The Last Hike

  Puerto de Canencia, Spain
Saturday, June 17, 2006

Since days here are so long, longer than what we're used to, we find ourselves exhausted by the time the sun goes down. But yesterday we decided we were going to stretch our energies and go out into the Madrilenian Friday night. We went out for dinner with my parents to an Argentine steak house (with two vegetarians around the house they were dying for a bloody steak). After my green salad, I ordered a raspberry sorbet with vodka. What the waiter brought over was more like vodka with a hint of raspberry.

As we walked out of the restaurant, I was very flushed, light-headed and giddy. Ed was feeling a little on the heavy side since he had ordered a "dulce de leche" pancake with vanilla ice cream. In all my hypernness, I convinced him to go out anyway with Sophie and me.

We went to the downtown part of Madrid where all the pubs, bars and clubs are. Already in the Metro there were kids drinking wine out of cartons, dressed for the night. We walked around a bit and decided to go into a bar called Chill Out which was playing interesting electronic music. The place was dark and dirty, but had, comfortable seating red lighting and a shiny disco ball ready to drive anyone insane. The people there were dressed very alternatively, with awesome hair cuts and a very unique sense of style. Made me feel so plain.

We had a few drinks, danced a bit and headed back home after Sophie met a nice-looking Mexican traveller. I noticed on the way home the effect the drinks had had on my head, and feeling a little dizzy, not to mention exhausted, we went to sleep.

The next day, my Dad, who had changed his mind about NOT going hiking, woke us up early for another Saturday mountain ride. This time around I was not too thrilled about the idea, as I was dead tired and hungover. I couldn't imagine walking through the mountainside feeling the way I did, but I didn't have the heart to say no to my Dad. So I woke Sophie up and forced her to come with us, to which she didn't complain too much.

01 Entrance

On the one hour ride to Puerto de Canencia we all dozed off and woke up already there. The looming pine trees were all covered in a soft glaucous mist typical of early mornings in the mountain. There were greyish clouds covering the sky which would otherwise be baby-blue. It was chilly and my hangover had gotten worse during the sinuous car ride up the range.

03 Picture of the hangover

We started walking and up the path, my Dad and Ed had pent-up energy which, in all my nausea, made me hate them instantly. In any case, after walking for an hour and breathing fresh air and drinking fresh water from the springs I felt better without even noticing it. Must be the energy there.

05 Tree Tops

As we walked, occasionally the trees would open up revealing a cliff where all you could see were hills upon hills and evergreen treetops. The views were staggering and I'm sure everyone felt as small and unimportant as I did.

04 Trees

The paths weren't too steep or too flat, and the hoards of trees on either side stood straight up with barks starting as dark brown and ending in auburn red. We came across little cascades and streams during our walk, with pools of crystal cold water, where fireflies and little tiny frogs dwelled. Ed picked up a baby frog camouflaged in a fuscous rocky color to take a picture, but it quickly jumped out of his hand and back into the water.

09 Forggy 2

We encountered wavy meadows with patches of different shades of green where the shadow of a moving cloud projected its slow path on the grass. We also got lost a few times and had to turn to the map printed out from the Internet for guidance. The map turned out to be not so great; either that or we were on the wrong place. We chose different shortcuts out of the path through a wild wooded area, jumping through the ferns and prickly thorns, slipping down slopes of rock and lose dirt, watching lizards slither away scared.

13 Ed and Lu

At last, as was foreseen, it started to drizzle and even though we were refuged by the thick canopy of leaves, we sought shelter under a marvellous tree which must have been 500 years old with a trunk and a set of roots large enough to accommodate a small family. The rain only lasted a few more minutes so we decided to head back before more rain clouds caught up on us.

We dozed off during the ride back, saddened that this would be our last Saturday hike with my Dad. We are planning to leave Madrid either tomorrow or first thing Monday for Palma de Mallorca, exchanging our mountain forests for quiet Mediterranean beaches with warm turquoise water. A change of scenery that didn't sound too bad.