Up in the Pyranese

This weekend was pretty special thanks to an invitation we received from our friend Josep to come visit him at his home in Molló, a small town in the Pyranese mountains, about 2.5 hours north of Barcelona.

Molló, Spain

We met Josep this past summer at a hostel in Mendoza, Argentina, and traveled on a hiking trip together in  the surrounding Andes for several days, where he proved to be an expert mountaineer.

Molló is a quaint Catalan mountain pueblo, containing a mere 300 residents, which swells on weekends and holidays with city-folk nostalgic for the casa pairal (traditional rural farmhouse) of yore.

This Saturday, coinciding with the Catalan national holiday of La Diada (which oddly celebrates the fall of Barcelona to the French in 1714), the town was host to its annual Trumfa Festival, celebrating the region’s potato growers. The main square was bursting with local produce stands, baked breads and pastries, freshly stuffed sausage, local honey, and other items. To our mild horror, we learned that the stout horses we spotted in a nearby coral, mingling with more familiar Arabian breeds, are a common food staple. Perhaps for the better, the sausage stand ran out of horse meat, so that delicacy will have to wait for another time.

A troupe of over 50 came to town to wow spectators with a quintessential Catalan torre, or human pyramid. As dark storm clouds moved closer and closer, configurations of children were hoisted on top of one another, held firm by a base of adult men and women, intertwined in human gridlock.

The day prior Josep introduced us to his friends, and organized a trip to a favored spot in the mountains, where we barbecue’d, gazed at the stars, and listened to the distant sound of cowbells. What a difference a few hundred kilometers makes. Next time, we take a side trip to nearby France. I hear they still have castles over that way.

Coca for sale (pie)

Josep demonstrates his guitar skillz

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Top of the Rock

Excerpt from an email I just sent my dad:

Today we made it to Aguas Calientes, which is the town directly below
Machu Pichu, and tomorrow we make the ascent. The Salkantay trek was one of the hardest I´ve ever done in my life. Most days, we´d wake up at 5:30, and be on the road at 7, walking until 6PM or so (about 20km). On day two we ascended to to 4650 meters through the Salkantay pass, which was sooooo exhausting but incredibly beautiful. Dim, Johnny and I made it through like champs, thanks to the power of the coca leaf. No joke! No altitude sickness here. The mountains flanking our sides were covered in snow, we even saw an avalanche, and up above were blue glaciers. That same day after lunch we descended to the (techincally upper) jungle, with loads of fruit trees and vegetation.

Last night camped in Santa Teresa, where the owner of the palce had a pet monkey. It bounced around all afternoon from palm tree, to people´s arms, to the inside of a local van parked nearby, to our dinner table, from which he had no qualms helping himself to a generous scoop of sugar. Now Dmitry wants to get one as a pet and I´m in a bit of a quandary since I have no better ideas for his upcoming birthday. We bathed that night in very well maitained and toasty thermal baths, which were amazing since we had been cold and sans running water for the previous three or four days.

In our group we have six American girls, of which four are doctors and two are in the navy. Pretty bad ass. Unfortuantely for them, this did not help four of the girls from getting a horrible stomache bug and vomiting like mad for several days, while the fifth twisted her ankle. Such drama! The rest of the crew is a super cool family from Chile.

Today everyone was healthy and in good spirits and for one of the girls birthdays the cook made a cake, which is incredbily considering the bare bones camping facilities.

Sorry for the lack of updates the last few weeks. Since we made it up to Bolivia internet has been a big luxury, but now that we´re almost at Machu Pichu I had to share the news.

Really looking forward to being home soon–August 3rd! and seeing (hopefully) most of you all.

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Potrerillos

After a few days of fattening up on Argentinian beef at Mendoza´s many restaurants (the city, rebuilt with extra wide streets after the 1861 earthquake, is a mecca of outdoor dining), Nina and I decided to head back into the Andes – this time from the Argentinian side.   Although we weren´t quite up for climbing the nearby  Aconcagua, our new friend Josep whom we met at the Hostel was heading out for a week-long trip to the more accessible Cordon Del Plata and invited us to tag along for the first few days.

Only a 90 minute van ride outside of Mendoza, we were already at 2500 meters, dropping off our stuff at the ski lodge type hostel place and heading out for a hike up to one of the smaller nearby peaks Arenales (still not bad at 3300 meters!).  The Andes here were completely different from anything I´ve seen (maybe I just haven´t done much mountain hiking though).  We  started out casually strolling through lush green valleys and ended up out of breath, scrambling up steep cliffs. 

Tiny Argentinian cows make for the most delicious of steaks.

 

At the peak, we got a full 360 degree view of ice and snow covered peaks as well as mountain lakes and villages down below.. pretty sweet.

The Austrian guy taking the picture said this pose was the cool thing to do among mountaineers. Also, that dog followed us all the way up from the bottom. Pretty impressive considering the whole time, only gave him a tiny piece of ham.

Another thing I really liked about these mountains is that they are full of mules (that you can pet!! see video on Flickr) and cows freely grazing wherever they feel.   From talking to Josep (in Spanish!!), who is from a mountaineous region of Catalan, I learned that this is a actually part of an awesome system:  the locals can just let their flocks out in a valley and since there is no food at the mountain tops, the herd will be sure to stay put in the valley.

Josep and a Mule

The next day we did another hike – this time into the valley where Josep planned to set up base camp for the next few nights.  Beautiful place with lots of mountain streams full of tasty water (also I´m sure it´s nice not to have to take 5 days of water with you).  Got to see my first condor with what looked like a 3 meter wingspan.  A little scary, but seemed like he was eyeing the cows more than us.

A very lonely cow

Overall definitely an awesome trip.

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