Question: What's better than meeting up with a random stranger for a language exchange? (I did this the day of the general strike, November 14th, and it went alright).
Answer: Meeting up with a group of 27 strangers for an all day hike in la Sierra de Guadarrama! I did this at the recommendation of one of the teachers I work with. He sent me links to three different Madrid-based hiking groups, all of which lead trips Saturdays and Sundays of all weekends of the year. I gave it a go this past Sunday and have since determined that these trips are very worth the money. The price to go almost breaks even with what it costs to travel to visit another city from Madrid and the bus ride is more direct, not stopping at intermediary points to pick up passengers, but taking you straight to the hike. Having a guide, you don't have to navigate your way through unfamiliar territory or concern yourself with making it back to the bus station at a certain hour. Plus, you get a group of Spanish people to socialize with for the day. Many of the Spanish people who attended the hike frequent such excursions because they prefer to be taken for loop-hikes or on hikes that go from one place where the bus drops you to a different place where the bus picks you up. For example, we started up from the village, Miraflores and we ended in the village, Soto del Real...18 kilometers of trail between start and finish.
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We left a beautiful sunny day in Madrid and headed to la Sierra de Guadarrama, where we experienced
un poco de todo: niebla, lluvia, nieve, sol (a bit of everything: fog, rain, snow and sunshine). In this photo
you can see donde los robles hacen transicion a ser pinos (where oak trees tranistion to pine). This is where our
18 kilometer trek began...near Rascafria, where I went mushroom hunting a few weeks ago with my roommate's family. |
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| La hoya de San Blas and in the distance we could see Madrid; unfortunately, it doesn't show in the photo. Don't let the small village fool you! That is most definitely not Madrid! |
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| La sierra de Guadarrama, mainly granite and quartz. Esa planta tan dominante se llama piorno. Cuando nieve, no entra por dentro de la planta y se convierte en horno calientando un poco la tierra por debajo de la planta y luego pueden meterse varios animales e incluso insectos para evitar el frio que hace el invierno. The plant you see is called piorno. When it snows, snow doesn't enter the base of the plant. A warm, microclimate is created and animals depend on this to make it through the harsh winter season. |
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| Walking through fog... |
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| Tantas cabras del monte como nosotros!!! Mountain goats! |
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| La subida final...y ya bajamos! The final accent before descending. |
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| Just browsing around in the fog... |
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| los machos |
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| La unica no espanola...I was the only foreigner. |
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| Marvelous light... |
This is where we took our lunch break. By this time, I had already eaten all of my food and I was too embarassed to admit that I hadn't brought enough food for the day (I thought we were going to stop along the way at a place where I could buy more provisions, but I got mixed up looking at various itenoraries). Anyway, several people noticed and before I knew it half of the group was throwing food my way! I felt even more embarrassed, but also grateful. Many people said they had made the same mistake in the past. I am glad they helped me because we ended up having a person in the group with serious pain in his legs which caused our descent to take twice the time our guides predicted it would take!
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| Estas rosas, si las conozco bien! |
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| La ultima cruz y por fin llegamos al pueblo, El Soto del Real |
Liza,
ReplyDeleteNo puedo creer que te has juntado con este grupo! Pura vida. Tu espanol debe haber mejorado MUCHISIMO en un solo dia, no?
Te admiro!
Como que no lo puedes creer, Mama? No lo harias tu tambien? En Madrid, es facil...hay muchos de estos grupos de interes comun.
ReplyDeletePues, si, tienes razon.
ReplyDelete