April 21, 2008
Camping in Covadonga
Sporadic decisions always lead to the best stories. This was the case last week, the weekend of the 11th, when we decided that we should go on a camping excursion in the Picos de Europa. We decided this late at night while playing ping pong. Our adventure would commence with the 10:00 bus in the morning. It was a rushed morning. I woke up, showered, ate breakfast, tried my best to explain to Doris what I was about to do and tried to acquire the necessary equipment for camping in the mountains. I actually didn’t acquire the necessary equipment for camping in the mountains. Not a big deal though. Sleeping bag? Who needs one? Blanket - check, layers, two pairs of socks…problem solved. Doris still seemed worried. After stuffing my bag with all that I could, I ran to the bus station. I always seem to underestimate the amount of time it takes to get to the bus station. I did make it on time but I was surprised to find I was not that last of the trio to arrive. Kevin and I stalled the bus until Eric came sprinting up. He had to pick up two cans of fabada for the trip. Sometimes you have to use the confused foreigner card. At any rate, we all made it on the bus and we were off. We arrived in Covadonga around noon and somehow befriended a small, English, hobbit looking character also heading into the mountains. For some reason, he thought that we knew where we were going. He didn’t last long on our excursion. We actually just went to the bathroom and he was gone. Anyway, we had a look on the map and then started off. It was a pretty grueling start of a hike. It was an extremely steep switchback that lasted for nearly an hour. Once we reached the top of the switchback, we stopped to have lunch outside a super cool cave that starts the stream that shoots out a waterfall under the church in a cave in Covadonga. Following lunch we marched on while singing songs, telling jokes, throwing rocks, taking pictures, and other normal hiking stuff. This was the part of the journey Kevin and Eric learned of my powerful opera voice. We came to a split in the trail and we took a little rest to figure out which way to go. Kevin and I were sitting sipping on water while Eric was checking some alternative route. When Eric came running down the steep extremely muddy terrain and tried to stop, well, he fell and it was hilarious. His face was priceless during the entire thing. He wasn’t too happy about being muddy but it was fun for Kevin and me. We kept on trekking and kept on noticing that there were large rainclouds following us the entire time. We decided to start looking for a flat place to camp that might have some tree cover since our tent was only “semi water-resistant.” Which I think means “you will probably be very wet in the rain.” Eric and Kevin bought this tent for like 15 euros at Carrefour. Probably not the best tent in the world but we were hoping it would suffice. They had actually never even opened it up to see if all the parts were there or how big it was. This was not reassuring to me. Especially when they told me it was more or less a 2 person kid’s tent. Let’s just we got to know each other that night. We did find a great place to sleep and it had an incredible view of the Picos. The mountains were extremely snow covered and were an amazing sight. We set up camp, made a fire with wet firewood and cooked our fabada. I say this quickly when in reality it was not a quick process. We were extremely thorough about clearing a spot for our top, including collecting leaves to put down as bedding underneath our tent. Well, we only collected enough for ones elbow – the leaves weren’t that plentiful. Finding dry firewood was also a bit of a challenge since it had rained quite a bit in the previous days. Eric showed us what boyscouts was all about and explained to us how about we needed to create greater surface area on the wood so we could break the surface tension of the water and thus make the wood burn. It took a little while but it worked. It was really nice to have a fire even though it is pretty illegal in Spain (lots of wildfires). Needless to say, we were very careful and had a delicious warm dinner of Fabada. After dinner it started raining pretty hard so we went to the tent to sleep which was another task. This tent was so small. We honestly were like sardines. I was in the middle since I didn’t have a sleeping bag and we decided that we should alternate the ways our bodies were facing to maximize the space. My head was at their feet and vice versa. It actually worked, although, we could only move as one unit. This was fine until you had a cramp. Ouch. So we “slept” until about 2 when we all woke up and admitted that each of us had probably only slept 20min out of the 4 hours in bed (at least that’s how I was). I turned up my iPod and we listened to music for a while and eventually drifted off a bit. It was probably about 4a.m. when I was really about to get into some good sleep when I heard some rustling outside. I quickly turned off my iPod and saw that Eric had heard the same thing. We both had terrified looks on our faces because it wasn’t just rustling but rather footsteps. Being that we were camping illegally we were terrified that it was a human. We thought it might be an upset farmer coming to teach us a lesson or a ranger to arrest or something to that nature. We heard it right beside our tent and then make its way over to our fire and start, what sounded like, scraping at our cans of fabada. Eric woke up Kevin to inform him of the human situation and immediately his heart started racing in time with ours. At that moment, the “human” started coughing, almost in pain, in a way that no human could possibly cough and believe me Eric has tried to recreate it! It was the most terrifying noise we had ever heard. We had no idea what sort of creature could make that noise. It was completely foreign to us and we were completely terrified. It just kept making this coughing/panting noise, almost in pain that sounded like a cross between a petrified E.T. and a Velociraptor. It just kept making the noise. Then the noise started moving incredibly fast and started bouncing around like it was bounding in 15ft increments down the mountain. It was moving much faster than a human could move. It was also going down the mountain, which was a steep rocky terrain. Finally, the noise stopped. We were just stunned. We could not believe what we just heard and the guys will claim that my legs were shaking. I will defend myself and say that my legs were cold (no sleepingbag), but I will admit I was scared! We were all scared. It was such a bizarre sound. It will still echo in my ears! We got ourselves calmed down and then got a few more hours of sleep. What a long night. In the morning we examined the camp for any signs of what it might have been and really didn’t find any prints or anything like that, although, we did find that Kevin’s bag had been moved. His bag was about a foot from our tent and he said he had it upright the night before with the spoon we used for the fabada on top of it. The bag was knocked over and the spoon was gone. We examined our sight more and found the spoon 30ft away next to the fire and empty cans of fabada. Whatever that creature was, it had somehow picked up our spoon and used to it to scrape the cans of fabada (we had heard the scraping). This means that this creature most likely has opposable thumbs. Cave creature? Who knows? I began developing a theory of what might have occurred that dark rainy night. I think that the “creature” smelled our food or saw our fire and came up to our sight past our tent where it smelled the spoon we used for the fabada. It then took the spoon and traced the smell to the empty cans. After disappointed with the cans it followed the scent to the fire where we cooked the fabada and where lots of the fat juice spilled out of the can into the fire. I think the “creature” started sniffing in the fire and got embers in its nose (we had covered the fire with a large rock to contain the fire and preserve some coals for the morning), hence the terrible coughing noise. Then when the pain got to be a bit much it just took off. I think it is plausible. The only question is what the “creature” actually was. We will never know. After getting our site cleaned up and kept on hiking all the while discussing what the heck happened the night before. We had so many theories and thought every footprint looked like a yeti’s. I think we have been calling it a yeti actually. Anyway, we eventually made it to our destination of two beautiful lakes high up in the mountains. We spent some plenty of time there and then got a ride back into town to take the bus back late that afternoon. What a camping trip.
