Spain Day 15 - Calzada Romana
Trip Start
Jun 25, 2008
1
21
77
Trip End
Sep 01, 2008
Barcena de pie de concha,
Spain
Sunday, July 13, 2008
Spanish Bowling
.After calming Samuel ... I shower and as Janice and I begin discussing our plans for the day, the doorbell rings. Janice answers the door and is greeted by the same woman who brought us food last night (who is also the woman who's grandchildren we played with several nights ago when Samuel set the world championship jump-roping mark of 14). Today, she offers an invitation to join her adult children and the grandchildren along the Calzada Romana. Perfect! Janice was just lobbying me to take a family hike somewhere... and having hosts makes it an easy decision.
We walk five houses down to their house and they tell us the best way to experience Calzada Romana with kids is to drive up to the top, and walk down. Great! We all hop in to their car and drive for about twenty minutes up the mountain until we reach our destination. Before we start our hike our host pulls over and shows us Spanish Bowling up close and personal. A classic Sunday match is in progress. As we watch, he tells us about the various rules and talks a bit about how before TV came to the area, large crowds would gather for each match ... standing room only ... as bets were placed on the winner. Most games were very friendly with the winning team taking the losing team out for lunch
Again with the bowling
. Another interesting tidbit, something that I had actually guessed at and related to Janice after being here for a couple of days: This place, Barcena de Pie de Concha and the surrounding villages, used to be very remote, only easily accessible by train. This created a very rural environment and the mountains were kept from being cluttered with modern telephone and electrical towers and such. Just three or four years ago, a new freeway was built coming through which made the drive from nearby Santander a one hour drive instead of what used to be a five hour drive through windy, rustic roads. One the one hand, its brought the economy way up as bars, restaurants, gas stations, hotels, and the like have flourished with the new traffic of visitors. But on the other hand, many locals feel like their piece of paradise is slowing deteriorating. Having been here for only a couple of weeks, I have felt the effects of both sides of the coin. On the one hand, here we are in the rural mountains of northern Spain with the ability to check my internet via wi-fi with just a ten minute walk from the house. We have cable, electricity, good tasting tap water, etc. On the other hand, several times today along the Calzada Romana our otherwise heavenly view was ruined by either a poorly placed phone line or a huge freeway off in the distance. I feel like we are living right in the middle of a fight between the old way of life that many villagers live ... where livestock are walked through the street on a nightly basis, and where the unrelenting push of modern technology advances ..
Signs
. as each of the neighborhood kids takes a break from their daily soccer matches to check YouTube in the Ayuntamiento. After about fifteen minutes of watching the bowling, we jump back in the car and drive to the starting gates of the day's adventure.
For the next hour and a half we walk just over 3km, all downhill through some of the most gorgeous surroundings one could ask for. The road we are on is over 2,000 years old, and amazingly in several places the original stones have been kept in great condition. We pass several ancient abandoned buildings and a church building who's age we can only guess at. Tons of mariposas (butterflies) everywhere. We probably see over forty over the course of the hike. The eldest of the host children have packed a large bag of candy for the trip and several times along the way stop to share. The youngest of the three girls says (while pointing at Ella), "Momma, look at her hair. Its so pretty. It looks just like Cinderella's!". Ella is delighted when we translate for her.
Our host, Alfonso and his wife make excellent tour guides. They provide great walking sticks for the kids and Alfonso knows exactly where and when its best to diverge from the path to keep our shoes from being muddied (remember, its rained the past two days here and the skies today hold scattered clouds and threats of more rain)
Getting ready for the walk
. Just as we start our walk, we have a scary moment. Ella slips on a rock while holding her walking stick which solidly pokes her in the eye. After a couple of minutes she was fine, but for the rest of the walk I was left wrestling with the idea of what one would do if their four year old little girl was stabbed in the eye while in the fairly remote mountains of Spain. Scenes from the movie, "Ray" haunted me. In the movie, Ray Charles' mom must watch him go from a healthy seeing boy to being completely blind. Tragic. Our lives are so very very fragile. And from our vantage point as parents, the lives of our children seem even that much more perilous as they tumble and bumble so ignorantly unaware of all of life's dangers. Its a crazy thing to be a parent and, as my dad has related to me over the years, "to have your heart forever walking outside your body". But what are you going to do? Not let your kids hike with walking sticks? Pad every corner of every stair you come across? Never let your child run with the fire bulls in Pamplona? (well, ok ... perhaps that wouldn't be such a sacrifice) ... In any event, it turns out that for at least another moment, ... Ella maintains her impeccable health.
Just as the kids are tuckering out, we reach the end of the hike, the end of the Romana Calzada ..
ancient building
. just ten houses down from our home in Pie de Concha.A short potty stop at home, and then across the street to Mariangeles' bar for the best calamari I've ever had in my life (everywhere in Spain they call it 'calamari', but here they call it "rabas"(sp?)). I watch her fry it up fresh. Nothing I can see thats very difficult. Must just be the perfect blend of spices combined with the amazingly fresh calamari. Thats my best guess anyway. The whole family digs in and we polish the plate in just a couple of minutes. No sauce or nothing. Just fried calamari. YUM. Then, in to town to try a new restaurant. Its our biggest disappointment of the trip so far in terms of culinary experiences. Not much to say other than ... not good food, and service is on par with the bulk of our other Spanish restaurant experiences (not positive). The only reason we even went out to eat today was because shortly after our arrival, Samuel and I embarked on a trip around town looking for Arroz con Leche and these guys coordinated their schedule with ours and we told them we'd come today just for the arroz con leche (which we later found out is only served as dessert with a full 'menu del dia'). They do things a lot differently here in Spain, particularly in restaurants. At first, it was cool to experience the different culture ... but at this point, I have to say I prefer the business culture in the States
Walkin
. Here, when you enter a restaurant, you are at their mercy. As any European traveler will tell you, you can never make alterations to the menu. I'll also add that there is a general attitude of 'we really don't give a rats ass if you eat here or not' of nearly every employee at every restaurant we've been to. There have been exceptions, but they have been few and far between. Another thing is that you can only get certain items on the menu at certain times. Want french fries at 5pm? Not gonna happen. Feel like dessert at 1pm? Not unless you order a full table of food. WHY?! Come on, ... charge me more or something, but give me what I want! Bah.After our meal, we stop briefly to check email, post our blog, handle some financial things ... the kids play on the nearby playground ... and then we all head home. I want more calamari and head across the street, but alas ... the time for that has come and gone. Not available anymore. Drat. So, back home I go. The kids are set up playing games, I flop on the coach and crash for a 45 minute nap while watching the Olympics.
Oh, another side note that I've intended to mention for a long time now. Roadkill here is a bit different than my neighborhood. So far on our daily walks we've seen dead snakes, a toad, and a porcupine. Yuck!
More buildings
Its 7:30pm as I write this. Janice is getting ready to do yet another load of laundry (she has been awesome handling the washing and drying of all of our limited clothes so far!) and then we will start preparing an early dinner (shooting for 8:30pm). Our goal is to get the kids down before 10:30pm tonight so we can get an early start tomorrow. The weather is supposed to clear up and so we have put it in our calendar to head to Potes, a town two hours away by car that borders a national park ... where a 20km drive will take us to a grand lift that will hoist our whole family to the peak of a mountain with views that stretch from the ocean to the middle of Spain. Should be fun!
** Quick note, after writing this blog ... I decided to cruise down to the ayuntamiento tonight to post. On the way, I saw the same family we hiked with getting back from seeing Prince Caspian, and I stopped to chat. They gave me tips on Picos de Europa, a list of recommendations for a restaurant we are going to try before we leave, and ... a the promise of a CD of music for me! I had complimented Alfonso on the musica playing in his car and he is going to hook me up! SWEET! I also learned that the local iglesia is really old, and only open for a small service on Saturday evenings. Apparently, the place houses an 400 year old relic of the church, a famous Virgin Mary statue that Martin's uncle bought for the village (1600 euros! a while ago...). Cool info.
