The Perils and Pleasures of Time Travel

Last week I drove with F., and D., to the village of San Juan de Plan on the east side of Ordesa National Park.  San Juan de Plan is one of 3 small villages in the Valle de Gistain, which lies between Ordesa to the west and Parque Natural Posets-Maladeta to the east.  F. and D. have been working with the herders in this valley in the late 1970s and have a warm and close relationship with their local collaborators.  The valley is remarkable in that it has retained more of the traditional land management and husbandry practices, and hence a more traditional appearance of the landscape, than many other valleys in the Central Pyrenees. F. and D. thought it would be useful for me to visit the valley as a reference point to understand the other valleys where I will carry out my study, and it was.  When I say “traditional” I should qualify this a bit—it is easy for a foreigner, especially one from the US, to get caught up in the mists of history and imagine that the landscape is a medieval one to match the Romanesque churches or the ancient Roman footpaths. Actually, the landscape and practices have evolved and changed continuously, and the management system and landscape that is now perceived as “traditional” actually is only a remnant of the mid-20^th century.  Let me explain.

The slopes of this small valley are extremely steep, but have nonetheless been terraced for centuries.  Originally, these terraces were planted with cereal grains—wheat, rye, barley--and much later potatoes.  Livestock grazed on the crop aftermath and fertilized the fields with their manure.  Cultivation followed a cycle of planting and fallowing, so that only one side of the valley was planted in a given year and the other side was fallowed and available for grazing.  Beginning in the 1950s the cultivation of cereals  began to decline and the crop fields were converted to perennial meadows (“prados”) which are cut for hay and also grazed.  On the lower slopes of the valley these small meadows are enclosed with hedgerows or stone fences and are privately owned.  One producer usually possesses a series of these meadows in a progression up the side of the valley so that in spring they move their animals slowly upslope from one meadow to the next until they reach the communal summer pastures.  On the upper slopes, between the prados and the communal pastures, lie the “panares.”  The panares (named for the “pan” or bread that the grains provided) were also cropped for grains, and cultivation here continued after the lower fields had already been converted to meadows. Rights to cultivate the panares were individually owned, but the right to graze the aftermath was communal.  Thus, after the individual producer planted and harvested, the livestock of any villager was allowed to graze the stubble.  These fields remain unfenced and unenclosed, and enclosure is forbidden.  In several of the panares and prados we noticed wooden poles planted in the middle of the field and capped with an overturned bucket or empty feed sack.  This, F. explained, is a sign that indicates that the field is not to be grazed this year.  The panares are no longer cultivated, and now are used for hay and grazed in the autumn, under the same tenure regime (hay crop is individually owned and the grazing of aftermath is communal). 

Another aspect of the traditional landscape is the lopping of ash trees.  In San Juan de Plan, villagers still cut the branches of ash trees growing in and at the edges of their meadows to dry and feed to their livestock in winter.  This practice produces trees of an unusual form from the repeated lopping and re-sprouting—sort of like multiple lollypops on one stick—that are a characteristic of this cultural landscape.  Apparently this practice was once widespread throughout the central Pyrenees, but this is one of the last valleys where it is still carried out.

Although the community is traditional in some ways, it is also an engine of innovation and is recognized regionally for its commitment to sustainability.  The reason for our trip to San Juan de Plan was an upcoming event in Zaragoza where the herders of the entire valley will be awarded a prize by the Spanish Foundation for Ecology and Development, in recognition of their sustainable practices and maintenance of a vibrant cultural landscape.  F. and D. were making the visit to help the herders prepare their presentation for the award ceremony this week.  Like most communities of any size that have their act together, San Juan de Plan has several movers and shakers, including both natives of the village and outsiders who contribute their energy, skills and ideas.  One of the foremost indigenous innovators is the former mayor, a short, solid and energetic woman in her 60’s (I guessed).  When we met, J. was dressed in loose-fitting ankle-length military green trousers, a bright red tropical-looking shirt, and a pair of plastic gardening clogs.  Her chin-length grey hair was a bit unkempt and she peered at us intently through a pair of narrow spectacles perched on the bridge of her nose as she spoke with great animation. J. was clearly a fireball of energy and an effective squeaky wheel.  Forewarned of our impending visit, she had a large bag of produce ready to give F. and a pot of beans cooking to feed him, but we couldn’t stay.  She rattled off a list of complaints and requests in short order and sent us packing with the load of fresh vegetables from her garden and promises to return soon, make strategic phone calls to assist the local dance troupe in negotiating a performance, and help her locate a source for rye straw to weave large saucer-like baskets to place under potted plants. 

Another local engine is a couple originally from outside the village, R. and E.  R. is a musician who works as the community’s “animador cultural,” including helping with various projects and activities related to livestock, and his wife E. originally came to the valley to teach the local dialect, Chistavino.  Chistavino is a living language, one of many dialects (or, some would argue distinct languages) that evolved in each of the isolated Pyrenean valleys after the fall of the Roman Empire.  According to F., as Latin disintegrated or evolved following the withdrawal of Roman influence, it developed into many distinct dialects/languages in the different isolated Pyrenean valleys, one of which is Chistavino. During the meeting with the herders over lunch, I was frustrated not to understand much of the conversation swirling around me and chalked my lack of comprehension up to the background noise and my rusty Spanish.  Only later did I discover that my neighbors at the table were lapsing into Chistavino when they conversed among themselves—I didn’t understand not because my Spanish was poor, but because they were speaking in an entirely different tongue.  

Despite finishing off lunch with a strong coffee, I was certain that I would fall soundly asleep on the drive home, but it was not to be.  D. decided (I think for my benefit) that we should go home on a different route—through Ordesa National Park.  We turned off the mai” road into the Park and proceeded to wind along the River Vellos through a fantastic canyon of sheer limestone walls, populated with several endemic plant species found only growing on the sides of this canyon.  The one-lane, one-way road was carved into the canyon wall about half way between the roaring glacial stream at the canyon’s bottom and the canyon rim far above.  As D. and F. pointed out, the road was remarkable in how little it intruded in the canyon and how relatively little disturbance it had created to the surrounding splendor.  Although the road was paved and had a guard rail on the river side, it felt more like an old Roman road than a 20^th century one.  At one point, before the road climbed out of the canyon, D. insisted we park and walk a short distance down one of the footpaths towards a hermitage on the other side of the river.  Here, two foot bridges cross the river before the path heads up a tributary canyon towards one of the high passes in the park.  First, we crossed over a modern bridge of steel and concrete with a green-painted chain link fence to prevent visitors from meeting an untimely end at the canyon bottom.  The view over the railing towards the blue-green glacial waters below was dizzying, but the view skywards up the canyon walls and to the peaks beyond was awe-inspiring, rivaling the jaw-dropping sensation of standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon for the first time.  When we reached the other side of the river on the modern bridge, we descended a short way down a gravel path and then returned via a stone footbridge dating to medieval or possibly Roman times.  Here was cause to wonder not only at natural marvels but the courage of the man or men who laid the keystones to make the ancient bridge whole, and the skill of the person who designed it.  The mists of history had me now and I had no desire to exorcise their bewitching power.  Standing on a Roman bridge as the icy waters tumbled far under me and the mist floated in front of the peaks high above gave the sensation of being suspended in both space and time, hanging in the air between millennia, as if I might look up and see a hooded monk making his way across the bridge towards me on his way to the hermitage beyond, sandals slapping on the wet stones and the odor of damp wool rising from his cloak.  

Be Careful What You Order

I had a “be careful what you order” experience on Saturday.  Saturday was the first sunny day after several days of clouds and rain, and I insisted we go on a short walk from the center of Jaca to the nearby Medieval bridge, the Puente de San Miguel.  After we walked back the kids chose a restaurant, “L”, where we had lunch.  “L” specializes in a sort of nouvelle-Aragonés cuisine, updated or reinvented interpretations of traditional regional dishes.  It is very Aragonés; not so much nouvelle.  The “menu del día” (the set price menu) had lots to choose from and the kids each found things they liked.  My daughter ordered melón con jamón and a bistek and my son had the children’s menu (spaghetti and chicken “nuggets” with fries).  I decided to have gazpacho to commemorate the end of summer, and to be adventurous ordered something called “manitas de cordero en salsa de almendra.” Cordero, of course, is lamb.  Manitas, means little hands, and I did not know what this was, exactly, but I love lamb and envisioned some little chunks of meat in an interesting almond-based sauce.  What arrived in front of me was a cazuela (an earthenware baking dish) containing, as far as I could determine, an entrée consisting of gelatinous tendons and bones, breaded and cooked in a brownish sauce.  I tried in vain to excavate some meat from the dish, and took a few tastes of the sauce, but the tendons were so unappetizing, I really couldn’t stomach it.  The children had a great time ribbing me with “Now you know how we feel when you cook [insert vegetable here—e.g. zucchini, eggplant].”  I told them that, in the future, instead of saying “Ew, gross, Mom, that’s disgusting,” when I serve something they find less than mouth-watering, they need only utter the phrase “manitas de cordero” to communicate the lack of appeal.  I later googled “manitas de cordero” just to see, and was surprised when dozens of recipes popped up.  Clearly this is a dish that many people prepare and consume with relish. The first recipe that I clicked on was accompanied by a photo of 4 delicate and snowy white lamb hoofs and lower legs presented on a bed of lettuce.  Mystery solved.  I was humbled by the experience.  The ethnographer in me was shamed by my inability to consume with enthusiasm (or even without it) a typical local dish. I reminded myself of all the viscera and other animal parts I have eaten in Mongolia (marmots, goat cheeks), but to no avail.  I ate my delicious home-made arroz con leche (rice pudding) for dessert and vowed to ask before ordering in the future. 

A Trip to the Countryside

This morning I rode with F., my scientific host, and M., a young ecologist who does work with satellite imagery, to the town of Broto in the Tena Valley, just outside Ordessa National Park.  (Note, because this is a blog accessible to the public, I will mostly refrain from identifying people by name.) F. and M. are helping to organize a meeting that is taking place in a few weeks for a large international project, the theme of which is closely related to my own research interest in resilience of pastoral social-ecological systems.  Research team members will be coming from three other countries and one other continent to take part in the excursion and meeting and they were scouting locations for meeting rooms, lunch and coffee breaks along the way—making sure the rooms were large enough to accommodate 30 participants, warm enough to sit for several hours on a potentially chilly October morning, etc. As we drove up and back, F. regaled me with information—too much to absorb—on the history, geography, and management of the area.  Accustomed to working with foreigners, he speaks very clearly and slowly, and is patient with my vocabulary questions, but it is just too much to take in at once.

One of the most interesting tidbits for me related to the pattern of human population expansion and contraction and the subsequent changes in land use and landscape cover. According to F., the human population in the Pyrenees increased dramatically during the Moorish invasion of Iberia in the 8^th century, when people fled from the plains to take refuge in the more rugged and remote mountain areas.  The population grew rapidly to the point that hunting, gathering, and rudimentary agriculture could no longer sustain it and more intensive forms of cultivation and animal husbandry were developed.  As we drove up the narrow and very windy road through the Valle de Tena, F. pointed out the terraced lands on the steep hill slopes, now mostly obscured by the shrubs and forests that have overgrown them.  All of these were at one time cropped with wheat and later potatoes, then, more recently, cultivation was abandoned and the terraces were colonized by grasses and harvested for hay or grazed.  In the most recent era of rural depopulation, since the 1960s, many of these terraces have been abandoned entirely and the shrubs and forests have again taken over.  We saw occasional cleared patches in the brush or forested slopes, places where a few conscientious landowners or the very few remaining pastoralists have maintained the meadows for grazing or haying. 

Our first stop was a bar where F. and M. are considering holding the morning coffee break for the field tour.  They wanted to see if it was large enough for 30 to stand or sit comfortably while sipping their “cortados” (small coffees).  At the bar we fortuitously encountered one of F.’s friends and collaborators, a local veterinarian and livestock owner, A.  F. later told us that A. has cattle, goats and horses and is seeking to use his mares to breed mules.  What would the mules be used for?  I asked.  Apparently there is a new regulation that provides some type of incentive, a discounted price or priority access, to people who log using drought animals instead of tractors/skidders.  The mule-drawn equipment is lighter and causes less damage to the soil.  In addition, it is a way to maintain a traditional skill and practice. 

Our next stop (after a narrow tunnel through the mountain with a mysterious and ill-timed traffic light at either end—timed so that vehicles driving in towards each other from opposite directions both seemed to have the green light at the same time instead of one green and one read) was the village of Linas de Broto.  Unlike the larger town of Biescas that we drove through on the way there, Linas de Broto has been restored but remains relatively intact and “autentico” in F.’s words.  Biescas, in contrast, is quickly expanding with many new apartment buildings on its fringes, albeit most of them tastefully constructed of stone veneer to match the traditional architecture.  In Linas de Broto, we stopped at the Mayor’s house to get the keys to the town hall (Ayuntamiento) and discuss the use of a meeting room for the field tour.  The remodeled and comfortable town assembly chambers were a bit on the small side for a group that might be as large as 30, so we moved on to the old school house.  The single school room was much more spacious, though unheated, and today was filled with many church pews, in the process of being re-varnished and polished in preparation for the Broto village fiesta at the end of September.  The view out the large windows was pleasant and we agreed that this would be a good meeting room if it were warm enough and we could transport the comfortable chairs from the town hall to the school. 

The short walk from the Ayuntamiento to the school took us down an old cobble stone street past the well-kept but seemingly ancient traditional stone-faced houses of the village.  I noticed that several of the wooden doors had a fir branch (needles now dried and brown with age) stuck in the wrought iron grate of the door.  What did these branches signify? I asked.  Ah, they keep with witches and bad spirits away.  Pointing at the chimneys on these old buildings, F. explained that these round chimneys with pointed roofs on top are typical of this region and not found elsewhere.  The pointed stone on the chimney top also serves to ward off the “brujas” (witches).  Another roof had a pointy stone at one end, apart from the chimney, for good measure.  Many of the village houses, built in the old style where animals were kept below and the people lived above, included small gardens behind high stone walls, where pear and apple trees and vegetables were growing.  A man strolled past us with a large handful of fresh leeks.  On one building the second story was a hay loft with an open door.  I look forward to visiting Broto again in on a coming weekend for the fall livestock fair (“feria de ganado”).   

Continuity and Change

Pastoralism in the Pyrenees dates back to the Neolithic, it is thought, and beginning in the early Middle Ages the herding culture in these high valleys of the Pyrenees of Aragon changed relatively little for hundreds of years—until the 20th century. The written record, where it exists, of village rules, court cases and household economic transactions suggests that the same patterns of use and institutions governed the annual production cycle and use of pastures for centuries. As we begin to explore the countryside around Jaca, I am constantly struck by the juxtaposition of the ancient and modern, of continuity and change. On Friday, I looked out the window of our apartment complex on the edge of town just in time to see a flock of sheep being trailed past our swimming pool and green space towards one of the main roads through Jaca. Jaca itself has been inhabited since pre-Roman times and its cathedral dates from the 12 century. This small city for the most part gracefully blends the ancient monuments--the cathedral, a monastery, a roman bridge, and later military fortifications--with more modern architecture, and its economy depends significantly on tourism, not only from the nearby ski areas, but also the steady stream of pilgrims that follow the Camino de Santiago (Way of St. James), a time-honored religious pilgrimage route and now popular long-distance hike, from France to Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain.


This morning (Sunday) we took the local bus up the valley of the River Aragon to the ski area Astún to hike in the high country before the snow flies. I had thought that there would be a village at Astún, with the ski area built around an existing town, but this was not the case. The bus dropped us in the parking lot of the ski area and the only structures were the ticket booths and a hotel and shopping complex that appeared closed for the season. Our destination was the Ibón de Escalar, a glacial pond ringed by peaks that is only an hour’s hike from Astún. As we started up a gravel maintenance road on the ski slope, we looked up the mountainside to seek the source of a clanging and clamoring noise upslope. It was a large flock of sheep making their way over a pass into the Valley of Astún and spreading across the hillside as the sun began to light up the slope. The clanging were the bells on their necks and the clamoring the bleating. So here again was the coexistence of ancient and new livelihoods in this valley—pastoralism and ski tourism.

After a few switch-backs the road leveled for a while and crossed a small creek, and the trail became a footpath through the grasses and heather proceeding up the shoulder of a hill, crossing the creek again, and then zig-zagging up the side of the canyon. I had a brief moment of vertigo as the trail skirted some rock ledges on one side and a cliff dropped off on the other, but we edged past the tricky spot and continued walking up the steep grassy slope towards the peaks beyond. About 15 minutes later, we topped a small ridge and the Ibón lay below us, the outflow feeding the stream we followed up. Beyond the Ibón the trail continued on to a pass, the border with France, and more ambitious hikers had a choice of two peaks to bag from there—Pic de Moines (2347 meters), in France, or Pico de Astún (2287 m), in Spain—both walk-ups about an hour beyond the Ibón --but I had promised the kids an easy hike. We enjoyed taking photos of the peaks that circled us to the north and west, and the sea of dense mountain fog that lay caught between them, but below us, obscuring the view of the ski area and giving the illusion that we were aloft among the primeval peaks with only the sheep and some ponies grazing the slopes of Pic de Moines for company.

First Week in Jaca

We arrived in Jaca on the evening of September 1 after our flights from Denver to Philadelphia and on to Madrid, and an epic bus trip from Madrid to Huesca, which would not have been extraordinary, except for a 2 hour traffic jam and the fact that I was travelling with two tired and very hungry children and 8 pieces of baggage. My colleague Federico from the Pyrenean Institute of Ecology (IPE) kindly met us at the bus station in Huesca and ferried us to our rented apartment in Jaca in the Institute’s covered pick-up truck. In the truck, we devoured the sandwiches which we were forbidden to consume on the bus from Zaragoza to Huesca, and made polite conversation with Federico as we drove through a light rain.


The first week in Jaca has been a predictable flurry of settling in and figuring out the routines of a new country and culture. Apart from the jet lag, there is the adjustment to the Spanish schedule (horario), with the main meal or comida in mid-afternoon (when everything closes for 2-3 hours) and a light supper late in the evening (9 or later). For a family used to rising at 5:30am, dining at 6, and lights-out for the kids at 8pm, this is a big change. There were the small details, like what do the other school children bring for their mid-morning snack (we switched to “bocadillos de jamon y queso”—ham and cheese on baguette--after the first day), and the bigger ones like how to get internet access (free WiFi in the public library and the town’s central park until I got connected to the IPE network) and where to buy groceries at a reasonable price and walking distance to our apartment.

One part of the horario that I particularly enjoy is the daily break for café at 11:30 am (to tide you over until comida at 14:30). Every day at about 11:30 a small herd of IPE researchers migrates to a bar across the main avenida and up a small back street for the mid-morning café. Who buys rotates daily and there is usually a friendly competition for who picks up the check each day (I finally managed pay on Friday). The coffee break lasts about 30 minutes, during which the researchers exchange information and institute gossip, complain about malfunctioning equipment (the IPE internet was down for 2 days this week), and engage in lively debates over topics such as whether it is unhealthy to nap in the shade of a walnut tree. (Apparently there is a local saying to this affect and one of the ecologists hypothesized that the purported unhealthy effects are due to the tanins from the tree leaves while another argued that sleeping in the shade causes one to catch cold.) Participating in this daily routine has helped me get to know my institute colleagues and also provides a natural forum for asking dumb foreigner questions without disrupting someone’s work.