‘Domingueros’

‘Domingueros’ is an Spanish term for a city person who goes out to the countryside only on a Sunday.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The typical image of this laughable character of the Spain of the 1960’s is that, to do a picnic, he would take everything with him: table, chairs, radio-cassette, TV set, and the whole family: the dogs, the canary, the mother in law…

Today is Sunday (Domingo in Spanish). We have come to Busteni all the way from Bran to climb Mt Onus, the highest peak in the Buceni mountains, an ‘strenuous, demanding, and poorly marked trek’, according to our guide.

Instead, we have found a very different picture. These seem to be very popular mountains among the locals. A cable car has been set up to get to the base of the trek. It opens at 8.30am but people starts queuing from 8.00am. When we found this out last night, we came straight to the cable car car park (after changing Dora’s wheel) and spent the night here to be the first one in the queue tomorrow.

However, we have got up at 7.30am and people were already waiting, families ready with shorts, T-shirts and day-packs…

We have to hurry up. We have a quick coffee.  Gary runs straight to the queue so that he can get a place and then we swap: I stay in Dora preparing my rucksack and the food, and I replace him in the queue so he can prepare his rucksack.

We have the feeling that this trek may not be as strenuous as our guide has described. Why the hell do we keep following their advice??

Suddenly the car park guard turns up. I saw you coming in last night. If you stay today, you owe me today too. 40 Lei please.

We thought we would get away with not paying for yesterday, as it was already 20.00 when we arrived. But nope! Anyway, it is only €9 in total.

So, the cable car opens at 9.00am (being Sunday, they might as well have a lay-in). I don’t have enough cash with me. Gary assured me this morning he saw a credit card sticker on the glass. But when it was our turn to pay, we were turned away by the ticket officer: Sorry, only cash.

So I ran to the nearest ATM and when I went back a group of children had jumped in front of us. We had lost our place in the queue . This means we have to wait for an hour to the next car.

Anyway, it was our fault, we should have got the cash out earlier. We only get one way tickets, we will come back walking. There are a couple of paths that bring you back down to the village.

Eventually, we didn’t have to wait for another hour. The ticket officer felt sorry about us and let us get on the next car.

Only two cable cars are running. I wonder why they have such long queues. Here it comes the first one back from the mountain.

We are leaving Busteni behind pretty quickly. Our ears are popping with the altitude.

Our car is full of Domingueros. These are more sophisticated ones than the Spanish character. They use a cable car; they will be out in the countryside at 2,100 metres altitude; no food, there are plenty of cafes up there, and with mobile phones, instead of radio-cassettes. It is all the cable car’s fault, which has made this mountain easily accessible to everyone.

As we go high, the views get better, as is always the case.

We are getting to the end of our journey. It is now 9.30am.

So early and it is already quite buzzy. It feels like being down in the village but a 1000 metres higher.

According to the map, the climb to Mt Omu should take between two and a half and three and a half hours.

We start our route. It still feels great being in the outdoors.

The path is fairly even.

But the views are still amazing. It is so hot, I feel my skin is burning already.

However, I feel protected. Unusually, I have spread my arms and my face with my 40 degrees Sun tan lotion. Gary is impressed.

It gets really snowy here for most part of the year. Hardly nothing remains now.

Only a few patches, normally hidden from the sun for a good few hours of the days.

After an hours walk, we look back. The cable car station looks so far away.

A beautiful ‘V’ shaped valley opens up in front of us. I take a deep breath, my lungs feel cold but clean.

As usual, we try to guess which will be our peak. We make out two routes: the yellow and the red.

Really, you cannot get lost here. Routes are well-marked (another lie from our guide). The marks to Mt Omu are white and yellow slashes.

Another party has been ahead of us most of the way. They have now disappeared.

But we soon see them resting at the bottom of the valley before starting the climb to Mt Omu. They must have taken the lower path.

Our path will take us to the summit along the hillside. However, a peak stands up on our left hand site. We go off-piste and climb up there. Hopefully, we will connect it with our path at the top.

Anything to make a mainstream walk a bit more interesting.

We finally reach the summit, which hardly feels like one. It took one hour and forty five minutes!

Rather than the isolated cross normally placed on the top to indicate the end of the climb, there is a cabaña, which is actually a cantina. People are having a proper lunch, at 11.00am.

Maybe because of all of the exertions of getting here! There is also plenty of beer being consumed, celebrating the achievement! GDR

And there are lots of people outside, they seem to have been here for hours, all pretty settled, with their swimming costumes laying on a towel, sunbathing. I am totally confused; am I on the countryside or in a swimming pool? Certainly not on a mountain.

We get off pretty quickly. We take a different path back down the valley so that we can do a nice loop.

The estimated time is three hours. Well, three and a half with lunch.

We descend down a narrow path that zigzags down the mountainside really steeply. The paths around here are really suffering from erosion, especially at the top where it is just earth, which are now deep channels. With the number of people that these mountains are receiving they really need to start managing these paths, maybe building stone ones. GDR

We hear a group of people, quite loud, despite the fact they are far behind. They must be Spanish

It is 13.00. Time for lunch on a very nice spot looking down the valley.

What are we having today? Bit of bread, Russian salad, and a bit of cheese, a bit boring. We don’t know how to do proper domingueros, really.

We have stopped for about half an hour and it is only now that the guys have caught up with us, we are about to leave.

However, now they are in front of us, they speed up.

They don’t walk any more, they run down. But because they are not very good runners they have to stop and rest every ten minutes.

We catch them up and overtake them, at our consistent pace.

Once they have had their rest, they start to run and pass us again.

They are actually getting quite annoying. It is like having a fly around your ears (or like we say in Spanish, ‘una mosca cojonera’)

They are missing the beauty of the valley.

Plus increasing the risk of twisting an ankle by running on a rocky path. They should be a bit more careful. They don’t look that young .

We are finally far ahead of them. Don’t worry they will catch up soon says Gary. But they don’t. Maybe with that sort of speed they have missed the turn.

We are quite low now, and therefore starting to walk through the woods. A bit boring.

And it gets even more boring when we turn off right to get on to the path that will take us straight to the village.

After another two hours from the turn, we arrive at Dora.

Although it has ended being a five hours walk, we feel incredibly tired. Gary is panicking: I can’t believe how tired I am. My first walk since I am 45. I am getting older. Everything is going downhill from now on. You may need to start thinking about doing these sort of things on your own. He is such a drama queen.

It is 16.00. Our next destination is Ploiesti where we hope we will fix Dora’s tyre tomorrow. As the town is only 40 kms away, we do a bit of IT before we head off. Dora has been good today and charged our computers 100% today.

SM