There were three main trails we took when we were paseando just outside of Fresneda.
Trail One: La Cascada
We took this trail the most often. In fact, Michal and Mirka accompanied us to the waterfall at one point. Michal took a dip in the frigid pool into which the water cascaded.
Michal is fond of “taking a dip”. A portion of his mind feels he is doing a sort of cold therapy. A portion of my mind feels he is just attracted to being enveloped in liquid, much as he was in the “womb”. Or in the “test tube”. These two things are one in the same when it comes to Michal. He was birthed in a womb-like test tube, or a test tube-like womb. It was translucent and one could see his bulbous, quivering form incrementally taking shape within.
The walk from Tres Aguas to la cascada is one of many sensations. Yes, they are sensations of a past and also that of a past which is rapidly filling with holes. Such is the memory of an ancient creature like myself. There is little that I can do but type out the tatters that remains into this and future blog entries.
Butterflies butterflies the way was decorated with butterflies.
One bright memory is that of caterpillars spinning silk from branches above so that at any point, were one not to pay attention, collision with sticky lines came about. It was their breeding season and Marisa was furious at them, or at nature, I suppose. They were known for boring into and destroying certain types of arboles, though which ones I cannot recall. Let’s say beech trees for the sake of their supposéd death. On the patterned earth armies of caterpillars marched to whichever tree was elected for destruction. It wasn’t yet time for cocooning. The butterflies that decorated the atmosphere on that paseo were still months away.
On our initial sojourns to the site, Marisa brought her camera. She had quite a good camera, or so I think, as I am no expert. More importantly, she knew how to use it properly and framed fantastic photos. Even more importantly, it contented her to do so. She reveled in its creativity. These were still the early days of our relationship. Or, rather, the early years. There was still vigour and youth within our bubble. Her creativity waned over the following years, but never completely, though she seemed to more and more fill a good bit of her time with worry and in this manner unfortunately reminded me of my mother. In contrast, my creativity blossomed and never stopped its upwards climb. Perhaps this disequilibrium added to the general unease that accompanied intermittently and then more and more often the years following - um - oh, let’s say 2019, roughly.
Another recollection is of the stones we walked across (I, warily) to get to the “other side”, the side not approachable without forging the river. In fact, to get even to the cascada itself, one had to clamber over a portion of a rocky face holding various branches of ostensibly stable trees to balance one’s way to the edge of the pool.
Marisa is sitting on one of the stones that decorate the “other side” - the “forbidden side” - the side that Bobbus had trouble getting to at times when he was wobbly after a difficult few days alone in the flat on García Morato. There a few infinities of photos of this area of the world in various directories shared between my so-called “devices”. I don’t normally enjoy sharing photos as I feel they detract from the general sensation of reading, but I’ll make an exception on this occasion.
Trail Two: Al Tejo
I have a photo somewhere in the archive of a torre of stones that someone build beside this trail. We encountered it several times and one of those times I took said picture. Tres Aguas is a spot at the terminus of a dirt road riddled with potholes that pierces the main highway out of Fresneda and towards the border of La Rioja and eventually Escaray. From this dirt road riddled with potholes sprouts the three trails I write about. Tres Aguas has a few picnic tables overlooking the river on one side of the terminated dirt road riddled with potholes. On the other side is a small house intended as a refuge for anyone walking, hiking, sledding, tobogganing or stumbling around blackout drunk four miles from the closest village (Fresneda). There was always freshly cut firewood on the front porch and inside, home to multitudinous spiders, I suspect, so I suppose it was maintained by the province (Burgos). Instead of continuing straight towards la cascada, one veers left around the refugio and keeps veering until about 160 degrees later.
After over half an hour of walking, passing tricking water on the right and remnants of landslides, the path opens up to a place were one could park a “car” were one to have a “car” with the ability to traverse the pitted track. To the right, the trail continues sloping upwards towards the mythical tejo. This place is where we usually stopped. To the left, the trail slopes downwards to the river, where we picnicked time and again.
We often (often meaning two or three times out of 23) went with Marisa’s sister Marijose on this “hike”. Though she was usually a cheerful sort, her health problems did not allow her to follow the pace that Marisa and I usually set. The advantage of this was, of course, as anyone reading my blog would know, that it gave me time to pause and write a poem, several of which are “featured” in the poem section of this very website. As Marijose rested and chatted with Marisa about what I would term as trivialities and they certainly would not, I’d pull out my “phone” and pluck at it with my index finger, eventually creating a series of words from nothing at all.
As is with most of the people I’ve met in my life, Marijose and Juan (Marijose’s spawn, featured in the photo below) did not want to stray from the well trodden path. Marisa was a bit of another story, of course, or we never would’ve got along in the first place. Whilst the three of them were traipsing ahead towards the mystical tejo (to which no-one actually ever arrived), I clambered up with the dog (Uriel or Charlie - take your pick of a name) a shallow divot off to the side of the trail and discovered a steep descent on the other side that eventually led down to the river. The dog was eager to explore! So was I! And whilst I don’t specifically recall how I convinced everyone else to retreat into my newfound space, they all adored it once they were there.
Trail Three: El Pinar
The way to the so-called Pinar was the most difficult. It was rocky and usually drenched in oppressive sunlight. Strangely, though, it was my favourite. Also strangely, during the last few years I lived in Spain, we never returned to it. In fact, the ultimate time we ascended that rocky dirt road and turned the nigh 180 bend to ascend even more into the shade of the pines and finally to a clearing that was possibly the most beautiful place in the region was most probably before the first time I abandoned my marriage and fled to Praha.
Marisa always returned the same way we came. A few times, however, I continued after the clearing to a path that became increasingly twisty and overgrown. At one point, there is a sharp turn to the left (another nigh 180 degrees) though it is quite possible to continue straight - which I did one time, much to my increasing consternation. Thorned bushes whipped at my bare arms, aiming for my face and eyes, surely. Rotted trunks of giant tree-things crisscrossed the path, forcing me to climb, shimmy and scoot further on. I realized after quite a long time, perhaps as much as 30 minutes or five days or even a whole epoch, that I had made a wrong “turn” and had to double back. As the stunted one says: fun!.
I always had the wish, in fact, that the stunted one accompany me on this back trail and we with us had a wad of marijuana, puffing as we strolled, speaking of absurdities and the fact that we’d never make it back after the totality of epochs under the reign of the elements.
Speaking of Praha and specifically Velká Chuchle, portions of the “Pinar” reminded me of the ascent on another dirt track, potted from rain and combustible goats, namely in, well, Velká Chuchle. It’ll be an ascent I’d like to once more take soon.
