Mi España: Montañas y Queso

I knew it would be difficult to keep this project going for such a long time. Well, it didn’t turn out to be so hard because I just didn’t update for the past 2 ½ months. For something to be difficult you have to make an attempt, it’s really easy to just not do something.Whoops! At least I did keep updating for more than half of the trip.

I am sitting in the airport (Madrid, Barajas), about to catch a flight to London and then one to Chicago. It has been incredible. I am sad to leave and I am thinking about how to take what I have learned these last six months with me into the rest of my life. I hope that this blog and this project may help me with that goal. I am going to catch up in four or five posts. I think I can cover May in two posts, June in two as well, and do one more to wrap up. We’ll have to see where the writing takes me, as I am thinking about it now I am realizing that I may be able to make six or seven sizable posts J

I woke up this morning before 4:00AM, am about to catch a flight to London and then another one to Chicago. When I get into Chicago it will be 1:00pm there and 8:00pm in Madrid. I’m hoping to sleep on the plane to help me get through this very long day. But, I am also hoping to work on this post a bit.

The last time I updated, at the end of April, my mom was about to arrive. I spent most of her trip working on projects for school. It made me sad not to spend more time showing her around, but in the end I’m glad that I took care of my responsibilities.

The first weekend she was with me we went to a nearby town, Trujillo (the birthplace of Pizarro, conquistador of Peru) for the Feria de Queso (the cheese fair!). It was raining. We jammed ourselves underneath the awnings of the booths with hundreds of people trying hundreds of delectable cheeses. Most of the cheese was from Extremadura, although there was some from other regions, including Portugal (one of my favorites). I bought three different kinds of cheese (two from Extremadura and one from Portugal) and one quesada   (cheesecake), all of which were quite delicious.

The next weekend I decided to take my mom to see el valle del Ambroz and Hervás, where I had spent part of semana santa. It’s really beautiful and there are lots of places to explore. It’s also really different from central and southern Extremadura because it is in the foothills (there they call it the skirts) of a big mountain range. The architecture is different, the culture is different, the weather and the landscapes are dramatically different.

After spending one day calmly exploring Hervás and the Ambroz I wanted to move over to the next portion of the mountain range, las Hurdes. I knew that las Hurdes were interesting because they had been quite isolated up until very recently, maybe  25 years ago or so. Las Hurdes are a relatively small section of mountain in a range that extends across quite a few provinces of three of the autonomous communities (what we would call states) in western Spain and continues into Portugal.

Las Hurdes are a comarca that is known for its honey. I must explain comarcas because it is an important concept in small town Spain and something that has shaped Spain for many centuries. Nowadays I would define a comarca as a region of production. For example, where we see comarcas most often is on wine bottle labels which always say the comarca of origin. I believe that the comarcas  were originally created as small kingdoms, ruled as tiny states, functioning as a political and economic entity (as always, dear friends, I invite correction).

Each comarca is known for what it produces. For example, in my last post I wrote about los Ibores which are known for their goat cheese. Clearly el Jerte is know for its cherries. Every place in Spain is part of a comarca and each comarca is proud of what it produces.

In Extremadura they have a strong, creamy cheese known as torta. I know of two types, the torta del Casar and the torta de la Serena. Casar and Serena are two principal cheese producing comarcas in Extremadura. El Casar is in the Province of Cáceres and la Serena is in the province of Badajoz. I’m sure that there are other tortas and I’m hopeful that it is still made in some kitchens in towns so small that I’ve never heard of them.

I hope I’ve been clear explaining comarcas. Now, back to las Hurdes in the first week of May. It had rained most of April, so spring was at its peak. Being well used to adventuring by this time, we woke up early, ate breakfast and left for las Hurdes knowing that we would find things to do.  It was a beautiful drive across the plain at the foot of the mountains and then we started to climb up into las Hurdes. I want to mention that on the way there we pulled over to look at some prehistoric rock carvings that were pretty neat. I found the tourist office in a town called Camino Morisco where I was thoroughly informed about all of the nearby towns, hikes, and points of interest.

We drove to the first place that sounded appealing and were immediately impressed by the beauty of this tiny town at the end of the road up in a corner of the mountains. The town was Ovejuela, a word that was quite difficult for me to pronounce, so I repeated it dozens of times until I could say it easily.  

It was a precious little town that, although it now has one bed and breakfast, is still very much based on a traditional lifestyle. That is to say to the rhythm of daily life has probably not changed much in Ovejuela in several hundred years. I do however suspect that Ovejuela and most of the surrounding towns are experiencing a lack of young people. Because the area is so far removed from the modern bustle, young people tend to move to bigger towns to find work.

It is true that historically speaking, with few exceptions, dwellings were constructed with the materials found in the vicinity. It is pretty easy to see what was available in las Hurdes: slate and wood. I could see that Ovejuela still utilizes many of its building in the traditional way: the lower floor is used for livestock (goats in this case) and the upper levels are the living quarters.  

We walked through the town to get to the beginning of a trail. We took a wrong turn and an older couple ended up guiding us back to where we needed to be. Many of the women of the town were out sweeping the streets because the men had taken the goats out to the mountains and goats always leave  a mess every place they go. The people who walked us to were the trail started told us that we probably would not be able to make it to see the waterfall which was our goal, because the stream was too high to cross without getting wet.

(By the way, I am writng this on the airplane. I can see on our computerized flight path that we are now over North America and I did get some sleep. I really dislike such long flights. This one is about eight hours long and we're about 5 hours in to it. I’m sitting next to a little boy [less than two I would say] who is taking it a lot rougher than I am though.)

We did not get to the waterfall, but we did take an extremely beautiful hike. We found the stream too high to cross, so we turned back but not before we heard a man singing to his goats. The whole experience was magical for us, the whole day was.

From there we hiked back down and on our way out of town we found a spot with stone picnic tables where we enjoyed some incredible local artisan bread and cheese.  It started to rain as we proceeded on to our next destination: a medieval bridge and monastery.

History tells us that the monastery (a now abandoned Franciscan monastery) was founded in the spot that Saint Francis requested that one be founded when he passed through the area 800 years ago. I imagine that he must have left some people behind him to build a center of life in this mountain valley. It was surrounded by some of the most majestic cork trees that I have seen. I love to be in places that have been carefully and diligently cultivated for centuries. I could see that this place had produced a lot of food over hundreds of years.

        

We had one more goal for the day, to actually manage to see on of the waterfalls of the area. It appeared to be just up the road on the map, but turned out to be quite far because of the shape of the mountains. We climbed and climbed and wound around until we were almost on top of the ridge that seperates las Hurdes from the next comarca, la Sierra de Gata.  

The waterfall was sooo tall! It must have been hundreds of meters tall, or maybe a thousand feet. You can see that it is tall in the photos, but keep in mind that we were far away from it, too. There were tons of vultures that nest there. I tried to take pictures of them but that’s one way you can tell how far away we were, because the huge birds are just specks in the photos.

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           I finished writing while on the airplane but did not have internet connection to post it.

            
           I am back. It’s really nice to be back and really strange to be communicating so effortlessly. I loved speaking Spanish because I was constantly learning. Guess you can’t have it both ways- learn a lot and not have to work hard.

            

           All of the things that I didn’t remember about the U.S. surprised me, as well as how many little habits of mine had changed.   

            I’ll be writing a lot more in the coming month but for now I will get this posted. I am going to be busy in Chicago until the end of the month. I will plan on having this blog  finished in the second or third week of August.

           

           It’s good to be home J Thank you all for coming along with me on my adventures. Un beso.

P.S. Here's a link to the latest photo album. http://s1172.photobucket.com/albums/r571/AnaBen/        I'm trying to get all of the photos labeled... poco a poco.