Catalunya is an arid place, particularly this time of year. Mid-summer, the chart of sunup and sundown tracks the volume of breeze to stillness, the world’s big breath, maps the rise and fall of temperature which rarely varies from day to day, and over all or under all the heavy mass of heat that never threatens rain, that watches us all wandering from home to work to home again, from beach to plaza to rambla to bed.

A friend from the community garden once told me (as he carried another tank of water from the public fountain to slake the thirst of his planted vegetables) that every year it rains less in his country. I guess that remains to be seen, though this season would be poster child for chronic drought. Glad there are rivers, glad the culture is not as consumptive as California, glad the roots are so deep in the land and in history that the big old trees keep growing, keep leafing out, and keep giving grapes and olives.

On the weekend of my birthday, Catalina and I wanted to leave the city for a while, and chose a day trip to the ancient monastic site of Montserrat. Built into a high wedge of remarkable geology, the monastery has been around, in various forms of occupancy, siege, forced abandonment, destruction and rebuilding since the middle of the seventh century.

“Montserrat des de Manresa” by Josep Renalias – Own work.
Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons.

There are no other mountains in the area quite like this. At a distance the skeletal remain of an ancient Titan, up close a family of monolithic stone spirits guarding (or at least overlooking) a spiritual sanctuary, this singular ridge has called to early orders of seekers to sit up there among them. If the region were more barren or dispopulated, it would bring to mind the southwest deserts of the United States; instead it is the tough remnant of an ocean bed, millions of years old, that simply refused to be worn completely away.

You can see through our train windows that the approach is green, but a dusty green, like sage leaf that seems infused with sand at its freshest; the train chugs rather vertically up the slopes from Monistrol de Montserrat, the probable service town that hugs the river far below; and the earth heaved upward ahead and above us is layered and aged, traces of water fallen lower and lower year by year into a river valley that the water itself has cut. Some plate tectonics lifted this section, and let that section drop, allowing the currents to make ring upon ring upon ring that bake under this Iberian sun. They’ve been baking for eons, had been baking when this monastery was founded, or when Barcelona was first peopled, or bake when Egypt was lush, who knows.

The train leaves you on a broad plaza, recently renovated, surrounded by new lodging for visitors, older lodging for the monastics, and the oldest walls of the sanctuary and spiritual pilgrimages – those that survived the repeated onslaught of time and human fundamentalism. So much had been destroyed, and so much rebuilt.

The monastery is tucked into a deep and steep valley down which a spring sends water in the summer, and in the winter, torrents pour in from the barren rock faces, at times flattening what had been carefully lifted stone by stone, this high about the towns and plains. Around on all sides, these towering Stone Spirits. They are giants, and it takes a supreme force of will (which I could not summon up) to imagine them anything but semi-benevolent spirits, either guiding or protecting, or frowningly observing the efforts of the little ephemeral ones scurrying about underfoot. It is truly a unique geology and geography, and wholly otherworldly.

There are centuries-old trails woven throughout the mountains, leading up and away to “Miradors” that look out over the hills and towns far below, or to huts and houses used by those whose spiritual journey involved seclusion. The train takes you either to the foot of these trails or, via another set of track, high above to where they summit; those whose joints are older or who have less physical capacity can nevertheless breath high air and embrace the kind of vista that the old monks worked so hard to define.

Photos and even video don’t give much perspective, neither visual nor historical; but they do offer seasoning for the imagination. Walking back the Miranda de Frá Garí (photos above), a somewhat crumbled stone stair that zig-zags the cliff face opposite the monastery, rising to dead-end in solid vertical rock a few hundred feet above, your trail walks at the feet of – or more realistically, hip-height to – several stone Watchers:

It must be the human heart reaches out and into the world around us, imbuing standing stone and living wood with spirit and hoped-for-sentience. The monks certainly did not build their retiro for convenience. I stand below the monolithic watcher of Friar Garí’s Vista and do not feel alone. Not sure what to make of the company: perhaps she is watching out over the plain below. But her gaze grazes the top of my head. I make a deep breath to take her in, or puff up enough to avoid being trodden on, and move along.

We walk higher along the road-wide trail toward the heights. The stones standing directly above the sanctuary and the Benedictine’s bells have in some recent past been given popular names, and looking back from where we’ve come (near one of the houses of recluse) some of the family members can be identified. From left to right, the Ganesha look-alike Elefante, the tall Múmia and next to him at chest-height the Mumette. A few other minor figures parade to the height to their right. Off the picture where the land falls (precipitously!) away to the right, partially protected by greenery, there is another retreat hut, which apparently can be reached by climbing a more or less natural ladder from the back of the monastery itself. To be explored on another visit.

At every turn there are forward and backward glances, and the higher we get, the broader that horizon, until at some point we stand on a pinnacle that offers up an entire circle of the world, shown here in panorama. Catalina is on another bit of rock, the monastery behind us appearing below her and to the left, the trail to the summit at center stage, and Barcelona, the Mediterranean coast and our cozy home somewhere in the blue distance at far left.

From my vantage point, the dry sea-bottom underfoot was poor home to vegetation, or home to poor but resilient vegetation, and fell away off the cliff face to the river-cut ridge beyond the valley, another ridge beyond that, and another and another… though we covered ourselves with sleeves and hats, and drank as much water as we could carry, the sun burned us dry, while the breeze from that vantage point was heavenly, strong and slightly cool, slightly salty from the sea.

We stopped at the summit where the funiculaire deposited and collected less ambitious (or less foolish) visitors and looked down the steep valley to the buildings below. It was getting toward evening, and the last ride down would depart in 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the somewhat inaccurate trail map showed a trail descending on the other side of the valley – though where they could fit a trail down that escarpment was not altogether clear. Go down? Or go on?

It was a question of water first, sun second, and strength third. We found water, we guessed on sun, and since the practical was apparently resolved, the infinite well of spirit poured strength into legs and stoked our interest. Vamanos? Vamanos.

The trail marking were rather unclear on this side of the ridge, and we made a false start that passed the poorly-marked descent, leading instead along a trail that led to the Stone Family. It was beautiful… and the sun was drooping. Day hikers were heading down in the opposite direction and happily pointed out the return trail, with vague instructions about vague trail junctions. The train had, by this point, departed, so we could have followed the hikers down along the tracks of the funiculaire… but that was neither attracted nor sporting, and now that we stood at the real trailhead downward, it was hard to resist.

I have enough experience mountaineering to know that the steep cliffs were going to reduce direct sunlight soon, and indirect sunlight later. The trip down would be faster, though, and 20 to 30 minutes of hiking (without unintended detours) would be enough to reach the plaza below. We dove in to the valley way, beautifully alone.

We passed the oldest recluse site, with its stone cisterns and rough-cut steps. We passed down body-wide stone ladders with rails that cut their way between towering stones. We made a (correct) guess at an unmarked trail crossing. We met a couple of meditation practitioners on their way up to somewhere for the night. We found more green and more life in the summer’s dry wash. The smell of ripening fig was brought up on the evening breeze. Wild flowers and berries prepared themselves for the harvest season, somehow, giving lie to what seemed barren. Bird song and swift among the near-permanently piled stones. The sun winked at the high horizon.

We arrived at the plaza with 20 minutes to spare for the last train to town. We bought tickets, sat in the air-conditioned seats, and watched the lifted, ancient walls slide by behind us, above us, and – some time in the near future – ahead as well.

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