Hiking

Spring!!! It may not seem like it at home, but spring is definitely on its way to Spain. We have been enjoying 20 degree weather, in the 70s F, for the past few days and more sun than we have had in a while. It is wonderful. Emily and I are outside on our patio everyday for lunch and siesta trying to get as much sun as we can.

Also due to the wonderful weather I have gone to the Sierra de Grazalema, the mountain range that is about 1 hour from Jerez, for the past two weekends. Last weekend I was invited by a teacher at my school to one of the small towns where she has a house. Saturday morning we did a hike through a plain in the mountains. We followed a river to a cave in the rock where all the water collects and makes a crevice in the rock. We climbed through the rocks and played in the mud and turned over stones to see what bugs we could find…it was very enjoyable. And true to Spanish style, we stopped along the way back to eat some sausage and bread and drink a bottle of wine. I think this is what we need in the Boundary Waters : ) We stayed at her house all weekend and ate some great cheese, world famous apparently, drank wine, and visited the other towns in the mountains.



This past Friday I went back with Emily and our new French roommate Lisa and three Spanish friends. We ate a traditional Spanish breakfast, toast with lard (there is also a variation…toast with lard that has pieces of pig intestine mixed in) and then made our way to the start of the trail. We had noooooo idea what we were in for. It was a beautiful day, the sun was shining, and we had our lunch sandwiches, but it would have been nice to know that we were going to be hiking for about 6 hours. We went up one side of a ridge to view the pine forest on the other side that only grows in the shaded slopes. In this region of Spain there is a very rare type of Spanish Fur tree that is apparently no where else in the world (I have my doubts…it looked like our Christmas from the tree land). So we walked allllll the way down the other side of the ridge to a small stream at the bottom where we finally stopped and ate our lunch and had a mini siesta in the sun. Then 2.5 hours back, all uphill. We think that our Parisian roommate thinks we tried to kill her.




Part of the charm of this region of Spain and Andalucia in general is the pueblos blancos. They are white towns that you find throughout the mountains and along the coast. All the streets are made of stone and are about the width of a car and according to rule all the houses are white with black iron trimmings. They are very charming and historic because they have old Muslim neighborhoods and ruins from the 14 and 1500s.