Sierra de Gredos (August 29-September 1)

On Friday August 29th, a small group headed out to Candelucia, a small town in the Sierra de Gredos region. The ENTIRE trip was a surprise, none of us had any idea what we were getting ourselves into. Our tour guides were Hamish and Francois.

On the way to the town we stopped to do a little sightseeing at Avila. There we went inside the Catedral de Salvador and then walked around the walls. It was SO high up on the walls and sometimes the steps seemed a little unstable but it was a beautiful view. The amazing part was seeing something that has so much history to it.

Then we were back on the bus for another two hours until we reached the hostel. When we did get there we were able to stay in room of 2 with girls on one floor and guys on the other and then had a traditional dinner around 10 o'clock. I am having a hard time adjusting to a late dinner for sure, but I definitely eat whatever is set in front of me when it is dinner time. Saturday morning we woke up and had a simple breakfast and split up into 2 groups. One went rock climbing while the other we biking. These SEEM like simple plans for the day, but NOTHING was simple.
So the rock climbing was first and the bus drove us up to a certain point where we then had to get out and walk the rest. Being on buses with a cliff on one side and a mountain on the other was not very pleasurable for me. So here are the pictures:

I went up that rock SO fast and I was definitely shaking at the top. The rock climbers at the top kept saying "that looked easy for you!" and I just wanted to go down. It was SO high up and when you looked down it was straight down. I actually went up 3 times all together. It was fun, but I was shaking every time. I found out that I am a little scared of heights...like my dad. The first picture on the top left was where we started the rock climbing too, so we had a hike up quite a ways before climbing up the vertical rock.
Next was mountain biking...EXTREME mountain biking. My legs have never worked so hard (and I am a runner...), nor have I ever been more scared for my life:

Most of the bike ride was spent walking our bikes up the mountain, and the almost ruining the breaks on the way down. I was the last one down the mountain, because I did not want to fall! It was so scary! On the path we were riding on there were rocks the size of my head and no matter how hard I would try to avoid them my wheels would just run directly into them. it was quite the experience. So that night was pretty painful as we were all sore from the activities earlier that day, only to find out there was a 5-6 hour hike the next day, or so we thought!
The hike actually took 8-9 hours...Francois (the guide) divided it into sections for us. There was the up the hill, the top of the hill, the valley, the forest, then the trek:

The hike up the mountain was steep and tiring, i think we took about three breaks, and the bus dropped us off half of the way up. Most of my pictures are from the top of the mountain. The top right picture is when we finally reached the summit. Notice how the picture shows us, then the clouds, then Candelucia. We hiked along the top of the mountain and rested every once in a while. The top right picture is what we saw after walking on top of the mountain. The rocks were SO large and made us all feel so small and insignificant (in a good way). So we hiked along the trail that was marked (I swear I only saw maybe 3 markers) and by accident cornered a cow/bull...shown in the middle left picture. I have never been more scared in my life. I was just walking, looking down so i didnt trip, when I notice everyone in front of me backing up and turning around. Then i see the cow/bull closer than I ever wanted and watched it puts its head down and turn toward our group. We all ran to the closest rock which was sloped upward and barely higher than the ground itself. So while up on that tiny rock filled with about 8-9 people I decide to take out my camera and take a picture (I still do not know what i was thinking). But now I have proof to show you all. After that experience we stayed a far distance from the cows. The last three pictures shown were right before we entered the forest part of our hike. It was a pretty incredible view. So then started the way down and I was begging for it to be over, because actually, before the forest, we had to walk through a bunch of bushes for an hour and my legs were all scratched up. Then the forest came and I couldn't believe some of the maneuvers people were making to stay in site of the people in front of them. Finally there was the trek which was not bad after everything else we had endured. They promised us swimming at the end of the hike, but we actually were not allowed, so Hamish and Francios took us to the town pool. But by that time everyone on the bus was asleep.

The last day, before they would take us back to Madrid, we were going canoing. Not back. Hamish said it was a pretty slow river and should be pretty relaxing. Unfortunately I do not have pictures because I didn't want to risk my camera getting wet. The canoing was fun, Ashley and I shared a canoe and managed pretty well. Toward the end of the trip though, there happened to be a waterfall. So the guides sent us one at a time down the falls which was about 6 feet high. It was actually pretty fun. Our canoe didn't tip over, but many of the others did. After canoing we ate a traditional Spanish lunch and headed home. I was happy with the trip I chose, I made a lot of friends and did some things I never imagined I would do in Spain.