The Hardest Hike

by annie

Sunday at Fuente del Espino means pancakes and cava for breakfast and a day off from work. The Scottish apparently eat their pancakes rolled up like burritos with lemon juice and sugar or nutella or honey spread inside. And so we did, while sipping on cava with strawberries from their garden.

Then we set off on the hardest hike I've ever done. Fuente del Espino sits at 1800 meters (5900 feet) and we were about to climb a mountain whose peak reaches 2,750 meters (9,000 feet). It probably wasn't the best idea to have the cava before such a hike, not to mention I was already panting before we reached the end of their steep driveway. The entire way to the top was obviously uphill and the dog, Jimmy, kept coming back to check on Tomas and I, who climbed considerably slower than Brian. We wound our way past abandoned ruins and stunning views until we reached the mountainside. The trees stopped growing there, so we could see the top. Or so we thought.

The incline became suddenly much steeper and we decided to make our way up to a ridge (the path had ended by this point) to better plan our route. My eyes played tricks on me when it came to distance, but I soon understood how far the top of the ridge was by measuring against Brian's tiny figure marching upwards ahead. From the top of the ridge, the top of the mountain seemed pretty close. Not so.

The climb was full of frustrating false peaks and such steep inclines that I paused for a rest frequently, sometimes every five or six steps. To complicate matters further, my bowels were distressed and required a couple of awkward bathroom breaks. Luckily, I was alone for most of the mountain, sandwiched between Brian ahead of me and Tomas behind me. For the long, last stretch of the climb, I couldn't see either of them as I cursed, panted and whined my way through aromatic wild thyme, scotchbroom, thistles and rocks. When I finally reached the top, I burst into tears, yelling to Brian about how I never wanted to do another hike like that again (like it was somehow his fault). The raw emotion of exhaustion, cramping legs and bowels, and a lonely harsh climb flooded into intense tears and quickly turned into deep laughter. As we laughed and wiped my tears, I glanced around to find spectacular landscape on all sides. To our left, there were tall snowy mountains. In front, one of the largest solar and wind farms in Spain. Behind us, we saw the waves of the Mediterranean Ocean. And on our right were the same mountains that had accompanied us the entire way. The wind blew fiercely, so we didn't stay long before finding cover below behind some rocks, where we ate sandwiches of Karen's homemade bread, green tomato chutney and avocado. We waited there for Tomas and then made our way back down. The way up took about 4 hours and the way down 2.

I was delighted to arrive back at the finca, especially since Karen greeted us with lentil soup. We finished the night with chocolate and a game of cards before a nice, hard sleep.