Man, have I got a story for you! I just had the most interesting and adventurous day in about 6 years! Let me explain…
It all started last Monday when I started going to a very lively and Spirit-filled parish near our house. It reminds me a lot of St. Mary’s back in College Station…lots of youth, simple but beautifully done daily Masses, and lots of seminarians! From this particular parish, there are 8 seminarians currently studying for the diocese of Madrid. On Monday, despite having just met them, several of the seminarians invited me to go and watch a movie with them. Even though I was hesitant because of the language, I went anyways and understood basically everything from the Pirates of the Caribbean. Nice guys, too.
Fast forward to Friday afternoon: one of the seminarians, Arturo, a tall, lanky guy about 21 in his 4th year of seminary, comes and asks me if I would like to ‘go up to the mountains with them for the night.’ Without much explanation as to the details, I said: ‘Sure! Why not?” So they picked me up at 10PM with my bag full of swimming trunks, water, and a little pizza left over that I found in the house. At first it was just me and Arturo, but soon we picked up one of his friends from college, Luis-Miguel (Luismi), and then one more, Alfredo. Both seemed like really likable guys, brimming with energy but very obviously attached to their Catholic faith. Good guys..
So, up we go into the mountains by car until we get to a lake (this is 11PM, by the way) and park the car to find a place to camp out on the beach. After marching up and down the deserted beach for a little while, we finally found a nice place in a grove of trees to pitch camp. Oh, and ‘pitch camp’ just means lay out a sleeping bag on the ground! Anyway, we messed around on the beach for a while before finally getting in our sleeping bags around 1AM. Remember, this is ALL IN SPANISH and these are young guys speaking extremely rapidly with their own mannerisms and expressions!! My poor little mind just couldn’t take it anymore. At one point, one of the guys asked me something and even though I understood, I couldn’t get a coherent word out. After that I just sort of passed out.
The next morning around 7:30, I woke up to several fishermen with their rod-and-reels strung out all over the beach. The other guys were still sleeping pretty hard so I just left them to go pray a little while in the woods. After they had woken up, we had some cold pizza for breakfast (they really didn’t know what to think about that!) and I realized that my capacity for comprehension of the language was much improved. Satiated and ready for more adventure, we packed up in the car and headed up to a famous basilica/royal palace situated at the base of the mountains. San Lorenzo del Escoriál is a major tourist attraction in these parts and deserves all of the attention it gets. Beautiful and peaceful, it is a monstrosity of a monastery and sports works from masters like El Greco and one of the largest collections of relics in the world! (Relics are the bones of holy men and women of the Catholic Church.)
The altar of San Lorenzo del Escorial (Saint Lawrence of the Skewer...roughly)
We wandered around for an hour or so before mounting up again and heading in search of something called ‘the Chair of King Phillip II’. Now, by this point I had realized that my companions had given me very little information mostly because they had none themselves. They were simply looking for adventure! Luckily, I am pretty spontaneous when I want to be so things were working out fine. :) Once again without much information, we headed up the mountain and asked directions from a couple of old guys who looked pretty local. Having finally found the park and knowing full-well that we could have driven all the way up the mountain, we parked the car and set out on foot. Once again, luck won out and we took all the right turns to arrive at the seat after only 25-30 minutes of hiking. You can see for yourself below how beautiful the view was!
Next, we got back to the car and started heading down the mountain. Somewhere along the way my newfound friends realized that we came to the mountains and slept next to a lake without getting wet at all; therefore, it was decided that we stop along the road in order to hike down to the river. This is where things got hairy.. There was absolutely no trail and the brush reminded me of the mesquites near San Angelo, Texas: thick and not very forgiving. After several near misses with sliding down the steep embankment, we made it to the water after ANOTHER 30 minute hike, this time filled with thorns. The water was slightly brackish but after that grueling descent we weren’t about to turn around dry so we got in and swam for a little while. To be honest, that was the first time in a year that I have been swimming! I needed that!
Now, to return to the car from the way we came would have been absurd so we found another way around and made it up the hill in only 5 minutes…a route we wished we had known about before…
Back in the car and thinking ‘Finally, this fun but exhausting adventure is over!’, I was surprised to hear that one of the guys had a friend throwing a barbeque nearby! Without much choice but excited to meet more Spaniards, I agreed and we went to his friend’s house. There were several young people hanging around, cooking and swimming (in water even more green than the river we had just exited…), so we introduced ourselves and kicked back with some excellent barbeque and a nice glass of Sangria!
After about an hour of relaxing we decided to head home. However, not before visiting a convent in which lived a friend of another one of the guys!! One more adventure to go! We found the convent and knocked on the door. Someone let us in but there was no one to greet us…we just kind of hung around for a while (it was a huge complex, actually) until the two friends (both in full habit!) came out and talked to us for a while. They invited us to pray with them for a while and we entered the chapel full of young, vibrant nuns. A beautiful sight!
Finally finished with our adventures, we headed home, praying a rosary to finish off a beautiful, enjoyable, and slightly unexpected trip with some great newfound friends! Oh, and my Spanish did improve a little bit! :)
