Romp Stomp Tromp

The beginning

While in Agaete, we also took a monster hike up to the mountains. Gran Canaria has a totally different feel up in the pine forests. We hiked about 1000 meters up through small villages, roads of all sizes and shapes, cave dwellings, almond and orange groves, and up up up. At one dodgy point we had to walk across the wall of a dam, a little over two feet wide, with a 40-foot drop on one side and a posse of angry dogs on the other. One of the oddest trails either of us have been on. But beautiful, and flanked much of the way up by gorgeous prickly pear cactuses, huge blooming agaves, and weird tabaiba plants. The pine forests are usually clouded over, and though it rarely rains, on certain slopes the constant mists provide lots of moisture. We rounded a bend in the trail and went from dry, crunchy pine forest into what looked like a cloud forest, with lichens draped on every branch.

The early middle (oops, wrong turn, check out the guard dogs)

The late middle

Pressing on, we dropped down a steep trail with truly spectacular views, including out over the ocean almost 100 km to the Pico de Teide, Spain’s highest mountain, on the island of Tenerife (see below, right upper corner). It was one of those places that pictures simply can’t do justice to, with jagged mountains and cliffs on several sides, a beautiful valley on another, and a stunning coastline to finish it off. Wow. If you ever get a chance to visit the Canary Islands, do it.

The end (almost, we still had to go down)

Agaete

Agaete is a small town on the West side of Gran Canaria, just a 20 minute walk to Puerto de Las Nieves which was home to the famous Dedo de Dios until it collapsed in 2005. Agaete is more local, Puerto de Las Nieves is more touristy, but has the beautiful local beach. The beach is composed of black rocks, which most everyone except us came prepared for with pads of all sizes and sorts. Besides being a bit bumpy, it was crystal clear water and a great way to transition from the hustle and bustle of Las Palmas.

We stayed in Casa Luna, a casa rural (literal translation: rural house) which is basically a really beautiful home with three extra rooms (and a gorgeous terrace on the roof). You hang out with the people who live there a little, but mostly do your thing while staying in a more local environment. They had a three week old kitten named snowflake which was amazingly cute. We were also the third North Americans to stay here… in 9 years!

The entryway of Casa Luna

It’s incredibly dry here. The people we stayed with in Agaete said it had rained 3 or 4 days this year. It rains so little that there’s no roof on much of the house, everything is open-air. And it’s so sunny and warm that they have no heat, and the hot water comes from a solar heating system on the roof.

The amazing rooftop terrace!


Food here is a little more local than Las Palmas which came as a relief because we were looking for some of the local favorites. Papas arrugadas (wrinkled potatoes) with mojo (ingredient list goes something like: garlic, olive oil, garlic, pimiento, salt and garlic – delicious!), gofio (a local grain mixture that Canarians are extremely proud of, so much so that if you’re talking about something fantastic they retort “…as good as Canarian gofio?”) served a bit like a bean dip with chunks of onion to scoop with, and the fruit of the prickly pear (fresh picked on early morning birding outings - deep red, more tart than sweet), and potaje de berros (watercress soup). We saw a woman in the grocery store buy ridiculous amounts of watercress (minimum 2 kg) – wow! That’s some serious soup. Canarians are also quite fond of condensed milk, which they serve in coffee unless you ask them not to (or are a tourist and therefore obviously don’t want it). We’ve been served both ways, and prefer regular milk thanks.

More to come soon about our adventures in Agaete.

A vacation from a vacation

We´ve been anticipating adventuring to the Canaries for awhile now, and here we are! Our apologies for the delay in posting, but internet access is not on a typical Canarian´s to do list. Our first three days were in Las Palmas, the largest city on the island. It´s a hustle and bustle kind of place, a perfect spot to get some stuff done. We shipped our warm things home! And we tried to figure out how to remedy our laundry situation - turns out you can only pay people to do your laundry here. But it was reasonably priced, so we hefted our 10 kg of soiled garments to the local tintoreria. Literally, a dry cleaner, but they do laundry too. We also took the opportunity to enjoy the local fruit and vegetable market. Holy smokes...so many things we didn´t know existed. We stocked up on our favorites, and enjoyed with giddy excitement as our bocadillo tolerance (bread with a little something inside) was getting exceptionally low.

Yep, the whole thing was eaten, no problem.

Our hotel was incredible, run by two gregarious and friendly brothers. Upon arriving at the hotel, we immediately felt like we were on an island. We sighed with relief, and enjoyed the lounge area in particular.

The lounge

We also had our first chocolate caliente experience...literal translation is hot chocolate. But culinary translation is much different. It´s more like a dark chocolate bar melted into a cup. They give you sugar to sweeten it if you like, and a spoon so that you can either drink it or spoon it like soup. It was amazing, and can also be consumed with churros, a very briefly fried dough served piping hot. We loved the transition in Las Palmas, but are ready to head out to the local houses we´ll be staying in.

Cadaqués

Cadaqués has been confusing. Brilliantly sunny one day, dreary and rainy the next. The town consists of white washed buildings piled on top of each other surrounding a small Mediterranean harbor. It looks more like Greece than the rest of Spain. Salvador Dali’s house is here, with an enormous egg on top to be exact. Cadaqués is a popular summer retreat on the Costa Brava for the French, and is popular for those who love surrealism.

As we’ve taken in the glorious views, we’ve also done some running and birding in the surrounding areas. The foliage is incredible – trees, plants and flowers of all sorts. Eucalyptus, orange, cork oak, olive, fig, and pines. Prickly pears, agave, succulents, poppies, fennel, ferns, and tropical smelling shrubs. There were also numerous varieties of thorny grabbers (we like to call them thorny bustards, but that’s actually a bird minus the thorny part but the word bustard is hilarious). Purple, white, yellow and pink flowers adorn every nook and cranny. The birds enjoy these areas as well, and Matt found a partridge. We also heard a nightingale! And frogs and bats too. Tide pooling has been equally surprising. New snails, algae, shrimp, limpets, hermit crabs, urchins, fish, anemones…so many familiar things but all different than what we usually see. And jellyfish – there are tons of them here. Small white ones, big purple ones, clear ones with long tentacles. After the big storms, the beaches were littered with sponges, shells, seaweeds of every shape and color, sea cucumbers, urchins, and and and.

Could it be, a café con leche convert?

The surrounding hillsides are packed with tiers of old olive groves. In some areas the olive trees still remain, but much of it is overgrown hillside with tiers of intricately layered slate. There is virtually no sand here, and instead rocks and pebbles from the same slate seen in the hillsides line the beaches (in addition to remnants of the terra cotta rooftops). There must be an abundance of this material because it’s also used to pave the streets. This works great when it’s laid flat but is a little rough when laid edge up (better traction, however, on the steep and narrow streets).

Also, and this cracked us up, we saw a Spanish Pamela Anderson look-alike doing what appeared to be a music video. She decked out all in gold, singing along to a tiny boom box in front of an impressive camera. She was also standing on a treacherous part of the town’s breakwater in crazy high heels, looking too nervous to shift her footing.

We found an Italian restaurant we love (delicious crema catalana, a variation on crème brulee but with cardamom and perhaps other spices), and have spent a lot of time in the Bar Casino Friendship Society. Sounds weird, but it’s the main hangout spot in town. The bar refers to a café-ish sort of restaurant where you can get quick eats and lots of different beverages. The casino refers to two slot machines available for play. And friendship society refers to we’re not sure what. But locals seem to flock to the smoking room, so we think it’s probably there that the friendship society must meet. The rest of the Bar Casino Friendship Society is a mixture of indoor and outdoor seating where you can sit as long as you want reading, writing, watching, etc. We spent our last night in Cadaqués here making Mother’s Day calls and watching Barcelona lose to Mallorca in the last minute, much to the dismay of the locals.

The infamous local hangout

TBA

Rio Ara, Ordessa Valley

Our last big day was a long trek up the river to a myriad of waterfalls. As the valley progresses, the river bed narrows and the water crashes through cavernous twists and turns. This was also the day of The Big Argument. We had reached an enormous waterfall about 12 km up the valley, and Amber was ready to turn around. There was another even larger waterfall approximately 3 km further up the trail, and Matt felt it would be an exciting endeavor to reach it. Amber pointed out that continuing would get them back to Torla by 9 pm, and that the weather was looking ominous. Matt thought it would be an adventure, and 9 o'clock sounded just fine! Moments later, a loud CRrraAAcK sounded, and the sky boomed with thunder. Drippity drips began to fall upon the ground. Both protagonists, wearing shorts and having one rain jacket between the two of them, scowled at each other and headed homeward.

The sun came out 45 minutes later, and the wet and soggy twosome began to steam with warmth. We decided we still liked each other, and carried on our merry way (which turned out to be a longer than remembered walk to Torla). We were mere minutes from home when our path was blockaded by three friendly eyed but, very large heifers. The rambunctious bovines had escaped their nearby pasture and were enjoying the unpicked delicacies lining the trail. We were forced to retrace our steps, take an alternate path, and leave the cows to their munching.

Home sweet home!

The Pyrenees: they live up to their reputation

After two tremendous days in Torla and the surrounding mountains, we decided we couldn’t leave yet. The weather forecast looked unbelievable, and we still had swimming (yep, you read it) and more trekking to do.

Torla, Spain

Our first big day, we hiked some 3000 feet up to the snow. Though we didn’t expect to get that far, we couldn’t help but keep going. In the first hour of our journey, we got a brief look at what looked to be a Lammergeier. Lammergeiers are enormous birds of prey that live exclusively in high mountain ranges, nesting on the “most inaccessible steep cliffs” as Matt’s bird book puts it. They are stunning birds, and emblematic of the wildness and beauty of the Pyrenees. Near the end of our hike, we were blessed to see a pair, and watched them with and without binoculars, speechless. They were soaring among the surrounding peaks, and we felt small and so fortunate to share those few minutes with them. It was one of those moments we’ll never forget and a defining experience of the trip so far.

The trail kept going up, so we did too. Our last “it’ll probably be about ten minutes…” push landed us at a saddle with a 360 degree view of the Pyrenees (some 35 minutes later). We feel that we’re running out of superlatives, and none of them suit the day anyway.

Our shorter days consisted of meandering along the Rio Ara, the river that runs through the Ordessa Valley. It’s crystal clear, the classic blue of snow melt. We spent a good chunk of time laying by the river, taking in the water environment, the trees along the valley, and the massive cliffs above. So many ecosystems, so little time. We were accompanied by gorgeous butterflies, water birds (grey wagtails and dippers), Egyptian vultures, fish, and each others company. Amber also jumped into one of the pools much to the delight of trekking Spaniards. Brrrr!

The jump....and swim!

Best layover yet

Having decided to move on from San Sebastián, we planned out the bus-hopping route that would get us from there up into the high Pyrenees. The first two legs included a five-hour wait in Pamplona. We thought we’d be missing that city (a sad reality of traveling, having to skip places you’d go if you had more time), so we were excited to have at least a bit of time there. The bus station had a place to leave luggage and was in the middle of town (why can’t it be like this in the US?), so we dropped off our bags and set off to roam the city.

Fresh off the bus, Amber elected to snooze in the sun. Matt went wandering through the Ciudadela, the 16^th-century citadel that’s now a big park. The whole area is enclosed by 40-foot high stone walls, and right after stepping through the gate, the noise of the city and its traffic disappeared. It was a lovely and beautiful refuge from all the movement and chaos outside.

We spent a good couple of hours in the Plaza del Castillo, the main city square, where old men in wool berets sat joking with each other on the benches, and young families with kids in strollers ambled by. We returned to the Plaza later for lunch, at an outdoor table in a nice sunny spot. Almost all of the plazas we’ve encountered (in Madrid, San Sebastián, Pamplona) have bars and restaurants around the outside, and on nice days, they put out tables and serve food and drinks. Some of the places seem to not even have indoor seating. They just have a kitchen tucked away somewhere and send out waiters to the “terraza”, as they call it. These places make for fantastic people-watching, and we’ve been hitting them often for coffee, lunch, and the occasional snack.

While enjoying such a lunch in Pamplona, we were treated to a wonderful display of urban birdlife. First a pair of storks circled low overhead, slowly making their way over the city. These huge black-and-white birds bring babies to expecting parents, nest on chimneys, rooftops, and other high points, and can often be seen perched up on their massive stick nests. Also cruising around the rooftops was a Red Kite, a bird that even non-birders can admire from afar.

We also checked out some of the city’s more popular sights – the cathedral, the old city walls (which presented great views out over much of the city), the narrow streets where the running of the bulls occurs, and the bullfighting stadium (which was actually quite impressive). Then we scurried back to the bus station, wishing we had another hour or two to explore the city. Even with several months, we feel the pressure of time constantly.

Funnies

Idiosyncrasies de España:

Food: When eating, both hands should be visible (historical context suggests it assured other eaters you were not armed with a dagger). Corn nuts and sunflower seeds are the popular snacks. We prefer corn nuts (maiz gigante frito). You don’t touch the bread or fruit when you purchase it. You tell them what you want and they get it for you. Bread is a staple to say the least. You eat toasted bread for breakfast, a big roll filled with something for lunch, and another something to accompany sliced bread at dinner. Kids are served watered down alcohol. They consider them ‘of age’ when they ask for alcohol, though the official legal drinking age is 18 years old.

Language: There are many responses to “Hola” – “Hola,” “Bueno(a)s,” “Adios,” “Chao,” “Que tal,” “Que hay,” or “Hasta luego.” Take your pick, and slur as much as possible.

City life: Most cities have large pedestrian-only zones. We love this. You buy envelopes at the tobacco store, not the post office. And the post office doesn’t really like to sell you stamps, but they don’t know where to send you to get the stamps you need, so they’ll sell you some if you look pitiful enough (note: this may only be in small towns). When riding buses, people cue up to get their luggage on first, then put it right in front so that if you’re last you have to lift your heavy bags over lots of little ones. They have composting, recycling and garbage cans all together on most streets. So efficient. Lastly, if you get a newer pension, you’re likely to have piped in American music with speakers in the ceiling and a remote installed in the wall. Classy.

Domestic Life: If you go the Laundromat, it costs $9 to wash and another $9 to dry a load. No wonder Europeans dry laundry outside of their windows. We wash our laundry by hand now. Each bed has one pillow, that spans the width of the bed. This is irrespective of the size of the bed. We call this, the “uni-pillow.”

Habits: Sunscreen is not cool: sunburn apparently is. It’s astounding, people here are scorched. Smoking is almost like snacking, anywhere, anytime. Baby strollers come with miniature sleeping bags and parasols for inclement weather. If you’re a hiker, you wear monstrous boots and take trekking poles. Everyone has a dog; most of them are little and not very cute.

This cow (Pyrenees preview), however, doesn't think we're so funny.