After our church visit, we expected to go on a brief hike to a lookout; at most, an hour. I had fond memories of Parque Guell: 15 minutes up the side of a mountain for a pleasant photo opportunity, you know? I mean, we had heavy backpacks and were wearing street clothes, what could we even do?
Of course, those ideas were shattered the second Mikey saw the hiking path.
Of course, those ideas were shattered the second Mikey saw the hiking path.
I’ll interpret that moment as a Dzul family vacation: In true Andy form, Mikey was like, “4 HOUR HIKE THAT SCALES 500 M UP A MOUNTAIN?? YESSS.” In true Xtina form, Jordan was like, “aight.” In true Liza form, Michelle was like, “Nooooo whyyyyy nooooo please nooooo.” And rather than join my spiritual comrade (Myself), I, for whatever reason, just said “Sure."
It quickly became clear I had made a giant mistake. This path was insanely treacherous: endless windy, steep steps up the side of an exposed cliff for the first 1.5 hours = a truly perilous natural stair master. To add insult to injury, even before we had started climbing, we were all wheezing and coughing, still recovering from the Barcelona respiratory plague that has struck our class.
Yet Mikey stayed strong. Seriously, if ever you need to accomplish some impossibly strenuous task, just take Mikey L along for the ride. He is a serious motivator and true camp counselor yelling, “Keep going!!” at every moment where we wanted to throw in the towel. I’m convinced the only reason I made it up was because of his motivation. Thanks, Mikey!
One interesting element of Montserrat is that the peak is actually a giant rock/boulder on top of the mountain. So once you get to “the top” another staircase awaits you, the scariest and most treacherous of all. Still, we had made it that far! Exhausted, wanting to collapse at every step, we scaled that final staircase and FINALLY REACHED THE TOP. The highest point of Montserrat!
The view was amazing, but actually so high up that it was kind of impossible to make things out on the ground. We were way wayyyy above the cloud line. I look like crap, but, hey, it’s proof I was there!
After braving through Jordan’s not-that-good-but-we’ll-deal “Mediterranean”-flavored chips (post on Spanish chip flavors in the works), we were joined by a lone hiker: a Catalonian guy who had climbed the whole peak by himself. I chatted with him for a bit in castellano, and he quickly let me know that night was quickly falling and we needed to run down the mountain or else risk falling off a mountain or getting mauled by a wild boar in the darkness. I should say: The combination of the fact he was an older guy + outdoorsy type + electrical engineer + Catalan made him the least sociable of all people.
Here is Jordan, Michelle, and our new, doesn’t-actually-want-to-be-our-friend Catalan friend:
To his credit, he kindly went down the mountain with us, whistling to himself the whole way. Still, his personality created for a painfully one-sided, horrible-Spanish conversation on my part. Ultimately I was glad to concentrate on the castellano verb conjugations in my monologues as otherwise I would have absolutely died of fear. DIED.
This was actually the most fearsome of descents I have ever made, even worse than the aforementioned descent at Lake Louise. Still, I just focused on the ground, step by step, and I made it down. The last thing I needed was to be sobbing by myself in the woods, my tears dried by the licks of an embittered Catalan wild boar.
We finally reached the end and made it to the cable car before it quit running for the night... Hallelujah! Our ride down was the opposite of the ride up: pure calm and quiet. I was too tired to even be scared of the height anymore.
On the train home, we ate all the food we had packed that we hadn’t eaten: tasty strawberry sour spaghetti (SOO GOOD), apples, bocadillos, etc.
We were exhausted, sweaty, smelly, and dirty but also proud of ourselves. I mean, how many days in life do you have where you literally climbed a mountain? If only all goals were so clearly realized.
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