It was not really a trap, but a hike. A very unexpected hike, as my family decided that hiking was the best thing to do to get rid of camel-riding soreness. Tendilla is a small village in Spain, dating back from Medieval times. It holds a yearly traditional fair, there are some ruins and historical buildings… It also has a pine forest that was planted in order to control the soil that used to landslide onto the village, and back in the day, a sort of ‘emergency gorge’ was built, in order to channel water in case of a flash flood.

With the years, the pine forest grew. In the 1980s, it was really well-kept, but politics change, and the forest stopped being cleaned and taken care for. These days, the artificial gorge is overgrown with plants and only some dams are seen. Recently, people from the village have tried to create a few hiking routes throughout it, using the fountains and streams that spring as landmarks, called the “Fountain Route” Ruta de las Fuentes. These fountains are old watering holes that were refurbished and some of them re-decorated recently.

The ground was covered with fallen leaves, the sky was bright blue, and the moss was growing – moss takes a long time to grow, so it’s protected. For a while, it was endangered in the area, but now it seems to be doing much better. Unfortunately, both leaves and moss were humid and frosty (literally) – and my shoes were definitely not waterproof.

I was very happy when we walked out of the forest and into the trail where the sun was shine. We hiked up to see the brand-new weather vane Veleta, from where we could see the whole village and actually watch sunset, as these days the sun sets early. Then we walked back to the village, not before catching some fallow deer hoof prints, and getting hung on hunting for gypsum crystals, something I used to love when I was a child.

Afterwards, we just sat down to chat and eat leftover Christmas food until it was time to go back home. Not the most exciting thing, one might think, but I had a lot of fun.