An exultation (Picos de Europa and Oviedo, Spain)

I think that I must be the most fortunate person in the world. My legs, on the other hand, consider it a great misfortune that they were paired up with me, and went on strike yesterday to protest the abuses to which they were subjected during the weekend excursion to the Picos de Europa. They haven't lifted the strike yet, so I cringe every time I go down stairs -- but all I want to do is go back to the mountains and abuse them all over again.

I arrived to Oviedo on Friday evening and was met at the station by Chus, my CouchSurfing host, who also studied physics (but is now an independent graphic designer) and with whom I have another 79348579345 things in common. Any attempt to describe him and his hospitality will end in gushiness; suffice it to say that I am glad to have a new Friend. He had organized our weekend excursion into the Picos de Europa, a vast mountain range about two hours from Oviedo, and that night we won the gold medal in Last-Minute Preparation -- when I confessed that I didn't have hiking boots ("but my sandals should be all right, no?"), Chus said, "Impossible!" and we drove to a delightful outdoorsy store at a suburban strip mall (Spain has these, too) to buy a pair. Castor and Pollux, my new spiffy boots (and trusty steeds), would end up saving my life, or at least my ankles, many times during the next few days. We also bought food for our hikes; in retrospect, two loaves of bread, five packages of sandwich cheese and meat, and 725 grams of chocolate (my idea) was overdoing it a little, but better that than (e.g. and oh horror!!) a chocolate craving left unsated. We had a late dinner at home and conked out after looking at an Ansel Adams book -- photographs of big wild spaces! We would be in one soon!

The next morning, we picked up Alina, a German student who is spending eight months in Spain and who came adventuring with us, at the bus station, and we all set off for the mountains. Alina, too, is gush-worthy, and almost the same person as me because 1. she spent a year in Minnesota, 2. she speaks Spanish, German and English, and 3. she will be doing her master's at Boston University either next year or the following one (in International Relations, though, not Science Journalism). Twins! Upon reaching the mountains, Alina, Chus and I left the car near a lake and hiked up to the refugio, where we would spend the night. Alina and I were delighted at every turn -- mountain walls of gray stone with purple flowers! cows with gently tinkling bells munching on the grass! some pretty trees! -- and Chus, who had visited these mountains many times before, said, "You'll see what the places we hike to are like!" Also auspicious was the almost sudden disappearance of gray clouds and fog that had hung over us until we stopped for lunch and Chus said, "We just have to hope that the clouds clear up." Lo and behold! They did.

Not everywhere, though. After dropping off two of our backpacks at the refugio and filling the third with water bottles, we hiked to a nearby mirador (passing the occasional cave in a wall or in the ground) and sat on a ridge that overlooked a valley, presumably forested but so completely filled with clouds that we couldn't see the trees! All around us, we could see mountain tops and ridges in the hot sun, and to our left was a steep mountain wall, wet from the water that seeps out of the rock, but below there was a cloud sea. At one of the edges of the cloud sea, I watched the fog spill over a low mountain ridge into another valley -- it is absurd what beautiful things this planet is capable of creating. Way to go, Planet. We reluctantly hiked back to the refugio and arrived just in time for our eight o'clock dinner, which was exquisite and especially impressive because the three people who run the refugio have to bring up all of the supplies on horseback. That night, after a peach-rainbow sunset over another cloud sea, the fog around us cleared up and we saw the stars. Ugh. We are part of such a big universe.

The next day was our Big Adventure (the one for which my legs still haven't forgiven me) -- a full-day hike to the top of the highest mountain in the part of the Picos we were in, complete with crawls up steep slopes of sharp, football-sized rocks, slips down snowy valleys, and scales up walls that were significantly more vertical than horizontal and significantly higher up than Safe Falling Altitude -- but we didn't fall. Castor and Pollux, and Alina's also-brand-new-but-six-times-as-expensive hiking boots, saw to that. I'm passionately in love with the Picos de Europa, which I feel incapable of describing. Such a big part of being in the mountains, and particularly these mountains, so big and harsh and dry (I kept thinking of Mars and the Moon on steroids), is emotionally responding to their presence. I can't write about what I saw because it wouldn't explain what I experienced. So: go to the mountains! Have a mountain experience! It will be super. (And even more super if you have companions like Chus and Alina.)

We made it back to the car at ten at night, now a company of four, because Javier, Alina's CouchSurfing host from Gijon, surprised us at the refugio! On the way home, Chus introduced me to Bruce Springfield, who is now on my List of Artists to Discover and Admire, and, after showering, we went to sleep in the wee hours of the morning. The next day was decadently relaxing. We slept in and spent the afternoon strolling through the old part of Oviedo, sitting at a bar and a sidreria (a place to drink sidra, or cider), eating gelato and fine chocolates, and sitting again at a park . . . "watching life pass by," as Chus told me Arturo Perez Reverte puts it. Watching life pass by is delightful. The park was full of elderly people who walked slowly and sat together or alone on benches, and parents with children, some of whom were entertaining themselves by chasing and popping the giant bubbles a man was making with a sticks-and-string contraption. We were surrounded by big trees, which were around before we were born and will, I hope, still be around after we're dead, and I'm sure that the park will be full of the exact same people doing the exact same things then (there's no "then" word for the future!).

In the evening, Chus and I cooked mofongo (plantain balls with garlic and pork) and fried okra, my attempt at an introduction to Puerto Rican and Southern U.S. cuisine, and Javier and Alina joined us for a lovely and long dinner. I have learned so much from so many people in the past week! Chus, Javier and Alina all indulged me by starting conversations about time, but these always morphed into conversations about life philosophies, ways of living, trends in society, goals for the future -- and I am forming a clearer and clearer picture of how I'd like to lead my life. Two concrete examples:

1. Alina told me that she had recently become interested in Zen and Buddhism, and that, several months ago, she had started meditating and making an effort to be present in the moment (a mentality that both Chus and Cristiano also shared with me). If she is doing the dishes, she is DOING THE DISHES. If she is walking in a park, she is WALKING IN THE PARK. It doesn't make sense to be stressed about what awaits her at home while she's walking in the park, because she can't do anything about it in the moment -- instead, she should enjoy the park. Since she started focusing on this way of living, she is happier. Moments are fuller, and sweet ones are less bitter; before, she wanted to hold everything close, and the knowledge that good things would disappear was painful, but now she is trying to accept that all things come and go, and they are no less wonderful for going. It was helpful to hear Alina (and Cristiano) talk about this, because I have struggled with it, too, and especially during this trip. It has been very difficult for me at times to be fully in the present when so much of what has shaped me, my family and friends and familiar environments, are far away. I miss them, I think about them, I fantasize -- and my mind ends up being somewhere different from my body, clinging to what is not there. Part of the reason that the mountain excursion was so glorious is that this didn't happen -- it was so easy to be exactly there, in the mountains with Chus and Alina, and not somewhere else in my head. I have to keep working on this!

2. Javier talked, among many other things, about his dissatisfaction with this society's consumerist ways. We're so used to consuming that it's what we do with our free time (think going shopping), and we value things that cost money more than things that don't (in his opinion, people don't go to the mountains because they're free; if they were fenced off and a 30-Euro entrance fee were charged, crowds would flock to the gates). We've become slaves of industry giants, who survive because we fall into a consumption-need cycle -- the more we consume, the more we need. Javier is currently working on freeing himself from this cycle -- a long, multi-step process -- by needing less. Last year, he looked around and said, "I have enough stuff! I'm not going to buy anything this year." He gave his fancy motorcycle to a friend, and is trying not to buy clothes, furniture, music -- material clutter. I admire this greatly! And I, too, am going to try to need as little as possible by consuming less. Also, when I do consume, I want to consume better. If I can choose between an imported apple at a grocery store and a locally-grown apple, I'll pick the latter, so that my consumption habits better reflect my philosophies and ethics. I think that this is much easier in theory than in practice, but it is also how I am (indirectly) relating to many parts of the world -- and that is pretty important! A life-long Thing to Work On. Those are the best.

Now I'm in Llanes, where I'm spending just a day, and tomorrow evening I go to Santander. So much so fast! I can almost feel myself growing up.