Man Trip
My friend Hernan invited me to go hiking and river swimming this past weekend. As the trip got closer, our buddy Pablo decided he might come along. He texted me around midnight the day before the trip and I wrote him back in the morning. “We’re leaving from metro Tribunal at 7am”.
We all met up at the metro, with our hodgepodge gear and excited hearts. Pablo’s military background, my past-life hiking in the U.S., and Hernan’s quiet self-reliance were all hinted at in the clothes we wore and the way we carried ourselves as we grouped up in the pre-dawn chill of the city. An ambulance was parked with its blue lights flashing and there was a couple kissing like couples do in the streets of Madrid - parting ways after an all night bar/dancing date.
We left the cold for our second metro entrance and boosted our month long passes to zone C2. Pablo bought a couple sandwiches to avoid breaking into what we had stashed in our backpacks for the day, and we were ready to go. From Tribunal we traveled 6 stops to Plaza de Castilla. From there we hopped on an ALSA 197 for the 1.5 hours trip to Torrelaguna.
A few days before the trip I doubted we were going to make it happen. Hernan and I are both working a lot, and he’s pulling Saturday shifts to manage his construction projects. We had decided that this was the weekend for the trip and had committed to text further plans. I hadn’t had time to figure out any good routes and until Saturday morning I hadn’t heard of any plans from him. But I reminded myself of what Hernan has told me a couple of times with pride. “Rob, in Colombia we don’t make plans when we travel. If there’s a trip I want to take, and the day comes that I have the chance to go, I take it. I buy a ticket that day to get me closer to my destination. And when I get halfway I ask around about how to get the ticket for the final leg.”
Hernan called me on Saturday and explained what still sounded like a non-plan to me. But he gave me enough details to get ready on my end. Leave from Tribunal at 7am, use the inter-city bus, look for hiking and a river. In the morning, everything went great -even accidentally arriving to the hourly bus 5 minutes before it pulled out of the station.
In Torrelaguna the three of us met up with a friend of Hernan’s who lives in the town. He told us how to get to our two destinations for the day, smiling at our Arengtinian, Colombian, U.S. blend of life and language. We had some coffee from Hernan’s thermos lid and bought some junk food from the corner store since their bread hadn’t arrived yet for the day. And we were off!
We walked the highway for two hours, carefully using the sides of the road to get to Patones. Despite the traffic, the views on both sides were beautiful - hundreds of olive trees, open farm land, and distant mountains. At Patones we saw the tour buses and the hikers going up to Patones de Arriba. We decided to take the trail before continuing our search for the river.
On the way up the mountain we found our first great surprise of the day. A cave alongside the path, 15 feet up in the air, with a few easy footholds to reach it. We all climbed up and checked it out. Hernan was thrilled and started climbing through the 3x3 foot passage to see what he could reach. “It goes through” he called out! And into the cave we went. Stowing backpacks out of sight of the trail but not bothering to bring them all the way through the tunnel. After a short crawl, there was space to stand in an opening with a 15 foot ceiling. We looked at each other, thrilled with what we had discovered and snapped some pictures. A menacing further opening stretched black into the distance and gave me the creeps on our way back out as we lit the crawlspace with our phones.
We continued our ascent to Patones de Arriba, which turned out to be a beautiful lesser-known tourist town. After a short exploration of the hilltop village, we had a drink at the restaurant nearest the descent and washed up from the cave.
From there we went to search for the river. We walked 2 more hours of highway looking for a place to swim. We finally met an elderly local man who told us about our options for the day.
“Hello! Excuse us, is there a place to swim in the river around here?”
“What?! No.”
“Oh shoot. So it’s prohibited to swim around here?”
“Ahhh, no. There’s no problem with swimming in the river, it’s just that it’s all pretty low right now. There’s not much water to swim in. If you want to go to the popular spot, you can go backwards about 1 mile.”
“We were also thinking about checking out Pontón de la Oliva. Are we close enough to get there on foot?”
“Oh yes. It’s down the highway, maybe one mile. Just keep an eye out for the signs. It’s not a town, but it has one bar and a few buildings. It’s mostly a nature area.”
We thanked him and decided to look for the river as we approached Pontón de la Oliva. We had seen the spot he had referred to a mile back and were not satisfied with what we saw. We headed down the highway until I saw a sign that said “Rember, no lighting campfires here.” To me that seemed like a clue that there was some kind of camping or hiking spot so we stepped off the road and into the grass grown highway pulloff.
It was a swimming hole! We took a moment to use the forest bathroom and then checked out our options for a dip. I stepped into the river shin-deep. Despite the sunshine, the water was super cold!!! It was so cold I second guessed my plans to swim.
“All at once Rob! All at once!” Pablo egged me on.
“You go first man”.
And he rushed into the water half jumping half running. He was freezing too but he jumped around long enough to convince the two of us on the shore to gather our testosterone and enjoy what the day had in store for us. We all took turns dipping in and out of the freezing water a couple of times and then floating down to our swimming hole from a few feet upstream. It was the second great surprise of the day.
We aired out in the sun, leg muscles and torsos contracted from the cold, before we pulled our pants over wet boxers. Pablo shared his spray on deodorant with us since he was the only one who had thought to pack it. And we ate cheese, lunchmeat, and guacamole from our backpack stash - adding to our hard boiled eggs and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches we had devoured in Patones. We laid down in the gravel pulloff and half rested half slept in the deliciously warm sun. The noise of a car jolted me up to look around and the car behind the one I heard meandered into the pulloff. I nervously motioned for them to stop, worried they were going to run over my buddies, and the driver politely and carefully avoided us and our gear.
Awakened by the arrival of the new swimming hole guests we packed up our things to go, happy to realize we had discovered a spot known by the locals. We hoisted our bags and took to the highway for another hour of highway trekking before reaching Pontón de la Oliva.
We saw the highway turnoff and the landscape quickly changed to resemble a popular destination. Rows of cars parked along the sides of the now narrow roads and beautiful stonework marked the descent to the entrance of the reservoir. Kids played in the puddle flow from the dam that looked quite a bit like a regal castle. We walked past the puddle flow and towards the bar. Hernan had been hungry all day, and together the three of us had used the better half of our backpack rations. Before we could make it to the bar for lunch (and it was the perfect hour for lunch) Hernan saw the paths toward the tops of the dam. They were calling out to me too. We veered left away from the bar and the three of hiked up and up and up.
The path seemed to never end, but we kept ascending. Pushed by the distant leading of Hernan and the desire to see the water behind this massive dam, we made it to a beautiful set of mountain peaks. Hernan’s wife called that moment, and I wondered if we would be racing home to arrive for the birth of his baby due this July, but everything was fine.
The peaks were beautiful. Ridiculously awesome cliffs and splendid mountain flowers. We scurried from one rock formation to the next, thrilled with our discovery. We enjoyed a fantastic hour up there taking in the views and looking for the most impressive cliffs to enjoy the thrill of the heights. We continued around the dam looking to close our hike with a loop. Instead of a clear path down we passed more and more people practicing cliff-side repelling and were eventually informed that this side of the mountain was closed off at the entrance. We made our way back to our peaks and descended the mountainside.
The three of us were super happy with our day as we made our way down the mountain. And Hernan and I were anxiously thinking of returning to our extremely patient but extremely pregnant wives before midnight. It was a three hour walk back to the town where we could catch the bus to Madrid, which meant we were five hours from home. And it was already 5pm.
“Should we hitchhike, Hernan asked?”
If ever there was a day for hitchhiking, it was today. This generational family destination and rappelling enthusiast meetup gave a clear sense of general safety. Everybody leaving the park for the day was headed to the left or the right. And everybody who went left was going to pass one of our return points.
“We should.” I said “There’s three of us. Nobody’s going to try to harm us.”
We stuck out our thumbs as a couple of cars went by. An SUV with a baby, a car with one single nervous young woman. Another family SUV and finally a small work truck with two rappellers in the front seat.
“¿A dónde?” asked the Spaniards.
“A Patones”. We hopped in thankful for the ride and finished those first kilometers home in minutes instead of hours. We hopped out at Patones and walked toward Torrelaguna. This time we knew the way so we took the mountain trail instead of the highway, keeping the road in sight to ensure we made our destination. Up and down the mountains but always towards our town, we passed hundreds more olive trees and many farm fields. We hiked in exhaustion, nearing the end of our water and food but knowing that we had rationed it all correctly to reach our bus.
When we got to town we had just missed the early bus. Jeni was getting a little restless back home but we had an hour and fifteen minutes before the next ride into the city. We bought three big baguettes, some corner store cheese and lunchmeat, drinks, and gummies. We ate in exhaustion seated on the low wooden barriers edging the city garden beside the bus stop.
Our bus came right on schedule and, with that long ride and a short metro trip,we each made it home to sleep. It was an amazing day, and I couldn’t believe I had lived the experience from my home in the city. A cave, a river, and a mountain, all without spending the night. I can’t wait for the next adventure!
