A Big Hike Alone

11 Miles Walked, 1 Cultural Event Attended

Having stayed up far too late working on yesterday’s entry, Pam woke me up by telling me that it was 9:45 (YIKES!) and the hotel wanted to fix our breakfast. When there’s a Spanish breakfast involved, I can go from prone to at breakfast in under five minutes. That’s especially impressive at the Tramuntana Hotel because they designed their beds and pillows for me alone: a rock with a sheet over them. The breakfast was superb, so we were well energized to take on today’s hike.

Originally, our travel company recommended a hike from Cadaqués to a lighthouse. However, it was only 4 miles long and hard-core walkers like us need a bigger challenge. At breakfast I looked through Wikiloc, the app Pura Adventura has us use, to see if there was any other hikes in the area that would be more challenging. As we spelunked on the phone between scrumptious bites at breakfast, we found a hike that was worthy of challenging your dynamic duo. We decided to go on a route south of town that would take us up in the mountains to a hermitage followed by a loop past the light house. The hike was 9.1 miles long with an elevation gain and descent of 2,113 feet. It looked like the perfect hike to start our trip.

So up we went. The first part of the walk had all the elevation gain as we walked up to Ermita Sant Sebastian, but we didn’t care. Given those beautiful  tramuntana winds, we stayed coolish even going up almost 1,200 feet. One of the big reasons we always travel in the beginning of May is to see wildflowers. We thought we wouldn’t see much on this trip since it was several weeks later. However, it seemed everything was in bloom from cactuses to every kind of native succulent imaginable. It was hard to make progress when you were stopping every 10 feet to take a picture.

A cactus in bloom.

Lavender in Bloom

Succulents on display!

More succulents on display!

If anything could top succulent flowers it would have to be the endless slate walls that guided our route. There’s something about a great rock wall that speaks to my soul.

A rock wall with Cadaqués in the distance. (It is insanely hard for me to limit the rock wall photos to just one. Be thankful because I have about 500 more I wanted to share with you!)

These handmade walls were everywhere on the entire hike. They delineate land ownership, but also were used to build terraces for planting. As we learned from Mercé yesterday, the terraces were built to increase the vineyard space, but today are used for planting olive trees. All around Caciqués proper, everything is olive trees today.

John and his happy place between handmade slate walls with Cadaqués in the background.

When we made it up to Ermita Sant Sebastian, we found out it was a private residence today. Later we learned that it’s owned by the Guinness family, the Irish beer people. We respected the privacy placards and stayed away. We got to laughing about the idea that to get closer to god, a monk or nun has to lock themselves away in inaccessible places, so others don’t bother them. Ermita Sant Sebastian is 1,000 feet higher in elevation than anything in the area and extremely isolated. These hermitages out in the middle of nowhere must be there to prove Jean-Paul Satre’s point that “hell is other people.”

Ermita Sant Sebastien.

On the way down we loved looking at all the bloqueos built in places seemingly inaccessible. These “buildings” were about four and a half feet high, some square and some circular, with thick walls, roofs, and an entrance you’d have to go through on your hands and knees. We couldn’t figure out what they were used for but will ask the inn keepers tomorrow as they have lived here forever.

Pam at the bloqueo we could afford as a fixer upper.

The trail also treated us to gorgeous views of the Mediterranean.

John enjoying the view.

Pam enjoying the view.

Right after the above photo was taken, we turned to the left to make our way to a lighthouse and that’s where the problems began. We’d had a few problems on the ridges finding the trail but once we started crossing the dry arroyos (stream beds) the trail became a figment of our imagination. Fortunately, Wikilocs on the phone came to the rescue so we didn’t get lost. Bizarrely, Wikilocs didn’t help push the nettles and Saint Sebastien levels of sharp, spiky plants exquisitely designed by evolution to inflict as much pain as possible. All of that was before we hit the downhill scree patches that tested your soul’s balance. We declared miles six to nine on our hike as officially not fun.

We survived and made it to the Calanans lighthouse and on to the hotel. We ended up walking 11 miles with 2,603 feet of elevation gain. We were fine, but Pam was shocked at the nettle burns all over my arms and legs. I looked like a failed allergy test! No worries, they were all cleared up by dinner.

Entering Cadaqués about 6:15 PM we realized we had a bit of a problem. The Spaniards don’t eat dinner until 8 PM at the earliest, and there was no way we were going to last that long. But tapas to the rescue. Pam had a huge desire for sangria, and I just wanted some food. We found a place with outside seating because after that much sweating we knew we would offend people at other tables. I got my food and Pam was thrilled with her sangria.

Pam, Sangria, and the Iglesia de Santa Maria in the background.

For dinner Pam chose Casa Anita. We didn’t know what to expect when we walked into what looked like a converted wine cellar with nothing but “family style” tables. At our big table were two French couples, so introverted John was relieved. It was great fun to watch the owner dealing with everyone because he obviously loved his job and spoke Catalan, Spanish, French fluently, and English as a side hustle.

When he came to take our order, we just followed whatever he recommended. We started with the traditional Cadaqués anchovies on tomato smeared bread. I can’t even describe how good that was. For the second starter he pushed the asparagus hard so that’s what we had. We had no idea asparagus could be that big, that flavorful, and that good. I’m not a huge asparagus fan and I was in love. For the main, we had a whole fish, but with the 1/3^rd Spanish, 1/3^rd French, 1/3 Catalan, and 1/3 “English” he used to describe it, I have no idea what it was, but it was good.

We figured out watching the interaction of the owner and the other two working the front of the house that the young guy was his son, and the lady was his wife. The wife asked us about dessert and told us she only spoke Spanish (actually Catalan) and French. We heard the word “chocolat” and we stopped here there. After the wonderful desserts, the son asked if we needed anything else like café, or a porto. Off handedly, he said  “or a chupito.”

If you’ve read this blog of our past trips, you know I have a major thing for chupitos. After the the wine harvest in Spain, they take the grape skins and make what they call “moonshine” and it’s supposed to aid in digestion. (It’s really an excuse to drink high alcohol content wine.) As soon as I said, “por supuesto, necesito un chupito para mi estomago” (of course, I need a chupito for my stomache) he got all excited and slammed down a gorgeous crema chupito that even Pam loved. The son walked by and saw us talking to one of the French couples about chupitos in broken Frenglish/Spanglish and said, you are serious about your chupitos and slammed down a brand-new bottle of chupito de hierbas (moonshine filtered through herbs and is stronger than the other flavored chupitos). I had to have two of those!

Fortunately, a young English woman had been seated at our table and was able to use her high school French to help us tell the story of chupitos to the French couple. Once they figured out what chupitos were, the French couple wasn’t too interested. They missed out. The young English girl (early 20’s) was traveling alone and finding how much she loved it. We loved how brave she was in today’s world.

When the owner came around with the bill, I noticed they hadn’t charged me for the four chupitos we had. I asked him to add those on and he was a little offended. He told me that if I knew what a chupito was for, there was no way he could ever charge me. Sometimes it’s very good to speak the language! However, after the bottle of local wine and three chupitos it made it very hard to write this entry. I hope on the editing pass the effects will wear off!

Tomorrow looks pretty wild: a hike, surrealism, and a star.

Thank you from the bottom of my heart for reading!