10 Minutos!

Eight people, two dogs, a secret cueva and negative 5° weather made for a memorable weekend backpacking in the Sierra Nevada mountains (in Spain, that is).

It was my first ever overnight backpacking trip and it was incredible. I went with a group of Spanish people, most of whom I barely knew, along with my American friend Suzanne. I already knew Alberto and David, but I met Carlos, Tomás, Antonio, and Fátima the day we left. Carlos and Tomás brought their dogs Nero and Charli. The trip was completely spontaneous--we decided to go at 20:00 the night before. I had never done a hiking trip like this before, but I felt pretty confident that I would be safe given that two people are regular backpackers and two are training to be firemen. Fátima is a pharmacist too (similar to a nurse in America). I knew that I would never have this opportunity again.

I packed the warmest clothes I had in preparation for the predicted -3° weather Saturday night and was ready to go. We left at 8:30am (practically the middle of the night in Spain) and started hiking. The first hour was the most difficult. It was uphill and hot, and Suzanne and I thought we might not make it to the end. We all got to know each other as we hiked, and Suzanne and I talked about how it's a certain type of person that likes to do this sort of trip. Her roommate Inma, for example, had no interest in the hiking trip to the Sierra Nevada. Inma is still studying at the age of 30 to get her bachelors degree. She's has never travelled outside of Andalucía and still doesn't know what she wants to do. On the other hand, everyone on the trip with us was very well-travelled, well-educated and very open-minded. They all had learned to speak English fairly well and were interested in improving. In Spanish, I would call them "aventureros," which translates roughly as "adventurous ones." It was fun spending the weekend with Spaniards. Speaking Spanish with locals is always an exciting endeavor.

By 13:00, Suzanne and I were starving and we asked, "Papá Antonio--Cuánto queda?" It was a fair question to be asking of the only person who had actually done the hike before. He responded, "10 minutes!" and we kept walking. This became the running joke of the trip. These 10 minutos magically turned into 2 hours of planning our next two stops: almuerzo (lunch) and la cueva (the cave). For the rest of the hike that day, we would ask Antonio how much time was left, and every time his response was "10 minutos." Had 10 minutes been the true answer, we never would have seen the cueva and las montañas, or made it to the Refugio.  We were exhausted when we stopped for comida by a small river around 15:30.We all enjoyed a little R&R, eating our bocadillas de tortilla.

After lunch, we started the hike toward some secret cave. This was a true cave--pitch black, damp, and scary as all hell. Suzanne refused to go in, so just Carlos, Antonio, Fátima and I went. Inside, I took pictures about every 20 feet just so I could see through the camera what was in front of me. The cave got narrower as we walked along, and soon we were ducking and running our hands along the walls to feel our way through the cave. The most terrifying part of the cave experience was looking at one of my pictures and seeing hundreds of bats clinging to the walls. Needless to say, we survived the cave and kept on trekking.

There are places called refugios along the hiking trails in the Sierra Nevada where hikers can camp overnight. They are generally big stone buildings with dirt floors and sometimes a few wooden bunk beds. There is usually an outdoor faucet of freezing cold, clean water used to brush your teeth and fill up your water bottle. We reached our refugio at dusk. Outside were two beautiful horses that belonged to the owner. We were eight people with two dogs staying in a room meant for four people.

After dropping out stuff off inside, we ate our bocadillos around a camp fire. After dark, the owner asked us to put out the fire, so we cozied up inside the room around flashlights. We played games and told stories until we fell asleep. That night was one of the worst nights of sleep I've ever had. There were four people on the top bunk on a hard, wooden bed. David was sick and had a high fever. He was miserable all night, and so were the rest of us. I got out of bed around 4:00am in the pitch dark and waited for everyone else to get up. We started to head back toward the city around 7:00am. When we finally made it back to the starting point, we all collapsed on the ground. Some of us ate the food we had left and some of us slept while we mustered up the energy to walk to the car and drive home. What an extraordinary weekend.