour-long backtrack along the Poncebos trail. This trail is, according to our guidebook, the single best day hike in Spain and if any of you are ever in the Picos and seeking a gorgeous (no pun intended) and fairly easy walk, I'd suggest here. There are stone houses built up against the cliff walls, and the aqueduct mentioned above runs the whole length of the trail.
We reached Poncebos and the underground funicular at about 10:30 in the morning. By taking the 7-minute funicular, we avoided a strenuous 4.5 km ascent--a good call, in my opinion. We walked, blinking, out of the dark funicular into bright sunlight and a green, almost Hawaiian-looking landscape. We'd reached Bulnes La Villa, a small town with one cafe inaccessible by road.From Bulnes, we began another steep (and muddy, and hot) ascent through a path flanked by high ferns and shaded by low-hanging tree branches. We stopped at the pool below a small and freezing-cold waterfall to shed layers and swim. What struck me most about this leg of our hike was how radically different it was in landscape and flora from our hike the day before. The path really looked tropical!
As we hiked higher, however, the path again dried out and the "forest" thinned. Soon, we were hiking through fields of knee-high orange ferns, and passing through pastures where cows and goats grazed. When we finally reached the top of this hill, we dropped our backpacks and stared wide-eyed at the view; a sweeping valley first, and then a distant hill on top of which perched a small hamlet, complete with church spire. For any of you who grew up watching Beauty and the Beast, this (as far as I could tell) was the hill that Belle runs to behind her house.
Allured by the town, we headed down the hill, through fields of (you guessed it) cows and goats. When we reached the road, we stopped and asked a shepard for directions. He laid our map down on the hood of his car, turned his binoculars upside-down to read the small font, and pursed his lips. "Alli," he said, and pointed--back in the direction that we had come from.
Yep, this was Lost Incident #1. The good that came out of our half-hour, out-of-the-way trek, however, was that the shepard also showed us a freshwater spring from which we could refill our water bottles. An hour of huffing and puffing back up the hill, we'd arrived where we'd started, and were ready to continue along the trail.
The rest of the day was--a climb. We passed a few refugios, a donkey carrying bundles, two German mountain bikers, and some gazelles, and (finally) out of the fog loomed Vega de Urriellu. We pushed open the stone building's heavy door, checked in with the innkeepers, and plodded up the metal stairs to the second floor and its six very cozy rooms. The rooms' walls were lined with bunk beds and in the deep windowsills were stacked thick felt blankets. Cold, we curled up with two blankets each and awaited dinner. And that's where I'll continue, when I continue!
Tuesday, October 9, 2007
9 October 2007
The weeklong vacation that separated my September language class from my October literature classes just ended--and so here I am, back in Granada. Here´s where I´ve been during the last week:
Toledo
Segovia
Madrid (2 nights)
Oviedo-Cangas de Onis-the Picos de Europa (5 nights)
On the bus back to Granada (1 long night)
My first three days of travel were organized by Arcadia, the program that I´m here in Spain with. The next week of travel I planned with two friends.
Seeing as I´m so far behind on blogging, I´m not going to try to tackle this chronologically but rather by location. This seems like it will make sorting out my memories a bit easier. With that said, I´m going to post this and start writing about Asturias!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
26 September 2007
Also, I actually have been writing--just not on the blog. I'm going to be a columnist for the Harvard Crimson this semester and have been devoting a bit of time to newspaper-article researching and writing. The column isn't up yet, but will be soon. If you're interested you can read my past and future articles (all opinion pieces) online at http://www.thecrimson.com/writer.aspx?ID=1202985. Just to warn you, I wrote two feminist-y pieces last year that got some readers riled up and so you may run into a handful of angry comments. (If you really like me, you can Google me and see what happens. There's a girl out there who's written an entire web page rebutting my two articles; while I'm flattered and glad to spark discussion, I'm not sure that the articles themselves merit quite so much analysis!)
Anyway, more on Granada to come. I have good stories to share, but my language class' final exam is tomorrow and tonight I need to stop procrastinating (by writing blog posts) and review our grammar. Hasta luego!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
16 September 2007
Things really began on Thursday night, when a group of us from Arcadia (the program that I'm studying abroad with) decided to check out a local bar named Copa Real. We walked in, and it was fantastic: there was Spanish music playing, there was only Spanish being spoken, and the bartender's name was Jesus. After several nights of tapas bars that played The Killers and Shakira, it was nice to go somewhere that felt local. After an hour or two of drinking and dancing, we continued on to a nearby Kabob King (the Moorish fast food influence here) for schwarmas, baklava, and easy conversation till the early hours of the morning.
I took Friday easy--attended class and went to the Post Office, but did little else. After Thursday night, I wanted to stay in, and so my residencia-mate Ali and my friends Noemi and Jason gathered in Ali's room for homemade tinto de verano. (Red wine + Fanta limon = delicious.) They headed out to a botellon, or the Spanish version of a tailgate party minus the sporting event, around one a.m.; I opted for a quieter night of reading and writing.
Saturday I woke up and met the group at 11a.m. for a tour of the Alibaicin. The Albaicin is the ancient Moorish part of Granada, and it is beautiful. I'd gotten so used to the modern, commercial area surrounding Gran Via de Colon, the street that I walk down every day, that I'd forgotten there's a whole part of the city that looks, well, Spanish. The buildings were white and tumbly, with tile roofs. The hill faced the Alhambra and offered views from nearly every plaza. Tucked between the old houses were churches, fountains, and gardens. There were even the ruins of a Spanish bath complex, which as students we were allowed to walk through for free. We explored the hill for nearly an hour before descending, and I'm definitely going to return some afternoon this week and read in one of the high-up plazas.
Saturday night my friend Lauren and I decided to try out a tapas bar that's rather far away from the city's commercial center, but near to our residencia. I walk by it everyday and, despite not looking like much from the outside, is usually crowded. We sat down at the bar and ordered vino tinto and chorizo en vino--both our tapas and our racciones were large and delicious. (A good find!) After we finished eating, we ran into three other girls from Arcadia who were on their way to a flamenco show in a cave... we tagged along, and inadvertently arrived at my favorite thing that I've seen so far in Granada.
Flamenco is amazing. It combines Andulusian, Islamic, and Gypsy cultures (or so says the internet) and goes something like this. In a dimly-lit cave, a man sits on the right of a small stage in a wooden chair, playing a guitar. A strong, masculine-looking woman with flowers in her hair sits next to him, singing mournfully but with determination, punctuating each wail with a clap of her hands or a stomp of her feet. On the stage, a woman with curly black hair pulled back tautly dances--her steps are abrupt and angry, and her expression and hands add nuance to what her feet are trying to say. The whole experience is passionate and mesmerizing. Words really fail to capture it.
From the Flamenco cave, we went to a Salsa bar, where a few locals took pity on us and tried to show us basic steps. After an embarrassing hour or so, we gave up and taxi-ed it home.
Today I had an "intercambio" (language exchange) scheduled with a guy named Antonio. It was fun; we discussed American music and movies, Spanish politics, and why Spanish guys are so frustratingly machisto. (I'm sick to death of the catcalls here; after getting groped a few times, I've become a very unfriendly person. I curse at overly-forward Spanish men in English and trust that they get the gist of what I'm saying. Most of the time they seem to, or at least they back off.) But anyways, Antonio, who was not too sketchy, gave me a ride home on his Vespa! Now I understand that this is a very stereotypical Spanish-guy thing to do, but still: I got to ride on a Vespa! Now I'm back in my dorm, frustrated that everywhere is closed on Sundays and eating a dinner of sliced bread and (the Spanish margarine called) Tulipan.
This week ought to be fun. My plans are: learn some music, visit the herb market, and make it into the Sierra Nevada for an afternoon of hiking with Noe. I feel like I'm finally settling into a life here. Yay!
