I felt quite good heading out from the lodge despite the late night of drinking. The weather was awesome, cool and dry, and excellent for hiking. It was to be the first day of the trip that I didn't end the day drenched in sweat. We hiked a couple miles and then detoured from the AT onto Sherburnne Pass trail, which would shave a mile or so off our hike that day. We hit US Rt. 4 and once again it was time to head into town for supplies, this time into the town of Rutland, VT. US 4 is busy, but no one will pick us up. We waited by the side of the road for about twenty minutes with no luck. Finally, a day hiker down from the trail shouted at us from the other side of the road and offered us a ride in. She was a young lady, probably in her 20's, and was very interested to hear about our time on the trail. She asked a lot questions about safety and whether or not we felt comfortable being around other people on the trail. It eventually came out that she was interested in hiking the trail, but was worried about being mugged or something since she'd be alone. Neither me nor Jammy pointed out the contradiction between this and deciding to pick up two random dudes on the side of the road.
Once in Rutland we once again hit the grocery store and then headed to another deli for another hot pastrami sandwich. We'd heard about a religious group in Rutland that ran a hiker hostel, and we decided to check it out, hoping that they might be offering rides back out to the trail. The hostel was above a restaurant called the “Back Home Again Cafe” which, in stark contrast to Rutland itself, was quite nice. The interior was all wood with nice polished wooden tables, antique leather upholstery, unique seating arrangements, and nice lighting. The staff of the place were easy to pick out, as they all looked the same. The men had long beards and long hair tied back in pony tails and were wearing earth-tone hemp pants and neutral shirts. The women all had long, loose, hair and loose-fitting earth-tone dresses on top of black t-shirts. We noticed a sort of cubby system on the left wall full of tea mugs which we assumed belonged to the staff. Each mug had a name tag underneath it, except all the names were new-age, like “Shaltiel” or “Menoah” or “Rennan.” We were greeted by one of the identically-dressed women who asked if we were there for the hostel. We said no, but were wondering if they offered rides back out to the trail. She said she'd ask around and see if there was anyone around that could help us. She disappeared into the cafe and emerged a few minutes later full of apologies. “I'm SO, sorry,” she said “the guy with the car is out running errands today. I'm really sorry we can't help you out. You might try the bus station, but I'm so sorry we can't help you more. I really wish we could...” We eventually had to shut her up by telling her it was OK and really not to worry about it. We left the cafe, both commenting about how weird that experience was.
Getting out of Rutland was hell. We had to walked almost two miles up US 4 before we found a spot with a good place to pull over for hitching. We were in the blazing sun for almost an hour before getting picked up by a guy who could only take us half the way to the trail. The second hitch took another 15 minutes or so, but finally we were on our way. Next up on the trail was Killington peak, which is the highest peak in Vermont, but was surprisingly easy to climb. An afternoon off the trail had done us both well and we were beginning to develop our hiking legs. We got to a shelter near the peak well before nightfall. A side trail led the remaining 0.2 miles to the summit. We packed our cooking supplies and headed up it to catch the sunset over dinner. The side trail was quite steep, but short, and the views from the top were awesome. It was the first real peak of the whole trip. All in all, it was a very enjoyable day.
Due to the heat wave that had been hitting the east coast for almost a week, we had sent home our overly-thick sleeping bags in favor of lighter fleece blankets. The night on Killington, however, showed us the error in our ways. The night was cold, not freezing by any stretch, but too cold for our gear to cope with. It's surprising how difficult it is to stay warm at night. During the day, not only is the sun out and the temperatures are generally higher, but you're moving around and doing stuff, which goes a long way to keeping you warm. At night, when you're lying on the ground not moving, warming up is a lot of challenging. Needless to say, we did not sleep well that night and immediately called Jammy's parents to have them send our sleeping bags along.
We got up early the next day not having slept much. After two days of minimal sleep (the first due to alcohol and the second to cold), I spent most of the day in s daze. I felt like I was falling asleep even when I was walking. Fortunately, we found two trail magics (treats which people leave by the trail for hikers) full of soda, which kept me going long enough to get to camp. We rolled into camp early and talked for a while with a couple passing through on their way north who were carrying 65 pound packs with 15 days of food for some reason. We thought back to our misadventures in Maine and grimaced. Since it was still early and there was supposed to be a town only about a mile and a half away, we decided to go in and pick up some fresh sausage to cook over a camp fire. We hiked down and incredibly steep section of trail to get to the road and found some day hikers to ask about the nearby town. We were told that the town in walking distance had no grocery store, and that we'd do better to go into Rutland. This was somewhat disheartening, as we remembered how difficult it was to get out of Rutland the day before. We got a great hitch, however. A national guard woman picked us up, drove us to the grocery store, waited for us, and then took us back to the trail. She talked to us about how her unit had been activated for duty in Iraq and how she was considering going. I hoped that someone who'd been so nice to us would not end up in such a bad situation.
We built a fire and roasted sausage and bakery bread over it that evening, our best meal yet. We built the fire up really big and stayed up late to watch the sky. We had decided that we would forgo hiking the following day and spend two nights at the shelter. There was supposed to be a meteor shower that evening, but we either missed it, or it was pretty small, because I didn't notice anything.
The next morning we woke up at 1pm, which felt awesome. I woke up to find a group of sobo girls hanging out in the shelter along with a guy on an ATV named Poor Boy, the volunteer in charged of maintaining the shelter. They told me about a restaurant nearby that was supposed to do good hamburgers. The girls were heading there for lunch, and me and Jammy decided to do the same. The girls took off before us and we stayed to talk to Poor Boy for a little bit, which turned out to be a good call as he told us about an ATV road that we could take that was a shortcut down to the restaurant. We struck out on the road about half an hour after the girls had left, and still beat them there. The restaurant turned out to be out of beef, and so we all had to wait quite a while as the owner went out to buy some. In the meantime, we met Plans-Too-Much, a retired ex-hiker who gives hikers all throughout Vermont rides to wherever they want to go. We had noticed his phone number up in a number of the shelters. Me and Jammy mentioned to him that we were interested in doing some swimming that day and he offered to take us to some good swimming holes in the area. The girls headed on down the trail, and we went with Plans-Too-Much to go swimming. He did indeed know some good spots and me and Jammy got a good laugh out of seeing him, who was probably in his 50's, out-dive all the local teenagers. We headed back to camp in the mid-afternoon and thanked Plans-Too-Much for the ride.
That evening Jammy started feeling sick to his stomach, and when it hadn't cleared up by the morning, we decided to head into town to stay in civilization for a couple night until he was better. We called Plans-Too-Much and he drove us into Rutland to the Back Home Again Cafe to stay with the Twelve Tribes, which we had learned was the name of the group running the hostel. One of the staff showed us up to the rooms, which had gorgeous wooden bunks, with surprisingly clean bathrooms and showers with six kinds of organic soap. The hostel let you stay in exchange for either a $15 donation or two hours of work in the cafe or attached bakery. The first night we decided to just fork over the fifteen bucks and be done with it. We headed out to the Rutland movie theater and saw the Bourne Ultimatum, which was entertaining. We returned to the cafe in time for dinner, which was provided to all the hikers staying for free. It was a beautiful spread of fresh vegetables, bread, and soup. During dinner some of the cultists, as me and Jammy had taken to calling them, sat down with us and began making small talk. Apparently they were involved with the planning of some sort of hiker festival that the city was putting on the following week. Some of the other hikers were talking about hitching back in for the occasion. One of the cultists sitting next to me asked if I was planning on coming back. I said it was probably going to be too much trouble for us, since we were only going to be on the trail for a limited time. His response was “Well, it's only a week away. Maybe you guys will still be here then!” Needless to say, I found this more than a little creepy. We also started talking to this other cultist, Rennan, who told us “I used to hike the trail, before I found this place.” I asked him how long he'd been here, and he said 13 months. I asked if he was planning on finishing at any point, to which he responded “no, I don't think so.” A little weirded out, we decided to call it a night.
The next day we decided to do work-for-stay as we didn't want to spend any more money. He headed downstairs, ate the free breakfast and asked what they wanted us to do. We were sent up to the bakery where they showed us a pile of parts and asked us to put together as many baker's shelves from them as we could. It seemed easy enough, so we set to work. About fifteen minutes in, we realized that the part didn't really go together all that well and that there weren't really the right pieces to make the shelves stable. We asked one of the cultists about this and he told us that they'd picked up the parts a while back and that no one had put them together before, but they he though we could do it because we were “rocket scientists or something.” Apparently the word had gotten around that we were Princeton grads. I asked the cultist if there was a hacksaw or something that we could use to cut up some of the parts to make them more useful. He replied “I don't have the authority to let you do that,” and promptly left. We managed to get two shelves put together and were sent down to the basement to give them to one of the staff down there. We found the guy in the basement who wanted the shelves and he showed us where he wanted them to go. The space looked a little tight, so we asked for a measuring tape to make sure they would fit. “I don't think we have one,” he replied. Next, we asked for some string. “I don't know if we have any. Let me go check.” He proceeded to wander off for a good 15 to 20 minutes. In the meantime, me and Jammy explored the immediate vicinity and located the tool shed, which had a large measuring tape sitting on one of the shelves. The guy returned telling us they didn't have any string and we asked if we could use the measuring tape we had found.
We measured the shelves and concluded that they would fit, but only if we knocked off the wheels on the bottom, which would be useless anyway since he wanted stationary shelves. We went back to the basement and told our guy this. “I don't think I have the authority to let you do that,” he said. I tried to explain that his shelves would not fit otherwise, and while I was doing so Jammy wandered into the tool shed and located a hammer. We set to work knocking the wheels off, leaving the cultist standing uselessly in the corner with a blank look on his face. Eventually we started asking him to hold things for us, as he seemed to have nothing better to do than stand and watch us. Finally we got the shelves set up in the requested space and just about the same time our two hours were up. We headed back up to the cafe for lunch. The wrap we had for lunch were quite good, and while we were eating one of the cultists (keep in mind, all these guys look the same) sat next to us and started making small talk. Turned out he was in the navy and had some cool navy stories. After a while though we lapsed into silence. “So,” he said, breaking the silence “what have you guys heard about us?” We both groaned inwardly. Jammy tried to avoid the question, but before we knew it he had launched into a detailed description of their group.
They were indeed a religious group and their theology was some variation on Christianity. I'm no theologian so I wasn't really able to get that good a handle on how “out there” they were religiously, but they certainly weren't as overt as, say, alien worshiping cults you hear about in the news. Really, the strangest thing about them was that they'd seemed to have blended conservative Christianity with hippyism, and were pretty radically anti-society. We were told about how the corporations were running everything and that governments only existed to make people feel better. He told us about how we were all slaves to the “gas-man” and the “oil man” and various other types of “man.” He talked about how public school just brainwash kids and promote commercialism, and how they were too dangerous because too many kids end up shot or raped. The highlight, however, was really his lack of understanding of US government. He talked a lot about how we didn't have a say in our own government. I responded by asking if they voted, to which he responded that, no, they did not. I think he completely missed the connection between those two statements. He also railed for a long time about how “we lost the right to make laws.” Afterwards, me and Jammy weren't really sure what this was supposed to mean, as the US has a representative government and was never set up to have the populous make laws directly. He told a long story about some petition they'd gotten going in the 70's and how they'd gotten 5 million signatures (not even close to a majority, by the way) and how they'd sent it into congress and received a letter back saying they needed to contact their representatives. While he was telling this story, I took a look around the cafe, at the earth-tone clothing, the stand selling organic soap, the signs listing the benefits of some Brazilian tea and thought: “You guys were trying to legalize marijuana weren't you? That's what this petition was about. You wanted to legalize weed.” Sure enough, he got to the end of his story and add, almost as a side note: “We were trying to legalize marijuana.” Of course. About two hours later (seriously). We finally got away from this guy and out into the city where we decided we weren't going back to the hostel until it was time to go to sleep.
The next morning, Jammy was feeling better, so we called Plans-Too-Much for a ride back to the trail. He said he was busy and would not be able to pick us up until around 1pm. We said this was fine, but now had some time to kill before leaving. As I mentioned before, the cafe was planning on doing some catering for the upcoming hiker festival, some of which apparently involved smoothies, because they had a lot of bananas that needed peeling and freezing. We volunteered to help to pass the time. The cultists had also apparently had some sort of sermon involving salmon that morning because they were trickling down the stairs murmuring about salmon-this, salmon-that, and about how moving the lesson about salmon was. We headed downstairs with a number of the cultists and a few other hikers too. We were peeling bananas for a while when one of the cultists pulled out a gorgeous salmon and started butchering it to serve for lunch. Me and Jammy were salivating staring at this thing and Jammy finally said, “Nice fish.” The guy butchering it turned around and said, with a knowing nod, “yes, it's a salmon.” Which was the cue for all the other cultists to turn to each other and smile and go “yes, a salmon.” I got to say, it was pretty creepy. Finally, Plans-Too-Much showed up to take us back to the trail. We told him about our experiences during the ride at which point he told us “yeah, I try not to go stay in that place for more than a half hour at a time.” Good call.
A QUICK NOTE ON THE TWELVE TRIBES: I refer to them as a cult, which seems to mean different things to different people. I do not mean that they were a cult in the violent-anti-government-armed-and-dangerous sense, in fact, they were generally very subdued and were some of the nicest people we were to meet on the trail. I also don't mean it in the don't-drink-the-Kool-Aid sense. Most of the members seemed happy and to be getting along just fine. In other words, these were not people that were a danger to themselves or to others, which is what may be called to mind with the word “cult.” This is not the kind of group that I would want to see broken up or in any way removed from society. In fact, they seemed to be running the only decent restaurant in Rutland, so well done there. What I'm referring to with the word “cult” is the life-consuming aspects of the Twelve Tribes. The members all left their families to move in with the group. They sold all their possessions and donated their life savings to the group. From our conversations with the members, we gathered that they got out very little and spent the vast majority of their time working and living with the group. Thus, members of the Twelve Tribes were members of the Twelve Tribes only, nothing else, they had no other components to their lives. This is the basis on which I call them a cult. I also refer to the lack of individuality that many of the members seemed to possess. Talking to them, one got the impression that they did not do much in the way of thinking or acting for themselves. Despite their claim to have no “leaders” or “hierarchy,” there were definitely a good number of members that exhibited very little ability to think and act on their own and seemed to mostly do what they were told. On this basis also I call them a cult. I hope that I have not portrayed an excessively negative or biased picture of the Twelve Tribes, once again I do not want my use of the word cult to be taken in ways other than that which it was meant.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Following the White Blaze Part 2: Northern Vermont
Having pared down the gear and food we were carrying to a more manageable 30ish pounds, we were ready to hit the trail again. We were aiming to start in the city of Hanover, NH, about a mile away from the New Hampshire/Vermont border on the trail. Getting there involved something of a round-about trip, as we met Jammy's brother in Boston who was driving back to Burlington and was able to give us a ride. We hit the trail in the mid-afternoon and immediately discovered another nice side-effect of our new start location: we were right in the middle of a large pack of nobos and thus had many people crossing our path that we were able to talk to. The hike started with a steep climb out of the city and we ended up at a lean-to about 6 miles down the trail. We covered the distance in 2 hours, surprising even ourselves. There were no nobo staying at the shelter, as they'd all pushed on to stay in town, but there was one guy up for a short hike. He was a scruffy-looking kind of fellow with a lot of missing teeth that had packed up a 6-pack of 16 oz. Budweiser cans for the evening. He also seemed kind of undecided as to whether he wanted to be hiking the trail or hanging out in Hanover trying to pick up college students. He did, however, have a fire going and so we spent the evening with him. There really is nothing like a good camp fire to make one feel good about being out in the woods. Both me and Jammy were optimistic about our new start. We pitched the tent and went to bed.
The next morning we woke up to a rain storm that continued into the early afternoon. We took the opportunity to sleep in and wait for it to stop, and thus didn't hit the trail until around 2pm. The day started out easy and we quickly made it into New Hartford, were we stopped at a deli on the trail to get a hot pastrami sandwich. We also came up with trail names for the trip: I'm Mad Dozer and Jammy is No Worries. We had a tough uphill slog out of town to the shelter, however, which we would soon discover to be the name of the game for this part of Vermont. We arrived at camp beaten and exhausted and soaked from rain and sweat. Our hopes of being able to keep up a 3 mile an hour pace with no problem ran up against the reality that it took us three and a half ours to hike the 4.4 miles from New Hartford to camp. It looks like we'll have some adjusting to do after all. That night we shared the shelter with a middle-aged ex-military guy who's hiking with his dog, who he had trained to clean his dishes for him. Both me and Jammy agreed that that was brilliant. He also had the most enormous sleeping pad I'd ever seen, looking more like a portable bed than a camping pad.
The next day brought another hard hike. I ate too many Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast and crashed early on one of the first uphills. Northern Vermont, we discover, is all ups and downs. We'd hike downhill to a road for a couple miles, cross it, hike uphill back into the forest, and then back down to another road. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for a trail to be uphill both ways. I was really beginning to feel the fact that I'd spent most of the previous few months lying around watching movies. Hiking became a game of minor accomplishments. I'd choose a tree or a root a few tens of yards in front of me and walk to it, pause for 5 seconds to let my legs stop burning and then choose my next tree. Inch by inch it seems, I made my way along. In the end it was worth it, however, as one of the hills sported a raspberry patch on top of it where we were able to eat our fill. It was getting to towards mid-afternoon when we hit a main road. We needed to get into the town of Woodstock, VT for our first resupply. We stuck out our thumbs, and while it took a little time for a car to come by going the right direction, we got picked up by the first car. We hit the grocery store with gusto, restocking our food and devouring a lot of fried chicken from the deli, Like magic, it seemed, we got offered a ride back to the trail by one of the other shoppers without even having to ask. The guy turned out to be the first of many saintly figures we ran into during out Journey. He talked to us about spending the afternoon delivering furniture to elderly people in the neighborhood and how he built the next few shelters along the trail. He also was happy to hear that I was destined for the Peace Corps as he was intending to do it himself once he retired. Although we were doubtful of our ability to make it to Winturri, the next shelter along the way, by nightfall, he told us it was well within our ability and so we pushed on. It's another uphill slog, of course, but fueled by fried chicken and the encouragement of strangers, we made it in by dark.
That night it rained again, thus beginning the trend that continued throughout the trip of only raining at night, which was actually pretty convenient. I stayed in the tent until around noon waiting out the rain and then moved to the shelter. A couple nobos came through and I talked to one who said he'd had a brother-in-law who was ambassador to a number of countries in the South Pacific, including Vanuatu. When Jammy finally woke up we hit the trail again. It was always bad news to hear from another thru-hiker that the terrain ahead is “easy.” It's almost always a set-up for disappointment. First of all, at this point in the trip we were in considerably worse physical shape than the other hikers we were crossing, and so “easy” was always relative. On top of this, however, hearing that something is going to be easy put you in a kind of mindset where even small obstacles became a great burden because they were unexpected, and you got easily frustrated with, for example, a small section of uphill trail. This was to be such a day. After a brief high where we stopped at a little cottage built on a peak where you could climb a ladder up to the roof and get a great view, we were back to the up-and-down slog of Northern Vermont.
I think the most frustrating thing about the piece of trail that we were on, aside from the fact that we were hitting it while we were still out of shape, was the fact that there were very few peaks. There were no harrowing steep uphill climbs that suddenly ended in a beautiful vista and a nice warm sense of accomplishment. No, these were slow and constant uphill trudges where you could always swear you were near the top, only to see the trail veer off into the one patch of uphill that was previously obscured by some tree or another. It was never really steep or even particularly challenging terrain, it was just never-ending. You'd keep going up until you were so worn down you thought you'd never get to the top, and just then you'd realize that you never would because there was no top, no vista, no peak, just a point on the trail where you'd start going back down to repeat the whole process over again. By the end of the day I was so worn down physically and mentally I was ready to collapse. My feet had taken so much pounding that I felt like the layers of skin and muscle had worn through and that I was walking on bone.
The next day things began to look up for me again. On the advice of one of the nobos we'd met the previous night, we took a short day and ended up at Kent pond, which sported not just a beautiful pond to swim in, but also a full-up lodge to stay the night. We checked in and were given a 50% discount for being hikers. None too shabby. The room we got was quite nice with all the usual amenities, including mattresses, electricity, and a bathroom with shower and flush toilet. We washed our clothes in the sink, went swimming, and took showers. We aired out our tent which was starting to smell bad, even to us, which was impressive. The lodge had a game room where we played pool and a public computer where I checked my email and posted to The Bubble. We decided to forgo the meal at the lodge in favor of our own food since we'd carried it all this way, after all. After dinner we got a round of beers and headed to the hot tub. We polished off our first round and headed back inside for the second. The owner, a very friendly guy named Bill, who was manning the bar grabbed a beer for himself and we got to talking. He turned out to be a hiker himself and we started swapping hiking stories. We finished our second round and Bill gave us one on the house. We continued to swap stories and Bill started to throw beers at us, eventually running out of beer in the main fridge and having to bring some up from the back. By midnight, we'd had about a six beers a piece, and had only paid for one. We ended up in the hot tub talking to Bill until around one in the morning when we all realized we needed to be up rather early. The next morning we woke up feeling a bit under the weather and went down to breakfast. The lodge had a nice spread and we ate our fill. In the next room, we could hear Bill cleaning up from the previous night. There was much clanking of bottles and he finally emerged with a milk crate entirely filled with the bottles we'd drained. He gave a sheepish grin to his wife, wished us well, and we were back on the trail.
The next morning we woke up to a rain storm that continued into the early afternoon. We took the opportunity to sleep in and wait for it to stop, and thus didn't hit the trail until around 2pm. The day started out easy and we quickly made it into New Hartford, were we stopped at a deli on the trail to get a hot pastrami sandwich. We also came up with trail names for the trip: I'm Mad Dozer and Jammy is No Worries. We had a tough uphill slog out of town to the shelter, however, which we would soon discover to be the name of the game for this part of Vermont. We arrived at camp beaten and exhausted and soaked from rain and sweat. Our hopes of being able to keep up a 3 mile an hour pace with no problem ran up against the reality that it took us three and a half ours to hike the 4.4 miles from New Hartford to camp. It looks like we'll have some adjusting to do after all. That night we shared the shelter with a middle-aged ex-military guy who's hiking with his dog, who he had trained to clean his dishes for him. Both me and Jammy agreed that that was brilliant. He also had the most enormous sleeping pad I'd ever seen, looking more like a portable bed than a camping pad.
The next day brought another hard hike. I ate too many Frosted Mini-Wheats for breakfast and crashed early on one of the first uphills. Northern Vermont, we discover, is all ups and downs. We'd hike downhill to a road for a couple miles, cross it, hike uphill back into the forest, and then back down to another road. Contrary to popular belief, it is possible for a trail to be uphill both ways. I was really beginning to feel the fact that I'd spent most of the previous few months lying around watching movies. Hiking became a game of minor accomplishments. I'd choose a tree or a root a few tens of yards in front of me and walk to it, pause for 5 seconds to let my legs stop burning and then choose my next tree. Inch by inch it seems, I made my way along. In the end it was worth it, however, as one of the hills sported a raspberry patch on top of it where we were able to eat our fill. It was getting to towards mid-afternoon when we hit a main road. We needed to get into the town of Woodstock, VT for our first resupply. We stuck out our thumbs, and while it took a little time for a car to come by going the right direction, we got picked up by the first car. We hit the grocery store with gusto, restocking our food and devouring a lot of fried chicken from the deli, Like magic, it seemed, we got offered a ride back to the trail by one of the other shoppers without even having to ask. The guy turned out to be the first of many saintly figures we ran into during out Journey. He talked to us about spending the afternoon delivering furniture to elderly people in the neighborhood and how he built the next few shelters along the trail. He also was happy to hear that I was destined for the Peace Corps as he was intending to do it himself once he retired. Although we were doubtful of our ability to make it to Winturri, the next shelter along the way, by nightfall, he told us it was well within our ability and so we pushed on. It's another uphill slog, of course, but fueled by fried chicken and the encouragement of strangers, we made it in by dark.
That night it rained again, thus beginning the trend that continued throughout the trip of only raining at night, which was actually pretty convenient. I stayed in the tent until around noon waiting out the rain and then moved to the shelter. A couple nobos came through and I talked to one who said he'd had a brother-in-law who was ambassador to a number of countries in the South Pacific, including Vanuatu. When Jammy finally woke up we hit the trail again. It was always bad news to hear from another thru-hiker that the terrain ahead is “easy.” It's almost always a set-up for disappointment. First of all, at this point in the trip we were in considerably worse physical shape than the other hikers we were crossing, and so “easy” was always relative. On top of this, however, hearing that something is going to be easy put you in a kind of mindset where even small obstacles became a great burden because they were unexpected, and you got easily frustrated with, for example, a small section of uphill trail. This was to be such a day. After a brief high where we stopped at a little cottage built on a peak where you could climb a ladder up to the roof and get a great view, we were back to the up-and-down slog of Northern Vermont.
I think the most frustrating thing about the piece of trail that we were on, aside from the fact that we were hitting it while we were still out of shape, was the fact that there were very few peaks. There were no harrowing steep uphill climbs that suddenly ended in a beautiful vista and a nice warm sense of accomplishment. No, these were slow and constant uphill trudges where you could always swear you were near the top, only to see the trail veer off into the one patch of uphill that was previously obscured by some tree or another. It was never really steep or even particularly challenging terrain, it was just never-ending. You'd keep going up until you were so worn down you thought you'd never get to the top, and just then you'd realize that you never would because there was no top, no vista, no peak, just a point on the trail where you'd start going back down to repeat the whole process over again. By the end of the day I was so worn down physically and mentally I was ready to collapse. My feet had taken so much pounding that I felt like the layers of skin and muscle had worn through and that I was walking on bone.
The next day things began to look up for me again. On the advice of one of the nobos we'd met the previous night, we took a short day and ended up at Kent pond, which sported not just a beautiful pond to swim in, but also a full-up lodge to stay the night. We checked in and were given a 50% discount for being hikers. None too shabby. The room we got was quite nice with all the usual amenities, including mattresses, electricity, and a bathroom with shower and flush toilet. We washed our clothes in the sink, went swimming, and took showers. We aired out our tent which was starting to smell bad, even to us, which was impressive. The lodge had a game room where we played pool and a public computer where I checked my email and posted to The Bubble. We decided to forgo the meal at the lodge in favor of our own food since we'd carried it all this way, after all. After dinner we got a round of beers and headed to the hot tub. We polished off our first round and headed back inside for the second. The owner, a very friendly guy named Bill, who was manning the bar grabbed a beer for himself and we got to talking. He turned out to be a hiker himself and we started swapping hiking stories. We finished our second round and Bill gave us one on the house. We continued to swap stories and Bill started to throw beers at us, eventually running out of beer in the main fridge and having to bring some up from the back. By midnight, we'd had about a six beers a piece, and had only paid for one. We ended up in the hot tub talking to Bill until around one in the morning when we all realized we needed to be up rather early. The next morning we woke up feeling a bit under the weather and went down to breakfast. The lodge had a nice spread and we ate our fill. In the next room, we could hear Bill cleaning up from the previous night. There was much clanking of bottles and he finally emerged with a milk crate entirely filled with the bottles we'd drained. He gave a sheepish grin to his wife, wished us well, and we were back on the trail.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Following the White Blaze Part 1: A False Start
The culmination of almost a year of dreaming and several weeks of planning and scheming was upon me: me and Jammy were about to start the Appalachian Trail. Probably the most common question I got while on the trail was "why are you doing this." This question only has one good answer, "because it's there." This response may sound unsatisfying to most, but it is the god's honest truth, I took on this for basically no other reason than to say that I had and maybe come back with some good stories. I'm happy to report that I was successful on both accounts.
For those heading South, the trail begins at Mt. Katahdin in Maine and ends at Mt. Springer in Georgia. Southbounders (sobos) have something of a front-loaded trip as the hardest parts of the trail are in Maine and New Hampshire, the first 2 states on the south-going route. For this reason, most prefer to head north. One northbounder (nobo) compared it to the slow descent into Mordor followed by the final assault on Mt. Doom. We, however, basically had the sobo route chosen for us due to the convenience of having Jammy's house in Maine. Katahdin is essentially in the middle of Baxter state park, a state park in Maine. After a long night of packing and a crazy early morning start, we arrived around 7am in Baxter. We went to talk to the ranger, who informed us that we really should have called ahead as most of the campsites in the area were booked. He told us that he'd see if he could help us out, but that in the meantime we could get started up Katahdin. The usual route is to take the AT up Katahdin to the summit, and then come back down the same way, camp at the base of the mountain and walk out of the park the next day.
One caveat with going up Katahdin was that we were expecting to enter the 100 mile wilderness right outside of Baxter, and thus needed to be carrying 10 days worth of food as we would be unable to resupply for 100 miles. Thus, our packs were at their heaviest at around 55-60 pounds. For the first couple miles of trail (it's a 5 mile hike to the summit), this wasn't a problem as the trail was not particularly steep. A couple miles in however, we were have to scramble with hands and legs up steep trail sections. The weight was killer. We would generally only be able to stagger a few hundred yards before collapsing on the side of trail for a breather. We made slow progress like this for another mile or so. At this point we started to get worried about our ability to get back down the mountain safely with all this weight. Not convinced of our ability to do so, we turned back. After a lengthy nap at a waterfall on the way down, we rolled back into the ranger's station where we had been that morning. The same ranger greeted us and informed us that he had found a place for us to stay. He then continued: "so yeah, we have these day-packs here for you guys to use, so just grab some food and water and leave your packs here." We stared at him for a few seconds before he realized his mistake. "Oh, OH!" He said, staring at us wide-eyed. He asked us if we'd really made it all the way to the top with our packs on. We told him we hadn't and listened to his profuse apologies before heading to camp. Something of a lackluster start.
The camp we were staying at was reserved for nobo who'd just come through the 100 mile wilderness and were finishing at Katahdin. We were allowed to stay there as only one nobo had come in that day. He looked scrawny and a little under-nourished and all around a little worse for wear. He wander over to talk to us during dinner and we congratulated him on finishing. We asked him how his hike had been. "I hope they pave the trail over," was his response. At this point both me and Jammy were wonder what we'd gotten ourselves into.
The next morning we hiked out of Baxter. The park was very beautiful and the trail ran by a lot of gorgeous rivers, lakes, streams and waterfalls. Katahdin was always visible in the distance. It was a ten mile hike to the park border. At this point in the trip that was still a little long for us, but the terrain was gentle and even though we were carrying a lot we didn't have too much problem. We crossed the last road we would see for 100 miles and plunged into the wilderness. About a hundred feet in an ominous sign warned us that we would not see civilization again for 100 miles and asked if we were adequately previsioned. The thought we were and so we dove right in. We walked a few miles into the forest and stopped to make camp. A few minutes after setting up we discovered the place was crawling with mosquitoes. A heat wave had been stalled over Maine for the past while and the bugs were in full swing. We quickly ate and retreated for the safety of the tent. Even this was not completely bug-safe, as I got a myriad of mosquito bites on my arm through the tent mesh. The next morning we woke up to find the bugs had not abated. We had oatmeal for breakfast, and had what was perhaps the worst experience with oatmeal of our entire lives. It was 9 or so in the morning and already swelteringly hot and humid. We were eating hot oatmeal and dripping with sweat. I felt like I was going to overheat and collapse. I had to keep reminding the flies swarming around that I was not quite dead yet.
Me and Jammy both agreed that we were off to a fairly miserable start and that perhaps we need to reconsider our plan. We decided to call for an evac from Jammy's parents and catch the trail down in Vermont, where the terrain would be easier and resupply would be more frequent, meaning significantly lighter packs. We hiked back to the road and made the call. About an hour later our ride showed up and were piled in. Morale was low, but we still held out hope for an awesome trip when we restarted in Vermont.
For those heading South, the trail begins at Mt. Katahdin in Maine and ends at Mt. Springer in Georgia. Southbounders (sobos) have something of a front-loaded trip as the hardest parts of the trail are in Maine and New Hampshire, the first 2 states on the south-going route. For this reason, most prefer to head north. One northbounder (nobo) compared it to the slow descent into Mordor followed by the final assault on Mt. Doom. We, however, basically had the sobo route chosen for us due to the convenience of having Jammy's house in Maine. Katahdin is essentially in the middle of Baxter state park, a state park in Maine. After a long night of packing and a crazy early morning start, we arrived around 7am in Baxter. We went to talk to the ranger, who informed us that we really should have called ahead as most of the campsites in the area were booked. He told us that he'd see if he could help us out, but that in the meantime we could get started up Katahdin. The usual route is to take the AT up Katahdin to the summit, and then come back down the same way, camp at the base of the mountain and walk out of the park the next day.
One caveat with going up Katahdin was that we were expecting to enter the 100 mile wilderness right outside of Baxter, and thus needed to be carrying 10 days worth of food as we would be unable to resupply for 100 miles. Thus, our packs were at their heaviest at around 55-60 pounds. For the first couple miles of trail (it's a 5 mile hike to the summit), this wasn't a problem as the trail was not particularly steep. A couple miles in however, we were have to scramble with hands and legs up steep trail sections. The weight was killer. We would generally only be able to stagger a few hundred yards before collapsing on the side of trail for a breather. We made slow progress like this for another mile or so. At this point we started to get worried about our ability to get back down the mountain safely with all this weight. Not convinced of our ability to do so, we turned back. After a lengthy nap at a waterfall on the way down, we rolled back into the ranger's station where we had been that morning. The same ranger greeted us and informed us that he had found a place for us to stay. He then continued: "so yeah, we have these day-packs here for you guys to use, so just grab some food and water and leave your packs here." We stared at him for a few seconds before he realized his mistake. "Oh, OH!" He said, staring at us wide-eyed. He asked us if we'd really made it all the way to the top with our packs on. We told him we hadn't and listened to his profuse apologies before heading to camp. Something of a lackluster start.
The camp we were staying at was reserved for nobo who'd just come through the 100 mile wilderness and were finishing at Katahdin. We were allowed to stay there as only one nobo had come in that day. He looked scrawny and a little under-nourished and all around a little worse for wear. He wander over to talk to us during dinner and we congratulated him on finishing. We asked him how his hike had been. "I hope they pave the trail over," was his response. At this point both me and Jammy were wonder what we'd gotten ourselves into.
The next morning we hiked out of Baxter. The park was very beautiful and the trail ran by a lot of gorgeous rivers, lakes, streams and waterfalls. Katahdin was always visible in the distance. It was a ten mile hike to the park border. At this point in the trip that was still a little long for us, but the terrain was gentle and even though we were carrying a lot we didn't have too much problem. We crossed the last road we would see for 100 miles and plunged into the wilderness. About a hundred feet in an ominous sign warned us that we would not see civilization again for 100 miles and asked if we were adequately previsioned. The thought we were and so we dove right in. We walked a few miles into the forest and stopped to make camp. A few minutes after setting up we discovered the place was crawling with mosquitoes. A heat wave had been stalled over Maine for the past while and the bugs were in full swing. We quickly ate and retreated for the safety of the tent. Even this was not completely bug-safe, as I got a myriad of mosquito bites on my arm through the tent mesh. The next morning we woke up to find the bugs had not abated. We had oatmeal for breakfast, and had what was perhaps the worst experience with oatmeal of our entire lives. It was 9 or so in the morning and already swelteringly hot and humid. We were eating hot oatmeal and dripping with sweat. I felt like I was going to overheat and collapse. I had to keep reminding the flies swarming around that I was not quite dead yet.
Me and Jammy both agreed that we were off to a fairly miserable start and that perhaps we need to reconsider our plan. We decided to call for an evac from Jammy's parents and catch the trail down in Vermont, where the terrain would be easier and resupply would be more frequent, meaning significantly lighter packs. We hiked back to the road and made the call. About an hour later our ride showed up and were piled in. Morale was low, but we still held out hope for an awesome trip when we restarted in Vermont.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Iberian Adventures Part 4: More Spain
We packed up early in the morning and hit the road back to Santander, where we were slated to spend the next 2 nights. We turned in our rental car -- from now on we were to be bound to foot and public transportation. Our hotel was right across the street from an enormous casino that looked like it was lifted right out of the James Bond Casino Royale movie. We were also right across the street from the beach, which put us in a pretty damn good location. The beach at Santander is supposed to be the "least polluted" beach in Europe. Initially I was guessing that this was because it was either really ugly or really rocky, and thus no one wanted to go to it. Upon arrival, however, I discovered a third alternative: it was really freezing. Now, this is Spain, so it never really gets THAT cold, but it was definitely too cold to be hanging out at the beach. This was more of your overcast and chilly northern California beach as opposed to your hot and sunny Florida beach. The locals, however, seemed unperturbed by the cold and tons of them were lining the beach playing paddle ball, sun bathing (despite the lack of sun), and swimming. We did brave the beach one afternoon, but only my brother had the stamina to enter the water briefly, and we had to head in after about half an hour because it started raining.
Aside from casinos and beaches, Santander is famous for its myriad of tapas bars (which, when you say it, sounds an awful lots like "topless bars" and yes, that has led to some confusion in the past). Tapas are sort of the Spanish take on bar food. While in the US we may content ourselves with nuts and pretzels while drinking, the Spanish demand a bit more bang for their buck. Tapas are small appetizer-like dishes that range in complexity from slices of ham to beautiful seafood pastries. As an added perk, tapas are usually ordered and served from a bar, which means you have to elbow your way through a lot of noisy Spaniards and somehow catch the bartender's attention in order to get your food. We made it to two tapas places while in Santander, both of which were extraordinarily good.
From Santander, we caught the train south to Madrid. Needless to say, I was excited to get to see the city again after so many years. Unfortunately, we were only able to schedule one night in Madrid, so things were gonna be a bit rushed. We arrived in the mid-afternoon and immediately hit the town. I was pleasantly surprised to find I still more or less knew my way around the downtown area and could walk around comfortably without fear of getting too lost. You get such a different perspective on a place when live there as opposed to just visiting there. Generally, when we roll into a city, we read the guide books to locate the main attractions, maybe wander around some of the more scenic parts of town, and hit up all the good restaurants. Having lived in Madrid, I wasn't interested in doing any of that. It wasn't so much that I'd already been to most of the main points of interest (which I had, for the most part), but rather that what I remembered and loved about the city had nothing to do with the various attractions it had to offer. Coming back to Madrid what I really wanted to do was not to see anything specific, but just to wander around.
Number 2 on my list of things to do was going to the grocery store. My favorite type of cheese is Manchego, which is made near Madrid and while in the US it may cost upwards of $20 a pound, in Madrid it costs a little less than $10 a kilo. I was also in the market for some good bottles of Spanish wine. After going for our wander and doing our shopping, it was nearing time for dinner. My mom had booked us a reservation at a very traditional central Spanish restaurant which, ironically enough, we never been able to go to when we were living there because it was always too crowded and we never thought far enough in advance to make a reservation. I had to admit, however, that the place had good reason to be crowded. The food was excellent, probably some of the best I'd had in Spain. The restaurant was famous for it's huevos fritos con patatas (literally: fried eggs with potatoes). Now, this may sound boring as all hell, but my brother ordered it and I have no idea what they did to those eggs and potatoes, but they were amazing. I went for the traditional roast suckling pig, which was awesome, but I was actually more impressed by the lentil soup that I got along with it -- easily the best lentil stew I'd ever had.
Sated and somewhat sleepy, and facing something of an early departure the next morning, we still had one last stop to fit in: Plaza Oriente. Almost every self-respecting European city has a plaza, and most of the larger cities have a lot of plazas, but Plaza Oriente is easily the best plaza in Europe. It's essentially the back yard of the Spanish royal palace and is bordered by the palace on one side and the opera house on the other. It's not nearly as opulent as the numerous fountain and monument laden plazas of Italy or France, but it has an odd sort of secluded and peaceful feeling to it that I find very appealing. It also is home to our favorite cafe, Cafe Oriente which, among other things, has the best sangria in Spain (and thus, anywhere). We spend a peaceful evening drinking sangria and sitting in the plaza. It was time to call it a trip, but I was happy to have been back to Madrid, even for a little while, and I promised myself I would try and come back for another visit after the end of my Peace Corps assignment. As always, however, we shall have to see what the future will bring.
Aside from casinos and beaches, Santander is famous for its myriad of tapas bars (which, when you say it, sounds an awful lots like "topless bars" and yes, that has led to some confusion in the past). Tapas are sort of the Spanish take on bar food. While in the US we may content ourselves with nuts and pretzels while drinking, the Spanish demand a bit more bang for their buck. Tapas are small appetizer-like dishes that range in complexity from slices of ham to beautiful seafood pastries. As an added perk, tapas are usually ordered and served from a bar, which means you have to elbow your way through a lot of noisy Spaniards and somehow catch the bartender's attention in order to get your food. We made it to two tapas places while in Santander, both of which were extraordinarily good.
From Santander, we caught the train south to Madrid. Needless to say, I was excited to get to see the city again after so many years. Unfortunately, we were only able to schedule one night in Madrid, so things were gonna be a bit rushed. We arrived in the mid-afternoon and immediately hit the town. I was pleasantly surprised to find I still more or less knew my way around the downtown area and could walk around comfortably without fear of getting too lost. You get such a different perspective on a place when live there as opposed to just visiting there. Generally, when we roll into a city, we read the guide books to locate the main attractions, maybe wander around some of the more scenic parts of town, and hit up all the good restaurants. Having lived in Madrid, I wasn't interested in doing any of that. It wasn't so much that I'd already been to most of the main points of interest (which I had, for the most part), but rather that what I remembered and loved about the city had nothing to do with the various attractions it had to offer. Coming back to Madrid what I really wanted to do was not to see anything specific, but just to wander around.
Number 2 on my list of things to do was going to the grocery store. My favorite type of cheese is Manchego, which is made near Madrid and while in the US it may cost upwards of $20 a pound, in Madrid it costs a little less than $10 a kilo. I was also in the market for some good bottles of Spanish wine. After going for our wander and doing our shopping, it was nearing time for dinner. My mom had booked us a reservation at a very traditional central Spanish restaurant which, ironically enough, we never been able to go to when we were living there because it was always too crowded and we never thought far enough in advance to make a reservation. I had to admit, however, that the place had good reason to be crowded. The food was excellent, probably some of the best I'd had in Spain. The restaurant was famous for it's huevos fritos con patatas (literally: fried eggs with potatoes). Now, this may sound boring as all hell, but my brother ordered it and I have no idea what they did to those eggs and potatoes, but they were amazing. I went for the traditional roast suckling pig, which was awesome, but I was actually more impressed by the lentil soup that I got along with it -- easily the best lentil stew I'd ever had.
Sated and somewhat sleepy, and facing something of an early departure the next morning, we still had one last stop to fit in: Plaza Oriente. Almost every self-respecting European city has a plaza, and most of the larger cities have a lot of plazas, but Plaza Oriente is easily the best plaza in Europe. It's essentially the back yard of the Spanish royal palace and is bordered by the palace on one side and the opera house on the other. It's not nearly as opulent as the numerous fountain and monument laden plazas of Italy or France, but it has an odd sort of secluded and peaceful feeling to it that I find very appealing. It also is home to our favorite cafe, Cafe Oriente which, among other things, has the best sangria in Spain (and thus, anywhere). We spend a peaceful evening drinking sangria and sitting in the plaza. It was time to call it a trip, but I was happy to have been back to Madrid, even for a little while, and I promised myself I would try and come back for another visit after the end of my Peace Corps assignment. As always, however, we shall have to see what the future will bring.
Thursday, September 13, 2007
Iberian Adventures Part 3: Spain
I felt inexplicably good crossing the Spanish border. While it's true that I'd only lived in Spain for about 7 months (not to mention that I'd never actually been in the part of Spain that we were driving through), it seemed like I was heading home. We stopped at a gas station to use the bathroom and I was surprised to actually understand every single word that the attendant was telling me. Since a lot of my memories of living in Spain involved me never completely understanding people, I had to wonder if I'd learned a lot more Spanish than I'd though in college or (probably more likely) I just understood it a lot better than Portuguese.
We stayed for one night in the city of Oviejdo, which is in the region of northern Spain called Asturias. Spain is such a remarkably fun country. It's fun to just walk out onto the city streets and just listen to how loud and crowded they are. Pretty much any time in the afternoons or evenings the cities are full of people out and about having a good time; it's very refreshing after a long drive. That night we are surprised to find a branch of one of our favorite restaurants from Madrid in town, and so we decide to eat dinner there. Central Spain (where Madrid is) is famous for its roast lamb and suckling pig. They're served in hot clay bowls which catch all the juices, the skin comes out crispy and greasy, and the meat is so tender you don't need a knife to cut it up. It was nice to get some of our favorite central Spanish food, as we were planning on spending most of the trip in northern Spain and thus wouldn't have much of an opportunity. At the end of the meal the owner also came out to talk to us and complimented us on our Spanish, which is a nice way of saying "I can tell you guys are American." Oh well, I guess we couldn't really hope to still be able to blend in after 4 years. I'm not sure if I just learned a lot of Spanish in college
The next day we met up with my godparents, who are also from Austin, in the city of Santander. They were also in Spain visiting their son who was on a study abroad program. Together, we headed for a small mountain lodge in the Pico de Europa (literally, The Peaks of Europe), near a little village named Alles. The lodge was beautiful. Our family got a small flat with a big wooden farm door which looked like it was out of the TV Show Mr. Ed because the top half of the door could be opened separately from the bottom half. The lodge was part of a little mountain community, which seemed like kind of a retirement spot because there were a lot of old Spanish people around who seemed to have nothing better to do than sit on their porches and drink wine. All the houses were quaint little stone affairs and everything was connected with cobbled paths. The main lodge was a converted bakery with a log-cabin-ish interior that sat on a little brook. Not to skimp on the amenities however, they also sported a big-screen TV, numerous comfortable sofas, an excellent restaurant with a full bar and nice wine selection, and wireless internet.
We ate that night ate the restaurant, which made a delicious schnitzel-like dish that also involved cheese and ham (cheese and ham are basically the official foods of Spain. Now you all can see why I like the country so much). The wine was also excellent, as is the norm, and we all enjoyed our fair share of it while sitting on the back porch listening to the brook. Life was rough.
We spent three nights at the lodge, all of which were more or less awesome. We had a great time talking to the manager, Alberto, who actually spoke excellent English on account of having spent a lot of time in LA, but, in typical Spanish fashion, kept that fact well under wraps and always gave the impression that he thought our Spanish was worlds better than his English would ever be. The Spanish, like the French, are quite insistent that you learn and speak their language while you're visiting, the only difference is that they're not jerks about it. I also had the opportunity to try the hard cider, which is a specialty of Asturias. I ordered one one evening, excepting to receive a glass of it, or perhaps a 12oz beer-like bottle. Instead, Alberto pulled out and uncorked a 0.75 liter bottle and gave me a 10 minute long tutorial on proper cider-drinking technique. You see, cider doesn't have as much carbon dioxide in it as beer or champagne, and so it really doesn't foam very much. To compensate for this, they pour the cider into a glass from a few feet above it so achieve maximum froth. However this froth is short-lived, so you don't pour a whole glass at once, but rather pour out "shots" of cider and drink them in one gulp. To achieve the necessary height for pouring, you're supposed to hold the glass in one hand, as low as you can, and the bottle in the other, as high as you can, and sort of pour over your head into the glass. I tried this a couple times and got a lot of cider on my pants. Alberto got his laughs in at my expense and then gave me a special pouring top that makes it significantly easier to aim. Now, this cider was absolutely nothing like the cider I'd run across in the US, which is sweet, not very alcoholic and, all-in-all, a "girly drink," no, this stuff was *hard*. I'd guess it probably was about as alcoholic as wine, and all semblance of sweetness was removed. After finishing the bottle walking normally was becoming somewhat of a challenge, which was kind of embarrassing given that I was with my family.
While at the lodge, we also attempted a somewhat ill-fated hike on a trail through the mountains. The first challenge we encountered with this expedition was parking. Apparently, the trail was popular with the locals and all the conventional parking was taken when we arrived. The park ranger waved us down a narrow gravel road which sported a steep cliff going up on one side and a steep cliff going down on the other. Parked cars lined both sides of the road. "Just drive down this and park after the last car", we were instructed. This resulted in us having to parallel park on a narrow patch of gravel just inches away from a 40 foot or so drop off. Having gotten this out of the way, we proceed on our hike. The trail was nice, although not particularly spectacular. The day, however, was quite hot and sunny and the hike was taking much longer than initially predicted. Around lunchtime I realized we were running out of water and would probably only have just enough to get us back comfortably if we turned around immediately. This we did, and my prediction proved accurate as we ran out of water some 20 minutes before reaching the trail head where we were parked. Needless to say, we were happy to see our precariously parked car, and we immediately headed to a cafe to down water before returning to the lodge to sit by the brook and drink wine, an activity more suited to our energy level at the time.
After 3 nights at the lodge, we were slated to head back to Santander for a few days and then on to Madrid. Unlike in Portugal, however, I was not quite so eager to continue the trip and staying at the lodge was definitely the highpoint of the vacation so far.
We stayed for one night in the city of Oviejdo, which is in the region of northern Spain called Asturias. Spain is such a remarkably fun country. It's fun to just walk out onto the city streets and just listen to how loud and crowded they are. Pretty much any time in the afternoons or evenings the cities are full of people out and about having a good time; it's very refreshing after a long drive. That night we are surprised to find a branch of one of our favorite restaurants from Madrid in town, and so we decide to eat dinner there. Central Spain (where Madrid is) is famous for its roast lamb and suckling pig. They're served in hot clay bowls which catch all the juices, the skin comes out crispy and greasy, and the meat is so tender you don't need a knife to cut it up. It was nice to get some of our favorite central Spanish food, as we were planning on spending most of the trip in northern Spain and thus wouldn't have much of an opportunity. At the end of the meal the owner also came out to talk to us and complimented us on our Spanish, which is a nice way of saying "I can tell you guys are American." Oh well, I guess we couldn't really hope to still be able to blend in after 4 years. I'm not sure if I just learned a lot of Spanish in college
The next day we met up with my godparents, who are also from Austin, in the city of Santander. They were also in Spain visiting their son who was on a study abroad program. Together, we headed for a small mountain lodge in the Pico de Europa (literally, The Peaks of Europe), near a little village named Alles. The lodge was beautiful. Our family got a small flat with a big wooden farm door which looked like it was out of the TV Show Mr. Ed because the top half of the door could be opened separately from the bottom half. The lodge was part of a little mountain community, which seemed like kind of a retirement spot because there were a lot of old Spanish people around who seemed to have nothing better to do than sit on their porches and drink wine. All the houses were quaint little stone affairs and everything was connected with cobbled paths. The main lodge was a converted bakery with a log-cabin-ish interior that sat on a little brook. Not to skimp on the amenities however, they also sported a big-screen TV, numerous comfortable sofas, an excellent restaurant with a full bar and nice wine selection, and wireless internet.
We ate that night ate the restaurant, which made a delicious schnitzel-like dish that also involved cheese and ham (cheese and ham are basically the official foods of Spain. Now you all can see why I like the country so much). The wine was also excellent, as is the norm, and we all enjoyed our fair share of it while sitting on the back porch listening to the brook. Life was rough.
We spent three nights at the lodge, all of which were more or less awesome. We had a great time talking to the manager, Alberto, who actually spoke excellent English on account of having spent a lot of time in LA, but, in typical Spanish fashion, kept that fact well under wraps and always gave the impression that he thought our Spanish was worlds better than his English would ever be. The Spanish, like the French, are quite insistent that you learn and speak their language while you're visiting, the only difference is that they're not jerks about it. I also had the opportunity to try the hard cider, which is a specialty of Asturias. I ordered one one evening, excepting to receive a glass of it, or perhaps a 12oz beer-like bottle. Instead, Alberto pulled out and uncorked a 0.75 liter bottle and gave me a 10 minute long tutorial on proper cider-drinking technique. You see, cider doesn't have as much carbon dioxide in it as beer or champagne, and so it really doesn't foam very much. To compensate for this, they pour the cider into a glass from a few feet above it so achieve maximum froth. However this froth is short-lived, so you don't pour a whole glass at once, but rather pour out "shots" of cider and drink them in one gulp. To achieve the necessary height for pouring, you're supposed to hold the glass in one hand, as low as you can, and the bottle in the other, as high as you can, and sort of pour over your head into the glass. I tried this a couple times and got a lot of cider on my pants. Alberto got his laughs in at my expense and then gave me a special pouring top that makes it significantly easier to aim. Now, this cider was absolutely nothing like the cider I'd run across in the US, which is sweet, not very alcoholic and, all-in-all, a "girly drink," no, this stuff was *hard*. I'd guess it probably was about as alcoholic as wine, and all semblance of sweetness was removed. After finishing the bottle walking normally was becoming somewhat of a challenge, which was kind of embarrassing given that I was with my family.
While at the lodge, we also attempted a somewhat ill-fated hike on a trail through the mountains. The first challenge we encountered with this expedition was parking. Apparently, the trail was popular with the locals and all the conventional parking was taken when we arrived. The park ranger waved us down a narrow gravel road which sported a steep cliff going up on one side and a steep cliff going down on the other. Parked cars lined both sides of the road. "Just drive down this and park after the last car", we were instructed. This resulted in us having to parallel park on a narrow patch of gravel just inches away from a 40 foot or so drop off. Having gotten this out of the way, we proceed on our hike. The trail was nice, although not particularly spectacular. The day, however, was quite hot and sunny and the hike was taking much longer than initially predicted. Around lunchtime I realized we were running out of water and would probably only have just enough to get us back comfortably if we turned around immediately. This we did, and my prediction proved accurate as we ran out of water some 20 minutes before reaching the trail head where we were parked. Needless to say, we were happy to see our precariously parked car, and we immediately headed to a cafe to down water before returning to the lodge to sit by the brook and drink wine, an activity more suited to our energy level at the time.
After 3 nights at the lodge, we were slated to head back to Santander for a few days and then on to Madrid. Unlike in Portugal, however, I was not quite so eager to continue the trip and staying at the lodge was definitely the highpoint of the vacation so far.
Monday, September 10, 2007
Iberian Adventures Part 2: More Portugal
We stayed at the cottage for 2 nights, which was awesome. In the mornings, old Portuguese ladies would bring us breakfast and stand around patiently, but persistently until we cleared out of the house so they could clean it. The surrounding area was nice as well, although quite rural. We were able to walk around the nearby town, which consisted mostly of cottages similar to the one we were staying in and a small church which was preparing for some sort of festival. Festivals seemed to be common in the area, as there was also a larger city within easy driving distance which had just finished celebrating a horseback-riding festival.
In the city, we were able to browse the local shops, which mostly sold gold jewelry, which Portugal is apparently famous for, but which held little interest for me. There was also a thriving pastry industry, as evidenced by the abundance of pastry shops that sold gorgeous and delicious pastries for around fifty cents a piece. Me and my brother had a wonderful time capitalizing on this. Portugal also has wonderful and wonderfully cheap red wine. Anyone who looks down on Europeans for drinking a lot of wine has only to try a glass themselves, as honestly the smallest sip will sway the most devout tea-totaler. The region we were in was also famous for something called "green wine" which results from the fact that the growing season is too short of the grapes to fully ripen. Thus, the grapes are harvested and made into wine while they are still "green." The resulting wine is very tart, and quite interesting, but I preferred the traditional wines, which I guess come from the southern parts of Portugal where the season is longer. Another thing we ran across in the town markets were strips of dried and salted cod that smelled awful. Apparently it's a very traditional food that the Portuguese have been making for centuries, but I for one was quite happy to embrace refrigeration and other modern food preservation technologies.
We were slated to head for Spain the next morning, and I was looking forward to going back to a country with which I was a little more familiar, and where I spoke the language reasonably well. Portugal was a fun experience, but overall I was ready to move on.
In the city, we were able to browse the local shops, which mostly sold gold jewelry, which Portugal is apparently famous for, but which held little interest for me. There was also a thriving pastry industry, as evidenced by the abundance of pastry shops that sold gorgeous and delicious pastries for around fifty cents a piece. Me and my brother had a wonderful time capitalizing on this. Portugal also has wonderful and wonderfully cheap red wine. Anyone who looks down on Europeans for drinking a lot of wine has only to try a glass themselves, as honestly the smallest sip will sway the most devout tea-totaler. The region we were in was also famous for something called "green wine" which results from the fact that the growing season is too short of the grapes to fully ripen. Thus, the grapes are harvested and made into wine while they are still "green." The resulting wine is very tart, and quite interesting, but I preferred the traditional wines, which I guess come from the southern parts of Portugal where the season is longer. Another thing we ran across in the town markets were strips of dried and salted cod that smelled awful. Apparently it's a very traditional food that the Portuguese have been making for centuries, but I for one was quite happy to embrace refrigeration and other modern food preservation technologies.
We were slated to head for Spain the next morning, and I was looking forward to going back to a country with which I was a little more familiar, and where I spoke the language reasonably well. Portugal was a fun experience, but overall I was ready to move on.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
