8. Paradise Climbed

We started our trek inland, walking up the narrow roads of the neighborhood where the actual residents of La Gomera lived. The houses followed the natural elevation and contours of the ever-rising landscape. Halfway up one of these quiet, winding roads Cerstin turned left and began climbing up a wide set of stone steps that ran along side one of the houses.
“Where are you going?” I asked. Not so much for the sake of conversation or to really question her actions: though I did wonder why she was heading that way. I was really just trying to catch my breath. We had been walking uphill for the better part of, let’s see… Oh, Lord…8 minutes.
“See that mark?” She pointed to a slash of red paint above a slash of white paint: together about the size of a pack of cigarettes for those of you that still remembers what that is.
“That’s the trail marker.” Sure enough, someone had painted this symbol on the stone wall running besides the steps. How she found that in the first place is beyond me but it none-the-less appeared as if our hike was officially beginning.

At the top of the stairs the walkway veered sharply to the left and immediately turned into a rock-strewn path cut into the side of a mountain.
“This is it huh?” I confirmed, “Let’s get at it.” That was said more to motivate me than to impress Cerstin. So up we climbed. On and on. A series of seemingly endless switchbacks. The hard packed gravel had now given away to large rocks and small boulders that were often covered with a thin crust of very slippery (as I found out the hard way) crushed lava.

Although it hadn’t seemed like a particularly hot day when we began our "hike", as Cerstin still wistfully referred to it, I was sweating profusely. The sunscreen that I had rubbed all over my bald pate was now streaming down my face and burning my eyes. Shouldn’t they test this stuff on rabbits before letting me slather it on? It got so bad that I took off my T-shirt and wrapped it on my head like a turban. It stopped “die Sonnencreme” from blinding me but now I was over-heating.

To make matters worse I was, by this time, breathing very heavily: or more correctly, I needed to breathe heavily but didn’t want Cerstin to think that I was having trouble. So instead, I sucked in short little breaths and blew them quickly out again, until I realized that this was putting me on the verge of hyperventilating. My next tack was to pretend to be yawning so that I could pull in a lot of air, which, incidentally, was getting thinner with every step.

A mild sense of panic arose when I realized that my left arm was going numb. Let’s see; shortness of breath, blurry vision, hot flashes, numbness… I my God! Either I’m having a stroke or I’m pregnant. I can’t feel my left arm. I pump my fist hoping to get some circulation going and I feel pressure building in my wrist. I look down and confront the cause of my discomfort. I had fastened my watch too tightly. What was I wearing a watch for anyway? And so it went for the next two hours.

We met a German woman who was descending the trail. Everyone on this God-forsaken slagheap was German. They live for this stuff. This might be a casual walk in the park for the descendants of the Teutonic Order but for someone from L.A. who takes his car to the end of the driveway to check his mail it bordered on a death march. I instinctively knew that Cerstin asked the woman if we were almost to the top.

“Nein”

You didn’t need to understand a word of German to know that that wasn’t the response you were hoping for. So up we went. Occasionally a family of freshly scrubbed, rosy-cheeked Germans would skip deftly down the path on their way back from the top. “Guten tag” they would sing out. The underlying message was. “Isn’t it great to be German and climbing a mountain?” They looked as casual and at ease as the Von Trapp family crossing the Alps in “The Sound of Music”.

Worse yet was being over taken by a couple of lesbians in their late 50’s; in their shorts and hiking boots, trudging ahead like a machine, an aluminum walking stick in each hand. I encouraged Cerstin to go on ahead but she said that the rule of the mountains was, never leave the slow person behind. Apparently the mountains have rules. I was certain that I would eventually be lapped by a cloister of nuns or a Girl Scout troop from Bavaria. I was way past the point where my pride got in the way. I was going to die here on this mountain and that was that.

Finally, at the 2 1/2 hour mark we stepped off the trail and came to a wide, rolling tableau. I’m not 100% certain what a tableau is but I think this was one. We still hadn’t crested the top but we no longer had to deal with the hellish switchbacks. Now it was just a wide, meandering path stretching out ahead and leading to the ridge of the mountain. At least now we could see our goal. In fact, the vista from up here was so stunning that I momentarily forgot that my heart was saying, “What the #*@! are you trying to do to me?”

We donned our jackets, as we were no longer protected from the wind by the side of the mountain. We pushed on; past the ruins of several small domiciles built from mortar-less stones. I can’t imagine who would have lived up here but they certainly had a great view. When we finally reached the top we discovered that it wasn’t so much a summit as it was a ridgeline that ran further along this range. Some poor public servant had erected a geographical marker on the highest point. We used that as our final destination.

Cerstin said that she needed to powder her nose. That statement was all the more out of place in our current environ because A) She actually said, “I have to go powder my nose” and 2) We were on top of a very cold, wind-swept mountain. Undeterred, she wandered off to seek some privacy behind an outcropping of rocks and what few bushes clung to life in this area. As I sat at the base of the marker I began to hear bells. Not like church bells or the alarm on a hospital heart monitor: although God could certainly be calling me home at any minute. Then, from over the ridge wandered two baby goats. Got to say it: They were awfully cute. They almost looked like the claymation goats from “The Little Drummer Boy”, that holiday classic from the 60’s, brought to you by the same folks that gave us “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.” They must have assumed that I was German, for who else would be up here where only goats go? They paid me no mind when I walked right up to them and took a picture.

Cerstin returned and we decided to seek a windbreak while we rested a bit and refueled before heading back. We found the collapsed wall of some long forgotten dwelling and managed to stay in the sun and out of the wind. I laughed out loud when I thought of the only German phrase that Tom knows, which is, “Die sonne ist heisse aber der wind ist cool.” Which means, the sun is hot but the wind is cool.

I asked Cerstin if she was ready for a banana. I know that I was famished. I unzip my bag. Hum…. Maybe in the pocket where the mouse and cables go…. Uh oh.
“Cerstin…you didn’t put the bananas in my bag did you?” I’m guessing by her icy stare that the answer is No. That would have been on my “to do” list. So, here we were, hunkered down on the summit of a mountain without any provisions. I have visions of catching a goat to at least get some milk and cheese. The way my luck is going these two are probably male. It hardly matters as I’m more convinced than ever that I’m going to die on this mountain. If the climb doesn’t kill me then surely Cerstin will.

My saving grace the whole way up was, the hard part’s almost over. Now that we were at the top it’s downhill all the way to the apartment. No one ever mentioned that the descent was the most difficult and technically challenging part. All the travails heretofore mentioned were multiplied by a factor of six. Actually the number six was a random choice on my part. I could have said multiplied a thousand times
but you would have seen through that hyperbole. Going down, your weight and mass are working against you. Your thighs clinch with every step. You have to carefully and deliberately pick every step you take to assure that the rocks don’t slide out form under you. I developed a kind of sideways, crab-style walk. I figured if I ever slid out with my leading leg (and I did) I would at least have an uphill leg to try and recover with. Cerstin used the “walk straight ahead” technique and I can’t honestly say that either worked better than the other. I’ll spare you the bulk of the trauma. Suffice it to say that we made it down safely; cramped calves, scraped knees, bruised butts and all.

Once safely down at sea level we stopped at a roadside restaurant and sat out on the patio that overlooked the ocean. After the banana incident we were famished so we had a late lunch and a couple of drinks. One of the specialties in the Canary Islands is small, boiled potatoes. They are usually pre-salted. After a hard climb it felt and tasted good to replenish some lost carbs. We had already made plans to have dinner with Ule and Radiger but we had to eat now. That evening we all walked down to La Playa. We all ordered seafood. Ule and Cerstin split a couple of bottles of wine while Radiger and I stuck with beer. On the way back to Vueltas we stopped at a bar called Tascas for a couple of rounds of some island drink. It was sort of like a Long Island Ice Tea.

By now the guys and I were close chums. They praised me as such a great guy and took turns ragging on Cerstin. Ule said that I was welcomed to visit him and his family anytime, with or without Cerstin. At one point when Cerstin and Radiger were talking Ule told me how lucky Cerstin was to know someone like me. As is often the case when I am with Europeans the talk turned to politics and history. Both subjects I feel I can hold my own in. They said that they had a bias against Americans before they met me but that they had been forced to reconsider their feelings. I assured them that we weren’t all “Ugly Americans” but added that if it made them feel better there were plenty of ignorant ones around.

Naturally, no evening with a German would be complete without the traditional absucher; or one for the road, so we went to yet another bar where we had three for the road. Cerstin and Ule got into what looked like a deep philosophical discussion. They were speaking German and had that glassy-eyed look and the stooped posture that drunken college kids get when they think they are solving the world’s problems.

We all walked back to our respective apartments and said goodnight. Cerstin couldn’t open the downstairs door: nor could I. The key kept spinning in the lock. Eventually the click. click. click of the tumblers woke up the landlord and he opened the door for us. I’m guessing that he wasn’t all that thrilled, standing there as he was in his wife-beater t-shirt and boxer shorts at 2:30 in the morning. We muttered “Gracias” and clumped upstairs. My calves were screaming. As soon as we got inside the apartment Cerstin fell into the bathroom and got sick. When she came out I steered her toward the bedroom, undressed her, and put her in the bed. I went out to the other room and curled up on the couch.

That exercise in chivalry lasted about 20 minutes. I was much too big and it was way too uncomfortable. I went back to the bedroom and fell into the other bed. I was asleep before I hit the pillow.