December 2006
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Day December 26, 2006

Day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

Our cameras were packed for our trek back to Restanca. We were in a hurry, not only to finish our hike and get the T-shirt we’ve been working our aSses for the last seven days, but we also had to catch the last bus back to Barcelona at 1pm. When we woke up at Ventosa the next morning, it was snowing. We trudged in the snow on the lookout for trail markers. Most of them were already buried in white, but we persevered even though the Dr. was bleeding from the chafing of his wet pants to his knees.

At Restanca, we received our tenth and last stamp on our forfait. One of the staff members handed us our T-shirts without any fanfare. I didn’t even care that the only size available was an extra large. We got out of there with fire in our pants and hiked for another hour to catch the cab waiting at the foot of the mountain that took us to the bus station.

Video diary, day 7: Surviving the Catalan Pyrenees

Aboard the six-hour bus ride back to the city, the Dr. and I would occasionally look at each other in disbelief. What were we doing for seven days in the mountains? Did we really get lost twice? What would have happened if we didn’t serendipitously find the house of the Long Island man? What if we didn’t get out of the forked road to Estanc Llong?

We had three days left on our vacation to contemplate all those questions. At the moment, Barcelona and civilization were waiting.

Related post/s:
Photos of Ventosa back to Restanca on Flickr
Our reward was waiting in Barcelona
Video courtesy of Tripfilms.com

Harlem Tamales

Corner of 145th Street and Edgecombe Avenue
no phone number
$1 for each tamale

The Dr. texted me at 7am, an ungodly hour, to let me know that the tamales lady was there. It took me another 30 minutes to get out of bed and put on my jeans over my pajamas. I schlepped over to 145th Street, half awake, to finally buy the tamales the Dr. has been curious about since he started his commute to the hospital earlier this year. I was going to be his test case: try the tamales and let him know how they taste so he can buy them on his own. Man, I don’t even wake up at 7:30 to go to work, but I’ve also been curious ever since he told me about the lady in the corner selling tamales from her cooler every morning. I go the other way for my own commute so I never see her, but if I didn’t do it today, I’d certainly won’t do it when it’s the dead of winter.

I crossed the street and held out my hand with the peace sign. Dos. She asked, Verde? With Mexican food, if there is green, there must be red, so I said, Verde y rojo, por favor. She opened her cooler and revealed a whole trove of steaming corn husks, grabbed two tamales and wrapped them in aluminum foil and handed them over to me in exchange for $2. I walked back home, sat at the kitchen counter and started eating breakfast. I don’t have tabasco sauce but I have some piri-piri, a Portuguese chili, to dot them and add a little kick. In Mexico, we ate a few tamales from the Zócalo. I’m more than 2,000 miles from the ciudad today but these tamales were comparable, if not better. The corn meal was so fine it melted in my mouth. There was even more chicken meat in this Harlem version, and thankfully, they were boneless. (Some vendors get lazy and put chicken wings in there!) Overall, a pretty good breakfast before 8am.