Welcome back, dear readers!
I learned three very important life lessons this week and I can practically hear you all asking me: Kelsey, what do fog, skinny jeans, and goats have to do with any of that? My answer to that is all in good time, my dears, all in good time. Let's start at the beginning, shall we?
This all started a few months ago, when my friend Amber told me about a national park, called Picos de Europa, up in Northern Spain. She really wanted to go and spend a few days hiking after finals, and I figured #YOLO (you only live once--espesh in Spain) so I got on board and we made all of the necessary arrangements and boom, here we are.
Picos de Europa (Peaks of Europe) is located between three different regions of Spain: Asturias, Cantabria, and Castilla y Leon. The name stems from way back when sailors would sail to Europe from the Americas, the Picos were the first glimpse of Europe they would see. The Picos is a massive park, we opted to stay as far into the park as we could, in Fuente Dé. We stayed at the Parador de Fuente Dé, which is literally the last bit of civilization before the mountains and the swankiest place I've stayed while in Europe. Our view was gorgeous, and it faced the mountains (which were huge--obvi).
Getting to Fuente Dé is a little hairy this time of year. We took a bus from Madrid to Santander (which I almost missed, thank you alarm clock), had a lovely little layover in Santander (in which I nursed a nasty migraine), took a bus from Santander to Potes, and finally a cab from Potes to Fuente Dé. It was quite the long day of traveling (12 hours of buses and cars), but so worth it!
Now, onto the life lessons. Life lesson number one: fog (and clouds) are cold. We learned this the hard way by taking the teleferico (the gondola-tram thingy) up to the top of one of the Picos, which had an altitude of 1,048 meters. It was foggy/cloudy and rainy all day, but that didn't stop us! When we reached the top, after going through the mist, we embarked on our planned 7-hour hike. Needless to say, the rain, fog-cloud, and wind prevented that. It was freezing. We played in the snow, got soaking wet, and then promptly decided we would be better of hiking at a lower altitude for the rest of the day. So, future hikers note this: even if you're wearing jeans, tennis shoes, a tshirt, a sweatshirt, and a jacket in the middle of June, fog is still cold.
Life lesson number two: skinny jeans absorb water. Especially ones that have a heck of a lot more cotton than denim in them. How did I learn this lesson? The hard way, naturally. After coming back down the mountain, we had a lovely little break and ate some lunch and warmed ourselves up. We decided that, even though it was raining, we wanted to get out and wander around a bit. So we decided to go to Espinama, which is the next closest town to us and only 3.5 km away! So we bundled back up, and set off on our merry way. Even though we were freezing, and the rain just kept coming, the 7 km (roundtrip) walk was worth it. Picos is gorgeous and we found some pretty awesome views and an amazing river, as well as a trailhead for a new hike. However, by the time we got to Espinama my jeans were thouroughly soaked, as was Amber's jacket. So we decided to leave that trail for another day and headed back to the hostel. While we walked back, we regaled the Spainish mountainside with some good, old-fashioned American camp songs. Even though both Amber and I were completely drenched, it was still a ton of fun. Moral of the story: wear thick denim, and have a waterproof jacket--better yet, bring an umbrella!
Life lesson number three: when hiking, if you have a choice between the harder half of the trail and the easier, pick the easier one. As I learned, the harder half of the trail doesn't necessarily mean it has more rocks to climb over, it means that it is ridiculously steep and there are goats on the trail. Yes, goats. That probably sounds a little cray, but it happened.
Amber and I got up and took the teleferico back up to the top and hiked down through the Picos. It was absolutely gorgeous--the views were amazing and it felt like we were in a movie (Think Lord of the Rings, or the end of The Sound of Music). We hiked about 10.5 km which took about 4 hours. After a quick lunch break, we headed onto our next hike, which was supposed to be a circle from Espinama through some other towns before ending back in Espinama. The hike was quite rigourous, we hiked some insanely steep hills, hopped over some really big puddles, saw some amazing waterfalls, and almost got stampeded by goats. Now, for those of you who don't know this about me, I'm not a big animal person--I'm terrified of birds (no, I haven't seen the movie the Birds, nor do I plan on it), and big, barking dogs kind of scare me. So, imagine my surprise when we're merrily hiking along, and what to our wondering eyes should appear, but a herd of goats being shepareded by three quite large dogs. Luckily, Amber was there and she appeased the dogs (who, were really quite friendly), and led me through the herd of goats while I hid behind her. It was quite terrifying.
We proceded to hike along until we got to the halfway point and realized the trail for the other half of the hike wasn't very well marked and not very clear, so we hiked back along the carretera (freeway) to Fuente De. So, kids, what have we learned from this story? Pick the easier path. You probs will not have to climb super steep hills and you won't have to navegate through a sea of goats.
Now, where does the horse drama play into this, you ask. Welp, outside of our hotel room was a gorgeous view of the mountains, complete with horses and cows. Every day, Amber and I ate breakfast and dinner in our little sun room and watched the animals, that had some silly antics. Basically, a mini-Trojan war (complete with Hector, Paris, Helen, and Ulyses) was happening with the horses that lived in our field. It was quite entertaining to watch them chase each other around and fight over Helen (Amber and I took mythology together this semester and, as you can see, we've found ways to relate it to the real world). We also met Moo-Moo and Moo-Boo, who were the cutest little cow calfs I've ever seen.
All in all, Picos has been amazing. It was such a great way to relax after a stressful semester, seriously nothing is more relaxing than hiking through the mountains.
Besitos,
Kelsey
