(I am retro-posting this entry – I wrote it on July 30th and will manipulate my blog’s date and time marker so that it reflects that fact!)
I just met several interesting people at the top of the boulder-covered hill that dominates the Muxia landscape! Francoise and Danielle are two French women who are driving back to France along the Spanish coast and camping along the way. They were extremely pleasant, very kind faces (I automatically trust people with very kind faces), and we talked on the top of the hill for a good hour.
For Danielle, time and life were the same thing, or bound to each other. Time existed to mark the progression of life; if there were no life, there would be no time. I asked if she thought time would exist if the planet were devoid of life and nothing changed, and she said no. There must be change in order for time to exist. She further described time as a number of helices – cycles with direction – like many “escargot” making patterns on the dirt. When asked how she measured time, she laughed at pointed to her sunspots. As she aged, she got more sunspots – that is the passage of time. She said that she first became aware of the passage of time when she was eighteen or so, taking a philosophy course in her last year of high school. Before that, she had always lived in the present, and after that had started thinking about time. When thinking about her life, she divided it into several twenty-year cycles. From 0-20 she was a child and student; from 20-40 she was working; and she was currently towards the end of the third cycle. She looked forward to the fourth! “What will it be like?” she wondered. I asked if time occasionally went faster or slower, and she answered “No no no no no.” As she got older, she lived more and more in the present, and time never seemed to go quickly for her. This was effortless; she wasn’t doing it consciously. I asked if she did meditation, and she said that she did occasionally in a yoga class, but that that was artificial. It is impossible to be wholly aware of the present if you are sitting in a room with good posture; when she was really in the moment was at times like this, sitting on top of the hill, watching the sun on the ocean and talking.
For Francoise, time was “the hours, the days . . .” She said that she also divided her life into different chunks, but they had more to do with where she was living than a set period of time. She had lived in Brittany as a child – one tome – then had studied there – second tome – then had moved to Paris – third tome – then had moved to the center of France – fourth tome. She said that she became aware of the passage of time when she started working; furthermore, since she started working, time started going faster and faster. I asked if she remembered planning a lot for the future, or fantasizing about it, as a child and as an adult, and she said that she had often fantasized but not planned. She liked to think about what would happen, but didn’t consider any of her plans solid. Francoise did not think that time was inextricably linked to life or nature – it is something that exists regardless. I can’t remember if she said that it existed since the beginning of the universe or always.
I also met a young Hungarian couple. The man works as an interpreter, so his English was excellent, and he found my project fascinating. He asked me a lot of questions about the questions I asked other people – so, of course, I started “interviewing” him as an answer. He said that time was a way of marking the passage of life, both human and non-human. It is divided into arbitrary artificial units like hours and seconds because humans thousands of years ago thought to do so. That’s all I got from him, because the sunset turned pretty and he went to sit with his girlfriend. I was sitting behind them, and I took a Hallmark-romantic picture of their silhouettes against the sun (“CREEP,” you might think – but they were genuinely pleased when I showed it to them, and I am going to e-mail it to them), of which I am immensely proud.
All in all, a heartwarming evening-turned-night. And I really want to visit Francoise and Danielle in the middle of France!
Thursday, July 30, 2009
A happy birthday (Muxia, Spain)
I am a changed woman! A few days ago I was 21 and young, ignorant of the cruel ways of the world, flitting about like a carefree butterfly – but as of July 28 I am 22, and you may address me as Wise Grown-Up Irene (like “Queen Irene” sans royal blood) (you can call me Queen Irene, too), because I am wise and grown-up. Not so wise that I’ve stopped binging on chocolate, though. I just had most of a 150-gram bar and I’m hoping that my stomach won’t notice until after I go for a walk, lest I explode before getting a chance to appreciate the Costa de Muerte. And not so grown-up that I will start calling myself a “woman” instead of a “girl” – I’m still wondering when that will happen. (The first sentence of this paragraph doesn’t count.)
The past few days have been lovely. Asmus and I spent many an hour exploring Cambados and the area immediately surrounding it, developing our nose tans (why don’t faces burn evenly?) and making Temporary Friends. Asmus mentioned that “the people really are very sweet,” and we were lucky to run into more people who, in addition to their very sweet natures, had a bit of time on their hands. On Monday afternoon, as we were setting off to explore Cambados, an exercise outfit-clad man almost bumped into us on the sidewalk and said, “Excuse me!” I took the opportunity to say “Wait, wait -- excuse me” back as he was passing by, and asked him how to reach the ruins of the Church of Santa Marinha. He thought for a moment, then said, “No, you won’t start with that. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”
He led us a few blocks to a nearby pazo, a mansion for the nobility of days past (and rich people of days present), said to the woman at the desk, “I’m just going to show them around quickly!” and to us, “I know her – she’ll let us in,” and gave us a tour of the grounds. He explained that the horreas, the stone grain storage units found in the yard of almost every rural house, were anti-rodent by construction and a show of wealth; that the grape vines were grew horizontal to the ground because it kept them well aired in this humid climate; how the wine was made; how the garden was watered; and more! It was his favorite pazo – very nice, very nice. He then led us a few blocks farther to the church, which is now mostly walls and ceiling arches, as it was ransacked for valuables and stones (a century ago? two? Wise Grown-Up Irene is still not Historian Irene) after a government declaration that expropriated a lot of church land and property. Our tour guide never told us his name, but it was probably something ending in “the Generous.” Jorge the Generous. Something like that.
The next day we took a bus to O Grove, a much larger city to the south of Cambados, and walked around the island of La Toja and through brambly forest paths to the Mirador de Siradella. We got a bit lost towards the top of the mountain, and ended up losing a battle against these awful prickly plants that seem to follow me everywhere (Asmus had shorts on, but he didn’t complain, so I, in long pants, was forced to become the designated whiner – I am really good at it!!). We did make it to the top of the mountain, though, and feasted our eyes on the surrounding landscape (very nice, very nice) before starting to head down the road. Enter next round of very sweet people! Having had a successful semi-hitchhiking experience in Santiago, Asmus and I decided to try and hitchhike for real back to the city. I held my thumb up at the first car that passed, and a man with a little boy in the backseat stopped! The little boy was suspicious of us (rightly so, I thought – we were hitchhikers), but his father was not, and he dropped us off close to the bus station. How kind!
That evening, Asmus invited me to the Restaurante Martinez (minimum 4-star rating for its name), and we had a delicious birthday dinner. We ate pimientos de padron, roasted peppers that are exciting to eat because occasionally you get a really spicy one (I did!!), raxo con patatas, and a type of fish called rodaballo. I also had an obligatory sip of albarinho wine from Asmus’s cup – but my taste buds still aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate any kind of fermented beverage. The fancy night out was the perfect ending to my day of instant wisdom and grown-up-hood, and we went to bed stuffed in the best possible way and exhausted.
So far I’ve only written about what Asmus and I did together, but I also spent two early mornings and part of an afternoon at the docks alone, and I was happy to see more women than I had seen at any of the other docks! On Monday afternoon, after watching the mollusk auction and speaking for a long time with Carmen, who purifies and sells clams and mussels, I went to another building where I saw two women working on darning nets. They noticed that I was interested in what they were doing, waved me in, and then explained to me that they had been in the net business since they were children, like their mother before them. The nine-year-old daughter of one of the women was also in the room, already learning how to make nets! I was so excited about the idea that the women of the family had been doing the same thing for generations that they pulled out a number of frames full of old black-and-white photographs of the docks at Cambados! They pointed at the pictures and said, “That’s our mother at our age. That’s our mother when she was a girl. Did you see the woman darning nets just outside this building? This little girl is her. She’s 67 now. This is our father. This is my father-in-law, bringing a boat in from the countryside, where it was constructed. Look how the fish are kept in the boat – they didn’t have those boxes back then. This is me when I was little.” It was wonderful! When I left, they gave me a little booklet on Cambados fishing history and a net needle “to show my parents.”
I also saw women on boats in fisherman suits the next day after the morning fish auction – an absolute first for me. They were working on the mussel-boats, and I approached one to say, “Wow! Women on boats!” (In more words.) She explained that it wasn’t uncommon here for women to work with their husbands at the bateas if it was the sole source of income. Most fishermen, she said, offered their labor at other people’s bateas to make extra money, but were first and foremost fishermen. When families owned bateas and did nothing else, everyone helped out.
Yesterday, Wednesday, Asmus and I left Cambados in the morning and spent a few hours in Villagarcia and Carril (which my tour book does not deem worthy of even a single descriptive sentence, but both of which I liked a lot) before hopping on a train to Santiago, where we had plans to spend the night at Marcos’s house so that Asmus could leave Spain early this morning. We had also made plans to meet up with Sylvia, Juan and their daughter Giulia, my friends from La Corunha, whom I was so happy to see! We sat at a café together and then walked around in Santiago’s infamous fine drizzle – Sylvia and Juan practiced their English on Asmus, and Asmus worked more on his Spanish comprehension skills, which have progressed considerably since last week. I’ll see the family again in a few weeks, when I pass through La Corunha again, and we’ll probably go to the Playa de las Catedrales, the thought of which makes me bouncy. After dropping Sylvia, Juan and Giulia off at the train station, Asmus and I went back to Marcos’s house, where we met a cycling pal of his and ate. Friends!
Now I am in Muxia, but I will only spend one night here. The first thing I did when I arrived was go to the docks to ask when the fish auction would be – and there is none! The lonja is closed, and there are few boats in the harbor. The man I asked told me that all of the fishermen were going to other ports to sell their fish, and suggested that I move on to Camarinhas, which I will do tomorrow. But I’ve been on so many buses the past few days, and have unpacked and packed so many times, that I am looking forward to a quiet evening by the sea (after a walk to use some of the chocolate energy). I’ll find an internet café to post this . . . hike up a big hill . . . watch the sun set . . . and conk out.
The past few days have been lovely. Asmus and I spent many an hour exploring Cambados and the area immediately surrounding it, developing our nose tans (why don’t faces burn evenly?) and making Temporary Friends. Asmus mentioned that “the people really are very sweet,” and we were lucky to run into more people who, in addition to their very sweet natures, had a bit of time on their hands. On Monday afternoon, as we were setting off to explore Cambados, an exercise outfit-clad man almost bumped into us on the sidewalk and said, “Excuse me!” I took the opportunity to say “Wait, wait -- excuse me” back as he was passing by, and asked him how to reach the ruins of the Church of Santa Marinha. He thought for a moment, then said, “No, you won’t start with that. Come with me. I’ll show you something.”
He led us a few blocks to a nearby pazo, a mansion for the nobility of days past (and rich people of days present), said to the woman at the desk, “I’m just going to show them around quickly!” and to us, “I know her – she’ll let us in,” and gave us a tour of the grounds. He explained that the horreas, the stone grain storage units found in the yard of almost every rural house, were anti-rodent by construction and a show of wealth; that the grape vines were grew horizontal to the ground because it kept them well aired in this humid climate; how the wine was made; how the garden was watered; and more! It was his favorite pazo – very nice, very nice. He then led us a few blocks farther to the church, which is now mostly walls and ceiling arches, as it was ransacked for valuables and stones (a century ago? two? Wise Grown-Up Irene is still not Historian Irene) after a government declaration that expropriated a lot of church land and property. Our tour guide never told us his name, but it was probably something ending in “the Generous.” Jorge the Generous. Something like that.
The next day we took a bus to O Grove, a much larger city to the south of Cambados, and walked around the island of La Toja and through brambly forest paths to the Mirador de Siradella. We got a bit lost towards the top of the mountain, and ended up losing a battle against these awful prickly plants that seem to follow me everywhere (Asmus had shorts on, but he didn’t complain, so I, in long pants, was forced to become the designated whiner – I am really good at it!!). We did make it to the top of the mountain, though, and feasted our eyes on the surrounding landscape (very nice, very nice) before starting to head down the road. Enter next round of very sweet people! Having had a successful semi-hitchhiking experience in Santiago, Asmus and I decided to try and hitchhike for real back to the city. I held my thumb up at the first car that passed, and a man with a little boy in the backseat stopped! The little boy was suspicious of us (rightly so, I thought – we were hitchhikers), but his father was not, and he dropped us off close to the bus station. How kind!
That evening, Asmus invited me to the Restaurante Martinez (minimum 4-star rating for its name), and we had a delicious birthday dinner. We ate pimientos de padron, roasted peppers that are exciting to eat because occasionally you get a really spicy one (I did!!), raxo con patatas, and a type of fish called rodaballo. I also had an obligatory sip of albarinho wine from Asmus’s cup – but my taste buds still aren’t sophisticated enough to appreciate any kind of fermented beverage. The fancy night out was the perfect ending to my day of instant wisdom and grown-up-hood, and we went to bed stuffed in the best possible way and exhausted.
So far I’ve only written about what Asmus and I did together, but I also spent two early mornings and part of an afternoon at the docks alone, and I was happy to see more women than I had seen at any of the other docks! On Monday afternoon, after watching the mollusk auction and speaking for a long time with Carmen, who purifies and sells clams and mussels, I went to another building where I saw two women working on darning nets. They noticed that I was interested in what they were doing, waved me in, and then explained to me that they had been in the net business since they were children, like their mother before them. The nine-year-old daughter of one of the women was also in the room, already learning how to make nets! I was so excited about the idea that the women of the family had been doing the same thing for generations that they pulled out a number of frames full of old black-and-white photographs of the docks at Cambados! They pointed at the pictures and said, “That’s our mother at our age. That’s our mother when she was a girl. Did you see the woman darning nets just outside this building? This little girl is her. She’s 67 now. This is our father. This is my father-in-law, bringing a boat in from the countryside, where it was constructed. Look how the fish are kept in the boat – they didn’t have those boxes back then. This is me when I was little.” It was wonderful! When I left, they gave me a little booklet on Cambados fishing history and a net needle “to show my parents.”
I also saw women on boats in fisherman suits the next day after the morning fish auction – an absolute first for me. They were working on the mussel-boats, and I approached one to say, “Wow! Women on boats!” (In more words.) She explained that it wasn’t uncommon here for women to work with their husbands at the bateas if it was the sole source of income. Most fishermen, she said, offered their labor at other people’s bateas to make extra money, but were first and foremost fishermen. When families owned bateas and did nothing else, everyone helped out.
Yesterday, Wednesday, Asmus and I left Cambados in the morning and spent a few hours in Villagarcia and Carril (which my tour book does not deem worthy of even a single descriptive sentence, but both of which I liked a lot) before hopping on a train to Santiago, where we had plans to spend the night at Marcos’s house so that Asmus could leave Spain early this morning. We had also made plans to meet up with Sylvia, Juan and their daughter Giulia, my friends from La Corunha, whom I was so happy to see! We sat at a café together and then walked around in Santiago’s infamous fine drizzle – Sylvia and Juan practiced their English on Asmus, and Asmus worked more on his Spanish comprehension skills, which have progressed considerably since last week. I’ll see the family again in a few weeks, when I pass through La Corunha again, and we’ll probably go to the Playa de las Catedrales, the thought of which makes me bouncy. After dropping Sylvia, Juan and Giulia off at the train station, Asmus and I went back to Marcos’s house, where we met a cycling pal of his and ate. Friends!
Now I am in Muxia, but I will only spend one night here. The first thing I did when I arrived was go to the docks to ask when the fish auction would be – and there is none! The lonja is closed, and there are few boats in the harbor. The man I asked told me that all of the fishermen were going to other ports to sell their fish, and suggested that I move on to Camarinhas, which I will do tomorrow. But I’ve been on so many buses the past few days, and have unpacked and packed so many times, that I am looking forward to a quiet evening by the sea (after a walk to use some of the chocolate energy). I’ll find an internet café to post this . . . hike up a big hill . . . watch the sun set . . . and conk out.
Monday, July 27, 2009
An addendum (Santiago de Compostela, Spain – but really Cambados, Spain)
I didn’t want to steal Asmus’s blog thunder, so I’m adding something Santiago-related a few days after the fact. On Saturday, we went to the Museo o Pobo Galego, which had excellent exhibits on Galician fishing (yes!!), music, architecture, art, etc. One of the halls that we walked into had an introductory board that caught my eye; here it is translated from Gallego (be impressed!) (but not too impressed – written, Gallego and Spanish are very similar):
The practice of measuring time was imposed by the need to organize quotidian life. There exist two ways of understanding time: as something that repeats periodically or as something linear that does not repeat. Traditional societies conceive of time in its cyclical form, based on natural occurrences: every year there are the same seasons, the same solar movements, and the same agricultural cycle. In this cyclical conception of time, the unit of measure is the year. To organize the different temporal rhythms, one needs to put markers on time. These markers are the festivals.
There are religious festivals, defined by the liturgy of the Church, and secular festivals, which revolve around seasonal labors. There are also cyclical festivals that are celebrated in all parts of the same region, albeit with local particularities. Among them are fixed festivals (Nadal, Reis, San Xoan, Defuntos), which always fall on the same day, and variable festivals (Entroido, Semana Santa, Corpus), which depend on Easter, which is fixed according to the lunar year. Other types of festivals are the patron saint festivals, celebrated in honor of the titular saint of a parish, and romarias, which consist of a pilgrimage to a sanctuary.
The distribution of labors and festivals is not uniform. In the spring and summer the good climate and the longer days make them the seasons in which the most work is done, agricultural and maritime. For the same reasons, it is in the summer that most of the patron saint festivals and romarias are celebrated.
It’s my project! The exhibit went through the stages of life of 19th-century Galicians – birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood, wise old age, death – and duties and special events associated with each. But the reason I was so excited is that I have already participated in several of the summertime festivals (most notably, the Muros party-hardy with Pepita and Candida and the festival in Santiago de Compostela)! And they do make summer special – several people have said to me, “Oof! In the summertime there’s always a party somewhere! Summertime is party-time!” Maria of Muros, who is apparently responsibility-free until the school year starts, had adopted a totally nocturnal schedule, and slept all day long so that she could dance all night long. (Her mother, Mariloli, didn’t seem to understand this mode of existence, and always woke her up in the early afternoon to inform her that it was daytime – surely Maria appreciated the update.)
Something else exciting is brewing: housing possibilities in Mexico and Norway! In those two countries I’ll be staying in the same town/city all three months (Angangueo, Ocampo, Donato Guerra, or Tlalpujahua in Mexico and Tromso in Norway), and a few days ago I thought, “Irene! You should get on this housing business!” I wrote to the director of the WWF monarch program in Mexico (the only non-hotel e-mail address I could find) and posted a message on CouchSurfing – and already somebody has written back to tell me that his aunt used to work in Angangueo and “knows people there.” Yes! That is exactly what I want! People who know people somewhere! The Norway possibility was even more a matter of chance. On Saturday night, Asmus and I got together with Fabio (Brazilian), his friends Richard (NORWEGIAN!!) and Chris (German), and Chris’s friends Thomas (German) and Christanne (German), to watch a bagpipe band at the Praza da Quintana and have hot chocolate. (We know how to spend our Saturday nights.) Well, I gave it away with “NORWEGIAN!!” – I told Richard about my project and future stay in his country, and, after making a mysterious phone call at the café, he came up to me and said, “You might have a room in Tromso!” Providence is plopping should-be real estate agents all over the place. Obviously neither the room in Mexico nor the room in Norway is final yet, and I have to do a lot more research before showing up at the door with my bags (student housing in Tromso might be a better idea) – but it’s fun to start fantasizing.
Now I am in Cambados! Yesterday afternoon Asmus and I wandered along the coast and through vineyards and farm fields, and today I got up early to go to the docks. Since it’s Monday, there was little activity (early morning is when the nighttime boats come back with fish – but they don’t go out on Sundays), but I did meet Rosa, who works at the lonja, and Vieito, who was going out to gather clams. This afternoon, after exploring Cambados with Asmus, I’ll go back to the docks to watch the fish auction, which starts at 4:00, and make fisherman friends.
Official Cambados blog entry forthcoming.
The practice of measuring time was imposed by the need to organize quotidian life. There exist two ways of understanding time: as something that repeats periodically or as something linear that does not repeat. Traditional societies conceive of time in its cyclical form, based on natural occurrences: every year there are the same seasons, the same solar movements, and the same agricultural cycle. In this cyclical conception of time, the unit of measure is the year. To organize the different temporal rhythms, one needs to put markers on time. These markers are the festivals.
There are religious festivals, defined by the liturgy of the Church, and secular festivals, which revolve around seasonal labors. There are also cyclical festivals that are celebrated in all parts of the same region, albeit with local particularities. Among them are fixed festivals (Nadal, Reis, San Xoan, Defuntos), which always fall on the same day, and variable festivals (Entroido, Semana Santa, Corpus), which depend on Easter, which is fixed according to the lunar year. Other types of festivals are the patron saint festivals, celebrated in honor of the titular saint of a parish, and romarias, which consist of a pilgrimage to a sanctuary.
The distribution of labors and festivals is not uniform. In the spring and summer the good climate and the longer days make them the seasons in which the most work is done, agricultural and maritime. For the same reasons, it is in the summer that most of the patron saint festivals and romarias are celebrated.
It’s my project! The exhibit went through the stages of life of 19th-century Galicians – birth, childhood, young adulthood, adulthood, wise old age, death – and duties and special events associated with each. But the reason I was so excited is that I have already participated in several of the summertime festivals (most notably, the Muros party-hardy with Pepita and Candida and the festival in Santiago de Compostela)! And they do make summer special – several people have said to me, “Oof! In the summertime there’s always a party somewhere! Summertime is party-time!” Maria of Muros, who is apparently responsibility-free until the school year starts, had adopted a totally nocturnal schedule, and slept all day long so that she could dance all night long. (Her mother, Mariloli, didn’t seem to understand this mode of existence, and always woke her up in the early afternoon to inform her that it was daytime – surely Maria appreciated the update.)
Something else exciting is brewing: housing possibilities in Mexico and Norway! In those two countries I’ll be staying in the same town/city all three months (Angangueo, Ocampo, Donato Guerra, or Tlalpujahua in Mexico and Tromso in Norway), and a few days ago I thought, “Irene! You should get on this housing business!” I wrote to the director of the WWF monarch program in Mexico (the only non-hotel e-mail address I could find) and posted a message on CouchSurfing – and already somebody has written back to tell me that his aunt used to work in Angangueo and “knows people there.” Yes! That is exactly what I want! People who know people somewhere! The Norway possibility was even more a matter of chance. On Saturday night, Asmus and I got together with Fabio (Brazilian), his friends Richard (NORWEGIAN!!) and Chris (German), and Chris’s friends Thomas (German) and Christanne (German), to watch a bagpipe band at the Praza da Quintana and have hot chocolate. (We know how to spend our Saturday nights.) Well, I gave it away with “NORWEGIAN!!” – I told Richard about my project and future stay in his country, and, after making a mysterious phone call at the café, he came up to me and said, “You might have a room in Tromso!” Providence is plopping should-be real estate agents all over the place. Obviously neither the room in Mexico nor the room in Norway is final yet, and I have to do a lot more research before showing up at the door with my bags (student housing in Tromso might be a better idea) – but it’s fun to start fantasizing.
Now I am in Cambados! Yesterday afternoon Asmus and I wandered along the coast and through vineyards and farm fields, and today I got up early to go to the docks. Since it’s Monday, there was little activity (early morning is when the nighttime boats come back with fish – but they don’t go out on Sundays), but I did meet Rosa, who works at the lonja, and Vieito, who was going out to gather clams. This afternoon, after exploring Cambados with Asmus, I’ll go back to the docks to watch the fish auction, which starts at 4:00, and make fisherman friends.
Official Cambados blog entry forthcoming.
Saturday, July 25, 2009
A guest writer! (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
This entry comes with the guarantee that it will be short! Why that is? Well, Irene decided to hire a ghostwriter! Okay, this is not quite true – actually I’m a friend of Irene from Germany, my name is Asmus, I am visiting her for a week and guess what? It is my honor to write today’s blog!! Wowowow, what a tough act to follow… So instead of trying to copy Irene’s entertaining and extensive style, which would lead to epic failure for me, I will try to give you an idea of my impression of Galicia during the last two days.
The people really are very sweet. Just to mention two occasions, we asked an elder man for directions and instead of explaining them he joined us for a couple of minutes during which we learned that his son is working as a heart surgeon in Munich and became a father recently. Later on the same day Irene and I were walking back to the city coming from a hike to the so-called stony mountain (named after ancient stone artwork which we unfortunately didn’t spot). Since we took the road walking back (hm, why did we do that?), it took quite a while. Reaching the suburbs of Santiago we asked a couple for the right way to go, and after we went on that very couple drove up with their car and asked us whether we want a ride. They practically drove us directly to our hostel then (which by the way is a very nice one!).
Guess I should also mention that we had the pleasure to see two very Galician events. Firstly, we were among the lucky crowd in front of the cathedral to witness the famous fireworks during the festival, around midnight on July 24th. Was it 5.000 or 10.000 people on that square? We couldn’t guess, but it was a tight pack of people for sure! And it was worth it, the fireworks turned out to be very beautifully combined with music and video-like projections to the cathedral’s front side – a very intense experience! The second occasion was today on the early afternoon when we “joined” a demonstration for Galicia’s independence, followed by a nice procession with flags, drums and bag pipes. In-de-pen-den-cia!!
Did I mention that I don’t speak any Spanish? Yes, you right, what am I doing here then? Well, I am lucky to have such a care-taking and fluent friend as Irene with me, so I am not completely lost. I really like it here, but I am also looking forward to the coast of the Rias Bajas where we will move to tomorrow!
The people really are very sweet. Just to mention two occasions, we asked an elder man for directions and instead of explaining them he joined us for a couple of minutes during which we learned that his son is working as a heart surgeon in Munich and became a father recently. Later on the same day Irene and I were walking back to the city coming from a hike to the so-called stony mountain (named after ancient stone artwork which we unfortunately didn’t spot). Since we took the road walking back (hm, why did we do that?), it took quite a while. Reaching the suburbs of Santiago we asked a couple for the right way to go, and after we went on that very couple drove up with their car and asked us whether we want a ride. They practically drove us directly to our hostel then (which by the way is a very nice one!).
Guess I should also mention that we had the pleasure to see two very Galician events. Firstly, we were among the lucky crowd in front of the cathedral to witness the famous fireworks during the festival, around midnight on July 24th. Was it 5.000 or 10.000 people on that square? We couldn’t guess, but it was a tight pack of people for sure! And it was worth it, the fireworks turned out to be very beautifully combined with music and video-like projections to the cathedral’s front side – a very intense experience! The second occasion was today on the early afternoon when we “joined” a demonstration for Galicia’s independence, followed by a nice procession with flags, drums and bag pipes. In-de-pen-den-cia!!
Did I mention that I don’t speak any Spanish? Yes, you right, what am I doing here then? Well, I am lucky to have such a care-taking and fluent friend as Irene with me, so I am not completely lost. I really like it here, but I am also looking forward to the coast of the Rias Bajas where we will move to tomorrow!
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
A few interesting conversations and a lot of rain (Santiago de Compostela, Spain)
I’ve been in Santiago since yesterday afternoon, and so has the rain! Usually I don’t mind getting a bit wet if it means exploring a new city, but the amount of water falling from the sky makes it necessary to put my rain hood up, which gives me about the same scope of vision as a horse with blinders – so I am sad to say that I have only seen about half of the old city, the glorious cathedral, an exhibit on photography of the easternmost parts of India, a Bach concert in a church, and a Cuban and Brazilian music and dance party in a tent in a park.
In list form, it looks like a lot of doing, but most of the past day and a half has really been taken up by conversing – with Fabio, with whom I stayed last night, and with Marcos, my host for tonight, and Shey, an American visitor who is also staying with Marcos and who just spent a month walking along the Camino de Santiago. Some of these conversations have been about time! And they have been very interesting! I also had a chance to interrogate Manel and Zoraya while we were hiking up Monte Pindo on Saturday, and I will (roughly and in a disorganized manner) summarize what they, Marcos, and Shey have told me:
Manel:
The first thing that he told me was that the future does not exist. What matters is the present moment, although the past is also important, because it gives the present form. I asked if the past existed still, as a reality, or if it existed in our memories, and he leaned towards the latter option, although he also mentioned that, with things like photographs and video cameras, we have evidence of the reality of the past. Continuing in this vein, he told me about his memories of childhood, when his grandparents told him stories of their own childhoods – this was how he knew about the past before photographs and video cameras. He said that there was a rich story-telling tradition in Galicia, and many myths and legends were told to the younger generations as a way of preserving the past and keeping it a part of the present. And the present is all that one can know; the future is unpredictable and uncontrollable (chaotic might be an appropriate term), a result of every present moment, but not “real” because “the future” doesn’t ever exist.
Zoraya:
Zoraya was very thoughtful and careful in her response, and distinguished between two kinds of time: “real” or “absolute” and “psychological”. The psychological perception of time, she said, was simply the sense that time can go faster or slower depending on the activity -- time flies when you’re having fun, right? And absolute time was measured entirely by cycles of varying scales. All things are part of small and large cycles, and repetition is the key to the universe. As an example, she mentioned the seasons, and said that she felt very much in tune with their passing. When she looked at a tree, she saw its buds, and its leaves, and then the leaves falling, and then the branches covered with water or ice, and then the whole show all over again. She also imagined other trees taking the place of her aging tree – multiple cycles of different scales (the yearly cycle of the individual tree and the cycle of the lives of all of the trees in the forest). I asked if there was a basic cycle, one against which all other cycles could be measured, or if the cycles were just relative to each other, and she said that, as far as she was concerned, we couldn’t really care about anything more than the galactic rotation as a cycle. Everything else is too big and doesn’t connect in a real way to the cycles that most define our activities.
Marcos:
Marcos also immediately resorted to cycles to explain his perception of time, and particularly the seasons. He said that he could never live anywhere without seasons, because he needs them to know how to feel throughout the year – he described, in beautiful poetic language, the opening of buds on trees in the springtime, the rain in the winter, and how these affect his mood and relation to the outside. He also said that culture and customs, like food, are dictated by these cycles. He had the idea several years ago to photograph, over the course of the year, the vendors at Santiago’s open-air market; he only did it for a week (and hopes to start it up again), but explained that, over that week, he felt connected to the cycles of the market (or more aware of them during the year). He knew when mushrooms would appear, and chestnuts, and he felt that he could see the cycle of life in the aging faces of the women selling them. He also mentioned natural cycles in relation to religious festivities – for instance, and one that I myself experienced, the sardine’s role in the Noche de San Juan. It’s an inextricable part of the celebration, which takes place at a time when the sardine has the perfect (for the taste buds) amount of fat in its body. No coincidence! Marcos found it very difficult to use words to describe time (one of my mean questions is: “How would you describe time, using words, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and said that he felt it much better than he thought about it.
Shey:
Shey told me that time was a river, and with elaborate detail explained what each physical aspect of the river corresponds to. The river of time has many passengers, each of whom travels at his or her own velocity, and each of whom is subject to its currents and turns. She said that, when one is in the river, its motion is impossible to perceive – one could only do that by removing oneself from the river and looking at it “from above”. However, one has a certain agency in that one can predict or avoid certain consequences. She described large events in history as boulders; one can look at boulders that lie ahead and, based on past experience, maneuver around them differently. This is an interesting mix of inevitability (the boulder is THERE) and free will (you can still choose to move around it). Also, history is created by the river of time in that every ripple can affect the water far away. If there is a rapid, the course of the water changes – repercussions are long-term and whole-river. The control aspect of her description also went even further, because she said that she had purposely chosen a difficult-looking river for her life (so there are multiple rivers of time?). She picked the one that looked like it had the most rapids, and, as a result, feels older than her thirty years, because she has already had to navigate (metaphorically) so much all of the time.
Shey also spoke to me about the psychological effects of participating in different activities over given periods of time. She is very active, and said that when she did a lot of things in a row, she was surprised that any time had gone by at all – she loses sense of time when she is always on the move. Seemingly contradictorily, though, she was always surprised to discover that she’d managed to do so much in so little time (i.e. it felt like it should have taken a lot of time). Shey also told me that, without motion or some sort of event, there is no proof of time. If you are looking at a box, and nothing happens inside the box (absolutely nothing – no molecules collide, no neutrinos travel through), you can’t prove that time is passing or exists. Time depends on change, on motion, so it is inextricably linked to space, where events can physically take place. A more human example she gave was that of solitary confinement: people who have been in solitary confinement for long periods of time, in windowless rooms where nothing happens, forget how long certain activities take. When they return to society, they don’t remember the pace of things – how long is a meal? How long is a waking day? Without events by which to set their time scale, they lose the sense of time that the rest of the people outside maintain.
I also have a notebook in which I ask people to draw time (“How would you describe time, using pictures, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and, interestingly, every picture has been different so far! Granted, there are very few pictures (I have drawn more than everybody else combined), but I’m excited by how differently people visualize time and what aspects of it they find most important to communicate (aging, a person’s agency, time’s essence, etc.).
I’m reading a book on the biological structures of memory – and this is related to time, too! But I don’t know enough yet to report. My favorite thought for now is that I can make my synapses fire by thinking about my synapses firing. I’m doing it right now!
In list form, it looks like a lot of doing, but most of the past day and a half has really been taken up by conversing – with Fabio, with whom I stayed last night, and with Marcos, my host for tonight, and Shey, an American visitor who is also staying with Marcos and who just spent a month walking along the Camino de Santiago. Some of these conversations have been about time! And they have been very interesting! I also had a chance to interrogate Manel and Zoraya while we were hiking up Monte Pindo on Saturday, and I will (roughly and in a disorganized manner) summarize what they, Marcos, and Shey have told me:
Manel:
The first thing that he told me was that the future does not exist. What matters is the present moment, although the past is also important, because it gives the present form. I asked if the past existed still, as a reality, or if it existed in our memories, and he leaned towards the latter option, although he also mentioned that, with things like photographs and video cameras, we have evidence of the reality of the past. Continuing in this vein, he told me about his memories of childhood, when his grandparents told him stories of their own childhoods – this was how he knew about the past before photographs and video cameras. He said that there was a rich story-telling tradition in Galicia, and many myths and legends were told to the younger generations as a way of preserving the past and keeping it a part of the present. And the present is all that one can know; the future is unpredictable and uncontrollable (chaotic might be an appropriate term), a result of every present moment, but not “real” because “the future” doesn’t ever exist.
Zoraya:
Zoraya was very thoughtful and careful in her response, and distinguished between two kinds of time: “real” or “absolute” and “psychological”. The psychological perception of time, she said, was simply the sense that time can go faster or slower depending on the activity -- time flies when you’re having fun, right? And absolute time was measured entirely by cycles of varying scales. All things are part of small and large cycles, and repetition is the key to the universe. As an example, she mentioned the seasons, and said that she felt very much in tune with their passing. When she looked at a tree, she saw its buds, and its leaves, and then the leaves falling, and then the branches covered with water or ice, and then the whole show all over again. She also imagined other trees taking the place of her aging tree – multiple cycles of different scales (the yearly cycle of the individual tree and the cycle of the lives of all of the trees in the forest). I asked if there was a basic cycle, one against which all other cycles could be measured, or if the cycles were just relative to each other, and she said that, as far as she was concerned, we couldn’t really care about anything more than the galactic rotation as a cycle. Everything else is too big and doesn’t connect in a real way to the cycles that most define our activities.
Marcos:
Marcos also immediately resorted to cycles to explain his perception of time, and particularly the seasons. He said that he could never live anywhere without seasons, because he needs them to know how to feel throughout the year – he described, in beautiful poetic language, the opening of buds on trees in the springtime, the rain in the winter, and how these affect his mood and relation to the outside. He also said that culture and customs, like food, are dictated by these cycles. He had the idea several years ago to photograph, over the course of the year, the vendors at Santiago’s open-air market; he only did it for a week (and hopes to start it up again), but explained that, over that week, he felt connected to the cycles of the market (or more aware of them during the year). He knew when mushrooms would appear, and chestnuts, and he felt that he could see the cycle of life in the aging faces of the women selling them. He also mentioned natural cycles in relation to religious festivities – for instance, and one that I myself experienced, the sardine’s role in the Noche de San Juan. It’s an inextricable part of the celebration, which takes place at a time when the sardine has the perfect (for the taste buds) amount of fat in its body. No coincidence! Marcos found it very difficult to use words to describe time (one of my mean questions is: “How would you describe time, using words, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and said that he felt it much better than he thought about it.
Shey:
Shey told me that time was a river, and with elaborate detail explained what each physical aspect of the river corresponds to. The river of time has many passengers, each of whom travels at his or her own velocity, and each of whom is subject to its currents and turns. She said that, when one is in the river, its motion is impossible to perceive – one could only do that by removing oneself from the river and looking at it “from above”. However, one has a certain agency in that one can predict or avoid certain consequences. She described large events in history as boulders; one can look at boulders that lie ahead and, based on past experience, maneuver around them differently. This is an interesting mix of inevitability (the boulder is THERE) and free will (you can still choose to move around it). Also, history is created by the river of time in that every ripple can affect the water far away. If there is a rapid, the course of the water changes – repercussions are long-term and whole-river. The control aspect of her description also went even further, because she said that she had purposely chosen a difficult-looking river for her life (so there are multiple rivers of time?). She picked the one that looked like it had the most rapids, and, as a result, feels older than her thirty years, because she has already had to navigate (metaphorically) so much all of the time.
Shey also spoke to me about the psychological effects of participating in different activities over given periods of time. She is very active, and said that when she did a lot of things in a row, she was surprised that any time had gone by at all – she loses sense of time when she is always on the move. Seemingly contradictorily, though, she was always surprised to discover that she’d managed to do so much in so little time (i.e. it felt like it should have taken a lot of time). Shey also told me that, without motion or some sort of event, there is no proof of time. If you are looking at a box, and nothing happens inside the box (absolutely nothing – no molecules collide, no neutrinos travel through), you can’t prove that time is passing or exists. Time depends on change, on motion, so it is inextricably linked to space, where events can physically take place. A more human example she gave was that of solitary confinement: people who have been in solitary confinement for long periods of time, in windowless rooms where nothing happens, forget how long certain activities take. When they return to society, they don’t remember the pace of things – how long is a meal? How long is a waking day? Without events by which to set their time scale, they lose the sense of time that the rest of the people outside maintain.
I also have a notebook in which I ask people to draw time (“How would you describe time, using pictures, to somebody who didn’t know what it is?”), and, interestingly, every picture has been different so far! Granted, there are very few pictures (I have drawn more than everybody else combined), but I’m excited by how differently people visualize time and what aspects of it they find most important to communicate (aging, a person’s agency, time’s essence, etc.).
I’m reading a book on the biological structures of memory – and this is related to time, too! But I don’t know enough yet to report. My favorite thought for now is that I can make my synapses fire by thinking about my synapses firing. I’m doing it right now!
Monday, July 20, 2009
A difficulty (Ezaro, Spain)
This entry is not events-related, but rather something that has been on my mind. I wrote about it in an e-mail to a friend, and, since it’s something that I’m learning, I figured I’d share it in my blog, too. I had been worried before leaving on this trip that I would turn “sad” during this year – that traveling alone, and always meeting new people and saying goodbye immediately, would have some adverse effect on my emotional state. Now that seems silly; those are precisely the things that are giving me pleasure and allowing me to learn so much.
But in Muros I was sad for a different reason, the one that I should have foreseen from the outset. For the first few days of my stay there I felt vaguely disapproved of by the old people I spent so much time with – I seemed to lack some of the things that impressed them, like flawless social grace and talkativeness, which it seems every Spanish woman is raised to possess. I realized, though, during my time with the kind and caring sisters Candida and Pepita, that the uneasiness went both ways. They had had very little education, and had hardly traveled outside of Galicia, and they weren’t rich – as they showed me their houses, I realized that they were self-conscious. They were worried that I would judge them – and I had thought that they were judging me!
There’s a sense of superiority attached to education, and to something like the Watson (both of which also imply money). It’s impossible to tell somebody who didn’t finish high school that I’ve graduated from college without the fact just sitting there, being intimidating. And that I’m traveling for a year – what?! Unimaginable. That’s what’s making me sad: That, by having had what I’ve had, I can make other people feel intimidated, self-conscious, or somehow inadequate. That’s the last thing I want! I FEEL humble – I know that Candida and Pepita can teach me a lot about many things, I love and respect them and their lives, and my behavior reflects those feelings – but it’s hard to communicate that humility when I also have to tell people what I’m doing. There is very little humble-sounding about a college degree and the opportunity to travel the world for a year. That’s what I’m currently struggling with: other people’s reception of me, and how I can make it as comfortable as possible. It is not simple! Feeling humble doesn’t cut it, and neither does feeling sad about it.
But in Muros I was sad for a different reason, the one that I should have foreseen from the outset. For the first few days of my stay there I felt vaguely disapproved of by the old people I spent so much time with – I seemed to lack some of the things that impressed them, like flawless social grace and talkativeness, which it seems every Spanish woman is raised to possess. I realized, though, during my time with the kind and caring sisters Candida and Pepita, that the uneasiness went both ways. They had had very little education, and had hardly traveled outside of Galicia, and they weren’t rich – as they showed me their houses, I realized that they were self-conscious. They were worried that I would judge them – and I had thought that they were judging me!
There’s a sense of superiority attached to education, and to something like the Watson (both of which also imply money). It’s impossible to tell somebody who didn’t finish high school that I’ve graduated from college without the fact just sitting there, being intimidating. And that I’m traveling for a year – what?! Unimaginable. That’s what’s making me sad: That, by having had what I’ve had, I can make other people feel intimidated, self-conscious, or somehow inadequate. That’s the last thing I want! I FEEL humble – I know that Candida and Pepita can teach me a lot about many things, I love and respect them and their lives, and my behavior reflects those feelings – but it’s hard to communicate that humility when I also have to tell people what I’m doing. There is very little humble-sounding about a college degree and the opportunity to travel the world for a year. That’s what I’m currently struggling with: other people’s reception of me, and how I can make it as comfortable as possible. It is not simple! Feeling humble doesn’t cut it, and neither does feeling sad about it.
A steep ascent and a waterfall (Ezaro and O Pindo, Spain)
(I wrote this yesterday, but have internet today! Tomorrow morning I leave for Santiago.)
I did not end up going to the countryside! Instead I took a bus away from Santiago, towards Cee and Finisterre, and got off at a tiny town called Ezaro, which looked interesting because it is at the mouth of a river. It is also right next to the Monte Pindo, which Sylvia, my friend from La Corunha, had recommended that I hike – I thought, “Excellent! I will experience tiny-town life and also get to go up!” I love going up.
My first walk through town revealed that there is exactly one fishing boat in the port, but many wooden rowboats in the river water just next to the bridge. The rowboats were drifting happily on their lines in the water; the fishing boat bobbed in the waves at the port, probably feeling both superior and lonely. The point is, though, that there were no people in the boats; I have to wait until Monday morning to see the solitary fishing boat in action. The nearby town of O Pindo has a larger port (four fishing boats!), and I will go there in the early afternoon, when the catch comes in.
On my second walk through town I more fully appreciated the landscape – enormous boulder-covered hills loom over the houses, and on Saturday, when I arrived, they were covered with fog, so that the peaks drifted in and out of vision. Nine-year-old Irene would have thought, “Oh boy! There’s probably a hidden entrance to another world in some boulder on one of those fog-covered hills! There’s probably a witch!!” But, tragically, I’ve lost my capacity to imagine (and temporarily believe in) the supernatural when I am in mysterious and old places. So I just thought, “Oh boy! I can’t wait to walk around!”
Ezaro also has artificial large-scale beauty! The river Xallas has been dammed for over a century, and there is an electrical plant up the river a ways, next to huge rocks that used to be covered by a waterfall and are now covered by a trickle. (I have this problem of finding things that I know to be environmentally destructive or exploitative of people somewhere down the line beautiful. Dams are an example – I really think that they are neat to look at! Technologically impressive, and generally aesthetically pleasing, if only for their scale. But this dam took away one of very few waterfalls in Europe that emptied into the sea, and has also been responsible for wreaking havoc on fish populations; last year many died when too much water was released at once. The docks are another example: I love seeing fish coming in, the auction, the boats, and in Vigo I was fascinated by the huge rocks, stacks of aluminum ingots, rows of cars, containers, giant cranes, cargo ships – but I know about overfishing, and mining destruction, and pollution, and that people somewhere down the line are being worked too hard and paid too little. How to reconcile awe and fascination with knowledge of exploitation?) I went into a small museum about energy that the company has set up, and a man there took a liking to me and showed me the actual machine room, which also contained many machines from the past century! Very cool.
I was told that the waterfall would be “opened” at 11:00 that night, so I went back at night and sat with dozens of other people on the wooden benches next to it. While we were waiting, I met Anselmo and Angel, who were visiting from Asturias. They were very friendly, and told me about Spanish history, their work (they train primary school teachers), Spanish food, good Spanish science magazines (excellent!), etc. We watched the waterfall when it opened up – beautiful! loud and misty! I love waterfalls! – and afterwards had drinks at a bar in town. Friends!
On Sunday morning I walked to O Pindo, the town across the bridge, to start my hike up to the top of Monte Pindo (A Moa) from the church courtyard. The first forty-five minutes were toughies – a very narrow, steep path with tricky footing, and the fog made everything just a bit depressing. But then I ran into a family that was farther along the path, and another hiker with two dogs ran into us, and we spent the rest of the day together! Manel (I’m not misspelling it – it’s “Manuel” without the “u”) had explored these mountains thoroughly, and carried not only a fancy contour map but also a bar of chocolate, so we knew we could trust him to be our leader, and mother Pilar, daughter Zoraya and father ____ were full of energy and cheer. We spent a total of six hours climbing up and stumbling down, and it was one of the most wonderful hikes of my life. The fog cleared up as we neared the top of the mountain, and there were rounded boulders everywhere, and little creeks, and green grass, and everywhere we looked we could see distant coast and more green hills covered with windmills (I find these beautiful, too! but I feel better about finding them beautiful). The only misfortune was that one of my flip flops – the most faithful shoes I have ever had, explorers-with on many wild adventures – broke on the way down. I tied it onto my foot with a hair binder, but it was too loose by the time we got to asphalt, so I put socks on and (STUPIDLY) tried to go shoeless on the asphalt. Now the bottoms of my feet are burned (ouch) (really no joke). But I’d do it again! It was a glorious day. When we got into town, we had drinks at a beachfront bar and then stripped to our underwear and bras and swam! Cold, cold water! Yeeeeaaaah!!! I will sleep well tonight.
I did not end up going to the countryside! Instead I took a bus away from Santiago, towards Cee and Finisterre, and got off at a tiny town called Ezaro, which looked interesting because it is at the mouth of a river. It is also right next to the Monte Pindo, which Sylvia, my friend from La Corunha, had recommended that I hike – I thought, “Excellent! I will experience tiny-town life and also get to go up!” I love going up.
My first walk through town revealed that there is exactly one fishing boat in the port, but many wooden rowboats in the river water just next to the bridge. The rowboats were drifting happily on their lines in the water; the fishing boat bobbed in the waves at the port, probably feeling both superior and lonely. The point is, though, that there were no people in the boats; I have to wait until Monday morning to see the solitary fishing boat in action. The nearby town of O Pindo has a larger port (four fishing boats!), and I will go there in the early afternoon, when the catch comes in.
On my second walk through town I more fully appreciated the landscape – enormous boulder-covered hills loom over the houses, and on Saturday, when I arrived, they were covered with fog, so that the peaks drifted in and out of vision. Nine-year-old Irene would have thought, “Oh boy! There’s probably a hidden entrance to another world in some boulder on one of those fog-covered hills! There’s probably a witch!!” But, tragically, I’ve lost my capacity to imagine (and temporarily believe in) the supernatural when I am in mysterious and old places. So I just thought, “Oh boy! I can’t wait to walk around!”
Ezaro also has artificial large-scale beauty! The river Xallas has been dammed for over a century, and there is an electrical plant up the river a ways, next to huge rocks that used to be covered by a waterfall and are now covered by a trickle. (I have this problem of finding things that I know to be environmentally destructive or exploitative of people somewhere down the line beautiful. Dams are an example – I really think that they are neat to look at! Technologically impressive, and generally aesthetically pleasing, if only for their scale. But this dam took away one of very few waterfalls in Europe that emptied into the sea, and has also been responsible for wreaking havoc on fish populations; last year many died when too much water was released at once. The docks are another example: I love seeing fish coming in, the auction, the boats, and in Vigo I was fascinated by the huge rocks, stacks of aluminum ingots, rows of cars, containers, giant cranes, cargo ships – but I know about overfishing, and mining destruction, and pollution, and that people somewhere down the line are being worked too hard and paid too little. How to reconcile awe and fascination with knowledge of exploitation?) I went into a small museum about energy that the company has set up, and a man there took a liking to me and showed me the actual machine room, which also contained many machines from the past century! Very cool.
I was told that the waterfall would be “opened” at 11:00 that night, so I went back at night and sat with dozens of other people on the wooden benches next to it. While we were waiting, I met Anselmo and Angel, who were visiting from Asturias. They were very friendly, and told me about Spanish history, their work (they train primary school teachers), Spanish food, good Spanish science magazines (excellent!), etc. We watched the waterfall when it opened up – beautiful! loud and misty! I love waterfalls! – and afterwards had drinks at a bar in town. Friends!
On Sunday morning I walked to O Pindo, the town across the bridge, to start my hike up to the top of Monte Pindo (A Moa) from the church courtyard. The first forty-five minutes were toughies – a very narrow, steep path with tricky footing, and the fog made everything just a bit depressing. But then I ran into a family that was farther along the path, and another hiker with two dogs ran into us, and we spent the rest of the day together! Manel (I’m not misspelling it – it’s “Manuel” without the “u”) had explored these mountains thoroughly, and carried not only a fancy contour map but also a bar of chocolate, so we knew we could trust him to be our leader, and mother Pilar, daughter Zoraya and father ____ were full of energy and cheer. We spent a total of six hours climbing up and stumbling down, and it was one of the most wonderful hikes of my life. The fog cleared up as we neared the top of the mountain, and there were rounded boulders everywhere, and little creeks, and green grass, and everywhere we looked we could see distant coast and more green hills covered with windmills (I find these beautiful, too! but I feel better about finding them beautiful). The only misfortune was that one of my flip flops – the most faithful shoes I have ever had, explorers-with on many wild adventures – broke on the way down. I tied it onto my foot with a hair binder, but it was too loose by the time we got to asphalt, so I put socks on and (STUPIDLY) tried to go shoeless on the asphalt. Now the bottoms of my feet are burned (ouch) (really no joke). But I’d do it again! It was a glorious day. When we got into town, we had drinks at a beachfront bar and then stripped to our underwear and bras and swam! Cold, cold water! Yeeeeaaaah!!! I will sleep well tonight.
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