We made it to Galicia! It’s sunny, beautiful and smells like home, quite literally. Last night after traveling all day in the bus, we arrived at Casa Ana to an amazing feast of “pimientos de padrón,” chorizo, tortilla española, y pan gallego. So delicious. Check out the pics below. Google “pimientos de padrón.” They are so tasty and really fun to eat. They are small sweet green peppers specific to this region and about 1 in 10 is spicy. So it’s kind of fun to see who will get the spicy one. The house is so beautiful. The rooms are amazing and walking inside feels like you’re going back about 500 years. Ana y Ana, the unbelievably gracious women who run this casa rural, have their own cows that provided us with the milk for our café this morning, homemade butter, and this awesome homemade spreadable cheese called “requesón.” Google that, too. It’s amazing. Kind of like a sweet spreadable sour cream. They also have their own honey, and about 5 different kinds of fruit trees in their garden that they make jams from. Of course this all seems perfectly normal to them, but so cool to all of us. We finished dinner around 10:30 last night (kind of the normal time to finish dinner here in Spain) and we all were really tired so we went to bed and the house was quiet about 15 minutes later. We definitely needed some energy as we decided to wake up a little earlier than planned so we could go to the national park a few miles away, a pristine protected forest in the province of A Coruña. Most definitely worth it! We met up with our guides, Juan and Rocío, who own their own guide business doing treks and kayak expeditions. Juan has lived in the park his entire life and it definitely shows. He taught us so many new things from natural remedies using local plants to how to trap a wild boar to how to make coal by digging a hole in the dirt and covering it with sticks and mud. Not sure we all will be practicing any of this at home, don’t worry. They led us on an 8km trek through the forest, which ended at a river where we picked up kayaks to finish the tour. After kayaking for an hour, we sadly had to say goodbye to Juan and Rocío so we could return home, freshen up a bit and move on to the city of Lugo, an old Galician city surrounded by a 2km Roman wall. That’s where we are right now. The contrast between the morning and evening is extraordinary. The street outside the café we are currently sitting in is teeming with cars, people, and commercial activity while this morning Juan promised us the only sounds were going to hear would be from any animal we might encounter. We’re definitely getting the best of both worlds here in Galicia. That’s it for now. The internet connection is kind of weak right here so I have tried to post pictures but have been unsuccessful. I will do so tomorrow so you can see what all the excitement is about. Ok, well we’re off right now to eat some “pulpo” with the group. Yup, Google that as well. I’ll let you know who is adventurous enough. All the best, Jordan and Uma
