Game Changer
40.5 miles hiked, 3 Cultural Events Attended
Today is my kind of day, a hiking day. Pura Aventura recommended a hike they use on their Catalonian inn-to-inn hike across the volcanos of the Garrotxa, the area we are in. There are 40 ancient volcano cones in the region and much of the area has been turned into a national park built for hiking and biking. The recommended hike is a one-way hike where we were going to have to arrange a taxi for pickup to take us back to the car at the starting point. When we asked Gorotti, our fabulous innkeeper at La Rectoria de Sant Miquel de Pinedaabout the route and the taxi, she told us not to take it because she had a better route that did not involve waiting and hoping a taxi would show up. This caused a momentary crisis for rule followers Pam and John, but we quickly got over it when she showed us how we’d see even more on her route.
We started the walk in a gorgeous beech forest on immaculately maintained trails that the parks department in Garrotxa deserves huge kudos. All the rain from yesterday had run off and we were walking on that smooth volcanic cinder, which is perfect trail materiel. This is a very popular walk so the trails were wide and so easy to follow that even Pam couldn’t get lost.
We passed farms with goats, a church, and overall enjoyed the walk. Being a Friday, we saw a couple of people but felt we had the place to ourselves. Next to a farmer’s field where a large volcanic rock was placed on a pedestal and a metal work of San Isidro was mounted on it.
San Isidro is the patron saint of farmers and laborers. Since we were “laboring” by hiking on this vacation, we felt it only fair we adopt him as the patron saint of our vacation. I hope that doesn’t offend anyone because San Isidro is also known for his kindness to animals and with four cats (yes, we are crazy cat people), I feel a kindredness with him.
Everything we had read about the area, and Gorotti absolutely insisted, a visit to the medieval town of Santa Pau was required. As we go to the edge of town there was a cool display set up by the town government of all the key points to visit in this town that could fit in a few downtown blocks of Asheville, albeit with an intact defensive wall and is split into two arms.
We walked through town we saw the church and the crumbling castle at the center of town. It was time to pay the Spanish bathroom tax, which is when you order water at a bar so you can use the bathroom. We picked a bar in the center square, but as we sat down, we were rudely interrupted by a group of ten older Spanish visitors. We could never figure out what their problem was, but the old ladies screamed at each other across the square. I’m not kidding. It was all “HEY CARMEN, DID YOU SEE THIS SCULPTURE ON THE CHURCH?” C-o-n-s-t-a-n-t-l-y. Every word was at top volume followed by their husbands going “shhh, shhh” right after. “THIS IS NOT AS BIG AS OUR SQUARE.” “shhh, shhh” “LOOK AT THIS STORE, DO YOU WANT TO GO IN?” “shhh, shhh.” “ARE YOU HUNGRY?” “shhh, shhh.” “NO, I WANT A DRINK.” “shhh, shhh.” Ad infinitum. The server at the bar hadn’t even come to our table and Pam could see the steam coming out my ears. The loudest lady sat down on a step right in front of our table and screamed “HERE’S A GOOD PLACE TO SIT.” “shhh, shhh.” “COME OVER HERE, MARIA.” shhh, shhh.” (None of this is exadurated).
I started getting up to scream at that one lady to shut the hell up because she’s being obnoxious. Having been married to Pam for almost 35 years, she could read my mind and I only got halfway out of my chair when, like a ninja she dragged me out of the bar, whispering in my ear “let’s go” before I even knew what was happening. Those poor husbands of those banshees. At least they tried.
We got as far away from the screaming meemies as fast as we could. We followed the highlights of the city path, which we must commend the town government for. They had nice signage and ensured you really saw this attractive medieval town. We wound are way to the newer part of town the mirador (overlook) where you could see the old town.
There was a nice quiet bar at the mirador, so we sat and enjoyed the view. The service was wonderful, and I even opted for a caña, a small beer. The breezes were sweet, the company was great, and we received wonderful news from America.
As we were heading back to the main trail the clouds were getting fuller and darker, but we hoped the rain would hold off. We walked up our first volcanic crater, the Santa Margarida Volcano. In the middle of this extinct volcano is a small hermitage of Santa Margarida. While we could not get in, we could peek through the door of the church. Weirdly, all the pews are recycled movie seats, which we found hilarious.
As we hiked out of the crater, the clouds were piling up and we had a few spits of rain. Coming down, we passed by one of the few houses of the day and it was totally an artist’s house as it was surrounded by dozens and dozens of carved wood statues.
As we were passing between their house and the barn, which was the artist’s studio, it started to drizzle and we scootched up under the eve of the roof to stay a little dry before we put on our rain gear. Just as we got our packs off, as they say in the mountains of Western North Carolina, it poured the rain. It was a deluge. We didn’t want to be rude by standing under the eve of someone’s barn but also didn’t want to walk in what was coming down in sheets.
We stayed next to the barn wall and that one-foot overhang because we had no idea how the owners would behave if they looked out and saw us. It was awkward, but we were dry. There was a little cell reception so we could check the weather and the satellite view showed a big patch of yellow that was growing by the minute, so we stayed put.
If you have to be stuck under a tiny overhand, next to a barn, being stuck at an artist’s house is an excellent way to spend the time. Having a long time to really take them in is nice. The range was eclectic, from native American heads to fantasy figures, and a lot of sea life. We enjoyed ourselves immensely and we were dry.
After an hour of us standing there, the door of the house across the single lane road opened and a young lady and her two-year-old daughter stepped out. The daughter was in her wellies and bundled up in her rain jacket holding on to her stuffed rabbit for all she was worth. I said (in Spanish), “Hello! Thank you so much for your roof” as I pointed to the overhang. She laughed and said “You’re very welcome. We are going to get wet now” and they headed down the road. Whew! We both felt very relieved we were not being perceived as jerks.
Fifteen minutes later, there was a break in the rain, and we figured we had to get going because we had miles to go. We put on our rain gear tops and bottoms, and something different: waterproof socks. When we did our Wales hike last year, we were talking to some other hikers and they mentioned waterproof socks. I had forgotten about them, but 10 days before we left for this trip, Pam ordered some. The idea is that your feet breath but keep the water out. I had my doubts.
We decided to skip the other volcano craters on the route since it was now raining like crazy again. We walked three miles back to the car in our new socks. So how did they pan out? OH MY GOD YOU HAVE TO GET THEM! THEY ARE THE SECRET TO LIFE AND THE UNIVERSE. YOU INSTANTLY BECOME TALLER AND BETTER LOOKING WITH THEM ON. THEY WILL BRING WORLD PEACE EVERYWHERE. THEY WILL SOLVE WORLD HUNGER AND POVERTY. THEY PREVENT HANG NAILS. THEY CURE HICCUPS. THEY ARE ZEN! I sound like and old Spanish lady screaming at their friends, but they are that good.
We couldn’t believe how great they worked. Our shoes were completely soaked, and our feet were perfectly dry. These are such a game changer for me. Pam’s tougher so never has blister problems, but once my feet get wet, I’m guaranteed to get blisters. No longer, I have waterproof socks. We bought Randy Sun socks and obviously love them. If you do any walking at all, get them.
We happily jaunted down the trail back to the car, when we ran into a problem. At the trail head, you have to pay for parking. That’s cool with me because it puts money back into the park system. The only problem was the two machines where you pay would not take our cash nor our credit cards, so the gate wasn’t going to open. We didn’t know what to do. We looked if there was a way to four-wheel drive around the gate. We thought we’d have to call Gorotti to bring our dinner to us and hand it over the gate. We were preparing to stay forever when I realized the weird number on the exit station was a phone number.
I called the number, and someone immediately answered. I tried to explain the situation and they said, “OK, where are you?” We had no idea so were trying to pull the map out of our backpacks when the voice asked in English, “What is your ticket number?” I read it out in Spanish, and they hung up! I’m trying to call them back when we hear this voice from god say, in English, “You may leave now.” WHAT THE HELL? (as I become one with shouty old ladies) We had no idea where this voice was coming from and like a miracle, the gate opened. Was this the beginning of a miracle? Was god really talking to us? Was it the devil trying to tempt us? I slammed it into first gear and gunned it because we had to get out of that parking lot. It finally dawned on us that the exit station had a speaker in it. So much for us achieving sainthood.
We had a wonderful dinner at La Rectoria de Sant Miquel de Pineda cooked by Roy and served by Gorotti. During dinner there was a much older Catalan couple seated behind us. The man had his phone configured to make a sound every time he typed, at full volume. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. POP. This was our soundtrack to dinner. I swear we attract all the old weirdos.
After dinner I didn’t ask for my normal chupito because if you remember from yesterday, Gorotti is a whisky expert, so I asked for a recommendation. She started asking me questions about smokiness and origin where all I could do was look like a deer in headlights. I told her that I drink scotch because that’s what we do in the Robbins family. Pam chimed in and said that all we drank was Clan Macgregor and it was $19 for a handle. (the liter version). Gorotti had no idea what we were talking about but deduced we needed some education (sorry Uncle Pete). She went through a bunch of information that I didn’t understand, and I finally said, we drink Clan Macgregor because we like it. That was good enough for her. After a nice pour of Benriach and suggested I bring that to the family reunion. It was very nice, but we’ll stick with the tried and true. It’s way cheaper.
Happy Guilty of 34 Felonies Day to all who celebrate.
Don’t be telling people about Clan MacGregor, you’ll drive the price up.
What a day! I'll be ordering the socks for my son-they sound absolutely awesome!