Aaron Hikes Up Tibidabo Alone...Almost a Good Idea

Here at home, the job search is in full swing. In other news...

Last Thursday after class I decided to walk up Tibidabo Mountain by myself. It's a 512-meter tall mountain (thats about 1600-1700 feet) that overlooks Barcelona and the sea, and there's some interesting attractions on top, including an amusement park.

That's a view from the top, with the Temple de Sagrat Cor towering over the amusement park. That picture is an Aaron Dorman original, btw. Spoiler alert: I make it to the summit.   

Tibidabo can be seen from any part of the city and it looks deceptively close to get to. However, to actually get to the top of the mountain, you have use 3 different kinds of public transportation. By the time I got to the foot of the mountain, 2 of those options were closed. (As you may or may not recall from an earlier blog post, you take a train which arrives at a former brothel, and the science museum, but not at the mountain itself).  However, being as I only have a few days left here, and I had spent some time getting to the mountain in the first place, I decided to try and travel as far as I could go on foot.

This started out as a spectacular idea. I will start off by saying that I highly highly highly recommend anyone to try and to try to at least walk up to the second funicular (that will almost make sense if you know the area). To start off, I was following the track of the first cable car, which wasn't running, and as it wound slowly up the hill, I discovered some beautiful homes that I couldn't afford, as well as a spectacular little park which I could afford (it was free). Set against the side of the hill is this tiny park, the "Parc de la Font del Raco," which offers some very excellent views of the city as well as some interesting varieties of flora (just one type of fauna, it looks like, the kind with opposable thumbs). There's a picture of what it looks like inside the park on the immediate right.

Here's another picture of a view of Barcelona from the park:

That's Montjuic in the background; you can just make out the Palacio Nacional and the white needle sticking out is the Montjuic Telecommunications Tower designed by Calatrava. It's supposed to be shaped like an Olympic athlete holding a flame. I have some close ups for the next blog post. That's neither here nor there.

Once I arrived at the second funicular, also closed, I took a break and spent 45 minutes on a lovely terrace sipping an excellent mojito and taking pictures of myself in the bathroom mirror.

I was having fun. Finally, at around six in the evening, I decided to make my up to the top of Tibidabo, with my ultimate goal being the Torre Collserola, a giant tower with an observation deck.

The first leg of the journey was a little sketchy. I took a heavily wooded path which was clearly marked for travelers but was fairly narrow. It lead past some kind of animal shelter, when I happened upon some wild boars. They were grazing but there were about five of them and they were very large. I walked slowly past them and they ran away when I got too close. More on the wild boars later.

Anyway, after about a minute I wandered on a path that wound along the edge of the mountain, and this was far less suspcious, as there were suddenly quite a few people walking along, and some bikers as well, although most people were going in the opposite direction as me (down the mountain). Also, the trees disappeared and gave way to spectacular views of the city below. Here are some pictures I took while walking up:

 After about an hour walking up, I noticed the shadows beginning to creep down the mountain:

At this point I was determined to go as far up as I could, and after another another I finally made it all the way up to the Torre Collserola:

That's a view looking straight up. So ends the hike up the mountain and the "good" part of the journey. Even though the tower was closed, I had enjoyed a good two hours walking up the mountain and feeling adventurous, taking in the scenery along the way and sweating a lot. I also was feeling very good about myself, having "discovered" the path up.

 Then, at around this time, with dusk settling in, I got lost. My original goal was to try to take a taxi back down if I was too tired to retrace my steps, and I was. I had been lugging my school bag around the whole time, I didn't bring any food or water with me, and I was operating on 4 hours of sleep. After I left the Torre Collserola, I began walking down the road on top of the mountain, and for the next 90 minutes, I did not see another human being.

I'm not sure what my expectations were, but Tibidabo is dead on a Thursday night. Like Osama bin Laden dead. No people, no bikes, no cars, only a few scattered homes here and there. I passed the trail that lead down to the observatory. I tried to make it up to where the amusement park and the Temple Sacre Cor were, but I couldn't figure out how to get there, which was odd, because at a certain point I was walking next to the fence enclosing the park; I could see red train tracks winding around on the other side. However, I missed the road that went there, but even so, there were no taxis or vehicles of any kind about anyway, so getting to the entrance of the park would have been futile.

Having wandered signicantly further afield, at this point I encountered another wild boar. Up until this point, it hadn't occured to me that as this was a large, mostly undeveloped mountain, and that there would be animals wandering at night. I only freaked out a little. The wild boar was on the other side of a fence, but began following me as I walked down the road. We both broke into a run. The wild boar jumped over the fence and then ran across the road, away from me, but I still was running, until I found a trail which looked like it went down the mountain.

After walking down for about twenty minutes, the trail stopped and I panicked. I was stuck on top of a mountain with a legion of wild boars. They were much bigger than me, all one had to do was ram into me at 1/2 speed and that would probably do me in. For the next 20 minutes, I was retracing my steps, making a lot of noise, all the while thinking how obvious a target I was making myself to predators and how long it would take anyone to find me out here. My phone wasn't working.

I was about reading to start knocking on the doors of the isolated homes on top of the mountain, one house at a time, trying to explain my situation in bad Spanish to them. This, and all the preceeding panicking, was in the end completely unnecessary as I finally found a path that was parallel to the funicular, at around 9 pm.

I'm not sure where they came from, but there were actual people walking down this trail. This was a very welcome sight; if any wild boars were around, they would at least have to make a choice about dinner. The rest of the walk down was relatively uneventful, although I had to duck out of the way for a cyclist who was wheeling down the mountain. I was able to make it safely down the mountain and back to safety; I took the last bus from the funicular down to where the train station was, and stopped feeling like I was about to die at any moment.

Here is a picture of the bus:

 On the way back down, I also tried to take a picture of the wild boars that were hanging around the animal shelter. This is the best I got, probably because I was afraid to look any of them in the eye, or use the flash:

In summary, climbing up Tibidabo is a GREAT idea for anyone who wants to experience Barcelona often the somewhat-beaten path, but some words of caution, learned from experience:

*don't go at night
*don't go alone
*don't go on weekdays when everything closes at 5 pm
*don't get lost
*bring water
*watch out for wild boars