Posts Tagged ‘grupo naranco’

Espicha Originally uploaded by ++Naho++.

We got off the bus and started looking for the place. I walked past it at first, an unmarked wooden door, followed by a little ceramic sign: Sidreria Gervasio.

I had got a text message from Ana, the mountain group’s secretary, inviting us to a meal to mark the mid year break in the group’s activities. The espicha is the name of the tap used to pour sidra directly from the barrels in the cider houses where they make the stuff. In the past, the owner of a cider house would invite his neighbours to try a new barrel of cider, and he’d provide food so that they wouldn’t just be drinking. Nowadays the word espicha seems to be more ‘food with cider’ than the testing of a new barrel.

We wandered into the place, it was a restaurant behind the wooden door but I couldn’t see any of the group amongst the diners. The waiter asked if we were part of a group and when we said the magic words (Grupo Naranco) he directed us to some doors at the back. The group were in a big room, high on the walls there were old empty barrels but we were drinking bottled cider. Young waiters waited by a small table in the middle of the room, and when someone said ‘culín’ or ‘culete’ to them, they poured a sidra, using mostly good technique, one arm held high, almost at full extension, with the bottle, the other arm holding the glass at mid-thigh level.

Liz hadn’t met any of the group before so they were all really happy to meet her, and of course I was rubbish at remembering everyone’s names (it’s even harder than remembering English names) but no pasa nada, no one minded and we dived in, chatting away. Two big tables were laid, and eventually, on some signal I didn’t see, people started sitting down. The food with an espicha is not complicated. You never need to use a knife, it’s all small pieces. You use a piece of bread to manage the food onto your fork and so each dish is perpetually accompanied by bread (as soon as it runs out there are shouts requesting more… it’s essential). Throughout the meal the waiters, between bringing food, kept a weather eye out for people needing cider. The food arrived in bits, on small plates and we just chatted and munched and drank for the next few hours.

Among the food: Bonito escabeche. Bonito is pale, delicate tuna, from the north sea, it’s a small fish and tastes wonderful. A couple of different sliced hams. Empanaditas, croquetes. Tiny pasties and cheesy hammy croquettes. Boquerones: Whole anchovies fried in batter. Merluza: Pieces of hake in batter. Chorizo in cider. Thick warm slices of boiled gammon. A couple of cheeses and then some tiny desserts.

Throughout the dinner we were treated to commentary about the food, about the different names, differing opinions of where to get the best cheeses or the subtle differences between one town and another. And every so often someone would make sure we were enjoying it. And we were.

We rounded off the meal with an oruxo (a grappa like spirit) and spent a while saying ‘see you in September’. Then Enrique and his wife very kindly gave us a lift home as it had started raining.

One of the nice things about the walking group is that you have the chance to chat to very different people. We did a coastal walk a couple of weeks ago, the last one until the middle of September… it’s too hot in summer apparently (no photos because, despite the rest of Spain sweltering, we had a day of orbayu, the clinging ‘heavy mist’ that requires an umbrella rather than waterproofs), it was the 21st annual walk organized by the Peña Furada group. We were supposed to have a nice lunch of preñao, the bread, baked with a chorizo inside, at a tranquil beach called Frexulfe. Due to the weather we ended up in a sports hall in a nearby town, but there was a band of pipers and drummers (and tambourine players) so it was entertaining.

Most people assume I’m from London when they hear I’m English, or Dublin if they hear I’m Irish (hey, what can I say, I can choose, I’ve got both passports). I don’t think anyone I’ve met so far has been to the North of England (and why would they, if England is London to most people, thanks to the tourist board, a couple of days there and you’d probably start thinking you couldn’t afford to visit anywhere else).

As we were walking I chatted with a woman from the Basque country, and it turns out she loved English pubs and beer, we had a long chat about the different drinking cultures here and there and what made British pubs different. She’s of the opinion that all of the Spanish bars are the same, all modern and they have no soul whereas a decent pub in the UK is full of character and warmth. We didn’t get onto the Irish pub in a box or the chains or the vomit strewn city centres… I didn’t want to dent her enjoyment.

Later I was walking with a Cuban chap, camp enough to be Cuba’s Julian Clary, and he was complaining (in a lighthearted way) about the weather, then he said, ‘When I went to Mexico, Hurricanes, in Cuba there’s Fidel, here there’s this rain, I can’t go anywhere.’

Half the group decided to not bother with the second half of the walk, after lunch, but I was one of the plucky few (‘call this rain?’ I said, ‘it’s not proper rain unless it’s horizontal’). One companion on the second half (which had stunning beaches, and great coastal scenery) stopped to use the public portaloos at the beach at Frexulfe. On exiting he began chatting about how clean the public loos were in London. I couldn’t contradict him, but I did keep saying ‘en serio?’ with increasing incredulity.

Sunday was another walk, this time it was a Federation day. It was the day of Saint Bernard de Menthón, who’s the patron saint of Mountaineers (I gather). The walk was planned by the federation of Asturian mountain groups, and was attended by a few hundred people. We arrived at a tent in some fog, twenty Km south of Oviedo, in the area called Morcín. There we collected some food (they provided a preñao (a roll stuffed with a chorizo) an apple, some water and desert cheese (a plastic dish filled with sweetened cream cheese). Then we stood around chatting for an hour while more people arrived. At last someone (Ignacio, I think, our group’s president) said vamos and we vamossed.

The mountain is called Monsacro, literally sacred mountain, and is a Lakeland sized chunk of limestone, it’s on the edge of the mountain range and is dramatically isolated. It was a steep ascent up to a pass in the middle of the mountain, and it was an impressive sight, a few hundred walkers snaking up and down, slowly ascending a 60 degree slope with many cries of ‘they never said it was hard’ and ‘blimey that’s steep’. At the top we got a cracking view to the north, from the industrial chimneys of Soto de Ribera and Oviedo itself with the cathedral and the palacio del congressos clearly visible, to the far north and the sea. It wasn’t a completely clear day but it was clear enough to know that, on a good day, you would have unforgettable views.

After the summit we headed down to a high meadow, where there were a couple of capillas (chapels). These chapels were important to the Asturians because, when the Moors threatened, the two sacred relics which had arrived in 808 from Jerusalem via Toledo (in actual fact, two crosses, La Victoria and Los Angeles, one of which appears on the Asturian flag), were taken to safety from Oviedo to these chapels, or the sites that these chapels would later take. There they were looked after for 80 years until the guards got bored and took them back to Oviedo to find that while they were gone no one had done the washing up and the place had gone to pot.

So in the field, the devout went off to have a mass and bless the crosses, the less than devout stood around keeping an eye on the weather and drinking sidra, for in the field, in the middle of nowhere, the organisers had converted a stone barn into a bar. Which was nice of them.

After the mass we all trundled off down into Santolaya, a town to the north of the mountain. Trundled is perhaps the wrong word. Delicately picked our way down wet limestone on a steep narrow zig zag path, is a better way of putting it, although when we hit the road at at the end of the path we definitely trundled, and picked almost ripe cherries from roadside trees. At the bottom, in the town, they had a big barbeque set up so there was a little more sidra, some meat and then some music.

John, they said, you’re the newest member of the group, that means you have to get up and dance. Tell me when, I said, although I’m warning you, I can’t dance. What’s this playing now, I asked. They looked at me like you would a child, that’s the paso doble, they said, as though I should know. Eventually they took pity on me and Sabi, the woman who sorts out the photos on the web site, said, you have to learn some time, and showed me how to paso doble (well, actually she laughed a lot while I demonstrated two left feet) while a dozen of the others moved around with the skill that comes from many years experience. Then the music changed to a cumbia and I was very much out of my depth.

Asturian weather options (late spring) Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

It’s been a very wet month here. In Cantabria there are floods and the news has had plenty of pictures of kids being rescued in inflatable boats. People have said that it’s been a strange Spring. No rain between Christmas and Easter and then nothing but. It made the walk we did on Sunday less than spectacular. The plan was to go to Fuente De, where there’s a cable car. There’s not much else, Fuente De is really a meadow below an 800m wall of limestone, it’s fantastically impressive and it’s dotted with the odd old mine entrance. In summer, apparently, it’s usually packed. Last Sunday, less so. We could see the rock, and at the top it was obvious that there was a fair bit of cloud. Once we left the upper cable car station we were in cloud for the next two hours, with people saying that there should be unforgettable views. Instead we formed a long line of umbrella carriers. The type of rain that seems so common here is the ‘heavy mist’ they call orbayu. That’s not a Spanish word, it’s Asturian (and often orbayu means that the cloud and rain will stop above 1500m so you should set out anyway and hope for the best), and the Asturian word for their own language: bable (pronounced bab-ley). So when I ask what they call this or that I often get Spanish, Bable, Galician and Catalan translations… figuring out which one you have to remember is a challenge.

When we finished the walk (in a bar, see, I like this walking group) a few of us ate our butties outside on an old dark wood chair in the porch of the bar. The chair raised some comments because it was like a church pew but with a table that swung down from above the seat back like an ancient version of a fairground ride safety bar. People said they hadn’t seen one since their grandparents had one (and bear in mind lots of these folk are in their sixties). Unfortunately, the barrage of different names for it means I can’t remember any of them.

Pompeyu airs his back Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

We started early, the coach picked us up at 6:45am, most people on the street seemed to be going home at that time, or heading for a last drink before bed. Not us, we were off for another day in the mountains. The route this time took us from the hamlet of Soto de Sajambre up into the western fringes of the Picos de Europa and north to another hamlet called Amieva. The route followed, in large part, an old Roman road and I’ll say this for those pesky Romans; they must have had very grippy shoes. I can picture it…

Marcus: Hey Julius, how’s it going? Julius: Oh, you know, not bad… for Iberia, I thought it would be sun sun sun but it seems to rain every day here. And the locals… ay all they think about is apples and cheese! Marcus: Tell me about it. And the boss wants another road building. He’s sent me the specs, here, look. Julius: One Roman^TM road, from here to there, but he’s specified smooth limestone blocks, has he been here? Marcus: You know the management, he’s directing us from his beachfront villa in Malaga. I think he’s forgotten about rain. Julius: But these blocks will be lethal in the wet. The legions’ll kill us, if any of them get down alive. Marcus: Hmmm, I’ve been thinking about that… what do you know about vibram rubber… Julius: I always said you were ahead of your time …

Seriously, the route was pretty slippy on the way down, smooth wet limestone blocks. Other than that, we had sun until we were at our high point, so we got some good views, I participated in the massed umbrella parade on the way down, and I was pleased to find that each time it’s less and less like a day-long oral exam in Spanish. Once again, Pompayu helped pass the time on the coach trip with a wide ranging conversation taking in Ernest Rutherford, Sherlock Holmes, limestone geology and the current state of pensions in Spain. Quite an interesting chat and a route to be repeated (autumn would be a good time).

Jultayu again Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

I joined the Grupo Naranco for a walk in the Picos de Europa, it was a walk I’d done before, the first I ever did in the Picos in fact. We started from lake Ercina, and walked through the fantastic limestone valleys up to a high mountain meadow. We had good weather up to then but behind us clouds had started to build. We had planned to go up to the top of Jultayu, another couple of hours and there was a good deal of discussion about whether we should. In the end 20 of us did, and we climbed the steep slope slowly, keeping a wary eye on the clouds, which disappeared for a while, only to return in force.

We made it to the top above the clouds and after a quick sandwich, turned round and descended. During the descent the heavens opened and everyone put on their wet weather gear while thunder rumbled around us. It was a tricky descent, limestone is rather slippery in the wet and there’s lots of it in the Picos. Once we’d descended from Jultayu we started off back to the bus, the rain kept on, but lighter. The problem was now the mud, the paths were rarely level and the mud was slippery. It took as much care to stay on your feet on the paths as it did to come down the mountain.

I was wandering along a little ahead of one group of people, a little behind another. As I got to the lake, the starting point, clouds came down. By the lake the path disappears and you have to cross a smooth grassy meadow. I was walking in a straight line for a car park I knew, so I carried on walking. Suddenly the ground sloped steeply upwards, I realised I wasn’t where I thought I was, and worse, I couldn’t see, or hear anyone. 200m from knowing where I was and I was lost. I shouted and listened: nothing. I was towards the back of the group so I knew they’d miss me pretty quickly so I decided to stay where I was and let them come to me when I was missed. They did, but it took half an hour because I couldn’t hear their shouts or whistles as I was further from the path than I thought. Eventually I heard a shout and responded. It was a good lesson in mountain safety… or rather the reverse, and a little embarrassing, so close to the finish.

Everyone was fine though, even though I had delayed them setting off for home, no pasa nada, they said, it’s the clouds around here, it’s your initiation, did you enjoy the rest of it? I did enjoy the rest of it and I spent the journey home discussing etymology and politics with a Jean Reno lookalike called Pompayu, who looks like he’s 55 but is 65, and likes to talk, which is fine because I like to listen (it’s good practice and my speaking is not up to deep philosophical stuff yet). Next one in two weeks… I’m hoping for good weather this time.

Waiting for _that_ text Originally uploaded by itsjustanalias.

I picked up a card in the outdoor shop for a mountain group, more walking than climbing. Whereas the hills in England are rarely mountaineering, you can get led astray here. So: Montañismo is hill walking, up to and including winter hill walking, Senderismo is hiking but not necessarily up big hills, alpinismo is alpine style climbing, escalada deportivo is sport climbing and caminar is a bit of a stroll (I think). Anyway, I called the number on the card, and expressed an interest in joining them on their next walk. The lady on the phone, Ana, was very helpful and said the easiest way to find out more was to meet them in their office. They have an office. And a website which is here (Naranco is the name of the hill immediately to the west of Oviedo).

So last night I wandered along and met half a dozen lovely people. The office has a bookshelf full of trophies the group has got in its 30 year history, there are a set of old wooden ice-axes on the wall, along with some fine photographs. They told me a couple of the things they have planned (a week in Andorra in summer, a few weekends here and there as well as their usual programme of activities) and we chatted for a while. We had a little wine and some snacks (manchego cheese, anchovies and chorizo) because that´s what they do every Thursday. They made me feel very welcome, and I´m looking forward to the first walk (which is, coincidentaly, the same walk I did the very first time I came to the Picos five years ago) a week on Sunday.