The Mountains; Day 2

Last night was another new experience. We had the good fortune of hearing what happens when every dog in the village decides to start a howling contest in the deepest, darkest of the night. The added bonus was all the echo of the mountains. A kennel in an echo chamber! What a lullaby.


Every day is the same ritual. You wake up and let the pups out to do their business. Today is no different…well, sort of. I am walking around still in a haze and the dogs are out in the yard doing their routine. Tonya is…well, I dunno. After a few moments I ask her where Sunny is. I walk into the house and look. “Is he in here with you?” I ask. Tonya’s eyes get as big as official World Cup balls and she poses the same question back to me. The panic sets in and I run out to see if Sunny is clowning around somewhere in the big yard. Nope. He is not anywhere to be found. Tonya is heading out the door when I throw on a t-shirt, and we’re off.


We walk down the hill, calling his name and looking down side streets. Tonya asks everyone we see if they have seen Sunny. We get some positives, and they all point to the other end of the village. Knowing Sunny, he would waste no time at getting into trouble and as far away as possible. When we reach the square, we split up. Between the two of us we easily covered nearly the whole village. This is a real drag. The possibility of losing your dog in a strange town is daunting, but knowing that you face this before you even have breakfast can really get your day off to a rough start. We run into one another at the bottom of the village, near a small creek. Both of us are no further along with luck than when we left the top of the hill. I say I will head up and cover a few other streets. Tonya says she will stop in at Lourdes’ and tell them what happened. Once again, we rendezvous as we were both heading up the hill. “Maybe he is back at home” I say, trying to ease Tonya’s fears. We get to the house and…no luck. As we are pondering what to do, the phone rings. It is Lourdes. She has Sunny! A few seconds later we hear her call from outside. Tonya is out in a flash, I follow eating her dust.


“He was in a ditch” Lourdes says. Actually, it is more like a giant gulley that runs through the town. We passed the very spot where he was found when we were on full alert. Lourdes said she heard dogs barking and went to the noise. Lo and behold, looking down into the gulley was Sunny, lost in his own world. Ray, always the superhero, jumped in and drug Sunny out. Truth be told, Sunny was trapped because the sides were too steep for him to get out. Lourdes is smiling with relief, and Tonya is visibly shaken. She hands the leash to Tonya, and we walk the lost dog back up the steps to the house. He is dirty and his feet are scraped and bloody.


As soon as Sunny is cleaned and inspected by the other dogs, we are good to go get some breakfast. We were both a bit high-strung, so a dull, plain breakfast is in order.


Next up, we hear Andreas has fallen ill. Yikes! He’s laid up in bed in his nice white pjs and we are about to head out on another mountain adventure.


We are actually on the biggest mountain of the range. The highest point looms over our head. Today’s goal is to make it to the tip top. We are getting a late start so that means we will be racing against fog and a dropping sun. No one is in a rush and we all agree that we will meander along and see what turns up.


Lourdes is easily frightened driving uphill. She kneels behind Ray and clings to his seat. I think she purposely does not want to see what lies ahead and below. She grimaces and smiles. Ray acts like a mountain man and takes on anything in his path. Truthfully, I sometimes feel like Lourdes, but I can’t be a sissy sitting in the passenger seat. When we get to those bits of the road where it looks like it is a quarter-mile drop straight down and a path to cross about 8 inches wide with a few extra stones and twigs for added width, I grin and bear it. Ray has no idea how white my knuckles really are, no one does but me and Jesus. I exhale when we get by the sketchy parts and look forward, always look ahead!


Our laissez-faire attitude gets us altitude, but Lourdes fears we are too late. We are at a crossroads. Do we stop in the last remaining village or head upwards. Ray decides to forge on and gets about 30 seconds further along then he too, decides to turn back. Now the real fun is this; after passing some dodgy territory, Ray decides to backtrack. The catch is, there is no room to turn around. He has to back down. Lourdes nearly does what I want to do, kack myself! She stares at the back of his seat. I am freaked out totally, but I want to see if there is a chance to survive, so I put my head out the window and take it upon myself to guide ray backwards…thus increasing our chance of survival. Believe me, his short drive past the crossroads took an eternity in reverse. Even Ray sighed a bit when we reached the crossroads again. Lourdes chides him and demands he take the lower road to the village, so we do. A few hairy turns and tense moments later, we see a church. We made it! We round a turn and are greeted y two donkeys who just stand and stare. As we drive closer, they decide to move out of the way because there really isn’t enough room for two donkeys and a transit van. Something had to give.

The village's official greeting party.

This is it! Two homes and a church! Seriously, there has never been more to the saying ‘what you see is what you get’. This is a two mule town, with a church and two houses. Lourdes explains that there are actually a few more houses spread out, under construction, but this is only a recent addition. “How do these people survive?” is the obvious reaction from me. “They raise and sell what chickens they have and they look after the church” Ray informs us. Hmm. That aint much of a life because I don’t see many chickens! The church is the mainstay, dating back to the 16 century. It is their pride and joy. Odd, this outpost of monks from way back when. Ray says it was back in the day, when they discovered silver and stuff, so they tried to be as far reaching as possible. This is a pretty far reach.

Town square (note woman with folded hands!)

It is almost 3 and already the mist is rolling in. Lourdes is ready to go. Ray wants to go inside the church and show us around, but it is locked. He sees a lone guy sitting, staring at more loneliness. He asks if the church is open. The guy says he will call the lady who will open it for us, and disappears. Lourdes is growing more concerned by the minute, and it may be rubbing off on me. The fog is coming in strong. The lonely guy appears and says the key holder is on her way. Lourdes says to forget it and Ray openly disobeys. We stand around for a few minutes and see a lady descending from the mist. She is walking with her hands folded in front of her, and is wearing an apron. She smiles as she nears and says to wait a moment and she will get the key. Ray kids Lourdes about waiting a few more minutes and she says we have to literally run through the church.



The lady in the apron returns holding a big old key. She leads us up to the old doors and can’t open them. Ray, acting like a real gentleman, takes over and manhandles the stubborn key and door situation. A loud creak is heard and ray is pushing the doors open. The lady steps in first and turns the light on, the motions for us to make ourselves at home. Nice and simple. Nothing too crazy in this church…kind of like the village it resides in. We take a look around and a get a briefing about the church’s paintings from Ray. Lourdes informs us that time is up. We say thank you to the lady with the folded hands on the way out.

Inside the church...

The drive down is a lot easier. It is not near as stressful and it is partly due to the natural force of gravity pulling you down…it helps you down faster. Ray stops at a small clearing of pine trees and says “see that village down there in the valley? That is where we are staying”. I have to nerd out, and ask ray to stop so I can get a good look and take some snaps. He obliges, in fact, when I turn around from my Ansel Adams moment, everyone is standing there looking down below. It is beautiful. We hop back in and continue the descent. As we pass a certain series of tightly wound curves, ray and I both happen to look at the section we just crossed over. “Did you see that!?” Ray says with complete excitement. I did, but I wish I hadn’t. “Shit man! One big truck goes over that and that is it!” he says. I hate to say it, but he seems kind of jazzed by it. The earth had been eroded from underneath a section of the road. It literally left a bare section about 18” sticking out in thin air. It will not be pretty when a heavy truck or heavy rains take their toll on that section. I am glad we are on the lower side; otherwise we may have become temporary residents of the stranded town above. Then again, maybe I could have been the key holder!

A nice view looking waaaay down on our village

another view, a bit more 'close up'

the valley and some fog

There are no real plans for the rest of the day, except to try out the most amazing pizzas south of the Rio Grande. I am not crazy about Italian food in the afternoon, but they close early today and Lourdes told them we were coming.


We show up at the pizza joint, and a guy in the hallway says “I think your friends are here already”, and ushers us in. Do we look that obvious?


The place is tiny, as are most of them here. There are 5 or six tables, that is it. You sit out on the back patio and look into their garden. The giant, flat screen TV is showing a game. We sit down and have a chat with Ray and Lourdes. They fill us in on what is good…all of it, according to them. A couple runs this joint. She is a native of the village, he is from Rimini, an ex-cruise ship chef, Coco and Walter. Coco grows all the herbs in the garden. Walter uses homegrown herbs and makes his own pastas, breads and sauces. Walter is a very amiable guy, who loves his food and his football team. Coco loves to sit and smoke, and it seems like each time she exhales, she laughs then sits up and taps her cig and says “No?” There is something about her…


I don’t think I want an afternoon pasta, so I opt for another dish I do not like in the daytime, pizza. Keep it simple, and get a margherita one. Neither of us really is in the mood for pizza, so we say we’ll share. Ray and Lourdes do the same (copy cats!). We sit and chat and talk with the Dutch girls behind us about the game and who will win the World Cup. Of course, they think Holland will and the main talker of the two smiles and shows her braces as she beams with Dutch pride. Tourists!


Walter brings two pizzas out on wooden stands. He sets them down with utmost care, and ‘Bon Appétit’ he says. He ain’t joking, and neither was Ray and Lourdes when they scolded us for laughing at ‘mountain pizzas’. Man! These things are amazing. Thin crust, hand thrown, not too much sauce, the right amount of cheese…these things are real pro. I say it is too bad it is daytime, or I would eat like a madman and have a bottle of wine to boot. “Don’t worry, we’ll come back and you can try the pasta” Lourdes consoles me, “Plus, Andreas needs to try this food when he feels better”. No doubt.


After we eat, I stand with a full belly and say goodbye to Walter, and once outside, we say ‘ciao’ to Ray and Lourdes. We will be alone the rest of the day. It has been a strange day and neither of us feels like doing much. Plus, tomorrow we are supposed to take a field trip, so we decide to be hermits and have an early night. We while away what is left of the day at our place and briefly step out in the evening to grab some eats from one of the restaurants on the square. After our meager meal, we decide to try out one of the movies we bought off the street, “Shutter Island”. The quality of the disc was great, but the film…myehhh.