11/13/10 Hiking in Ripoll

PICTURES TO COME.... (they don't download fast enough on my internet at home)

           Emily, Daven and I got away from the city today.  I was nice to get some fresh air.  Daven wanted to do a road trip this weekend, but Lorenzo couldn’t go (which meant there was no one over 21 to rent the car for us).  Plan B was a day hiking in Ripoll.  Emily, Daven and I all live in different parts of the city, so we all got on at different stops.  Our plan was to meet in the front car of the train which worked out well.  It was my first experience figuring out to take the train to where I needed it to go by myself.  Pepita packed me a bocadillo and I left early for the station.  It was good I left early, because I had some trouble figuring out the ticket.  For all my other train rides, I just went to an automatic booth, pressed my destination and my ticket just printed out.  It wasn’t that simple this time, because Ripoll wasn’t listed.  I did a few laps around the station looking for someone to ask, but there were no helpers out like there normally are.  Instead I went up to a window and asked.  Apparently, it was the window for the highspeed trains to places like Madrid.  The man was nice and told me to go to one of the windows 1 through 5.  I was nervous when I made it here, because the lines were long and the train I needed was coming in less than 25 minutes.  Luckily the line moved quickly and I made it to the boarding platform on time.

            Daven and Emily got on the train at the following 2 stops and we were off for Ripoll.  Ripoll is the former capital of Catalunia and is about a 2 hour train ride away.  We took the train through the mountains and got off in the tiny town called Ripoll.  We had no idea where the hiking trails were so we wandered through the streets.  We first came across the Saturday morning market full of fruits, vegetables, meats and fishes.  Then we crossed a small bridge to find a Socialist group campaigning.  November 28^th are the national elections and the Socialist party was getting their name out in Ripoll.  They had a few fun bounces for little kids and were giving away hot chocolate and balloons.  Emily and I both got the hot chocolate.  It was amazing.  I’m going to be sad to go back to the U.S. where hot chocolate is actually liquid.  We stopped in a tourist office and the women gave us a map.  It didn’t end up helping because the trail was not well marked.  We made it to the beginning, but there were lots of turn offs.

            The first part of the path or trail was fairly flat.  It went alongside a field filled with cows.  The cows even had cowbells on, so you could hear them wherever they were.  Then the path went next to some empty warehouses.  This is when we got confused as to whether we were going the right way.  Finally we started to go up a road toward some pretty run down houses.  The road twisted back and fourth up the hill until we were finally past the houses and it lead us through the woods.  We figured it could be the right way.  We kept going up and up until we ran into a small wire fence.  We hopped over the fence and continued to follow the path.  Eventually were just wandering through the woods, on what were probably paths made by cows opposed to humans.  We summitted the mountain and continued to follow the ridgeline until we came out in an opening and could see the city below.  When we came out into the opening, we were in a giant field for cows at the top of the hill.  Below us, all the land on the hill was terraced for farming purposes.  A man was walking his dog and picking mushrooms up at the top, so we figured we weren’t that lost if there was someone else in the same place as us.  We ate our bocadillos at the top and headed down to catch the train.  On our way down, we found the real path.