The bear necessities

The three of us set off at 7.30 a.m., dew on the grass and a huddle of men and dogs clustered under the ‘mexico café’ sign at the shop.

Climbing swiftly amongst beech trees and sunlit glades, we come upon an old man and donkey busy collecting juniper berries with a device that looks like an old washboard.

Passing evidence of fox and wild boar we make our way towards the foothills of the mountain, our guide explaining that we will take the route up the ‘fat hill’ and descend via the ‘eagle hill’.

After an hour of energetic uphill slog we take a break. Our guide takes a deep lungful of clear fresh air and exclaims “I feel like a deer when I’m on the mountain”.

He continues in the same vain as we stop to eat. I realise that for him the forest and mountain holds the same appeal as the moor does in many ways for my neighbours in Lewis.

They are both places where people are deeply rooted to the landscape through strong cultural, ancestral and emotional ties, not to mention the sheer pleasure of being in wild places.

By Midday we emerge at high altitude, beyond the tree cover and my eye begins to adjust to a new landscape of blowing grass, mullein spikes and oregano, the humming of insects and the partially veiled village far below.

We take our fill of wild berries and pick a bag full of mushrooms before slipping and sliding into the half light of the forest again, like passing into deep water.

Before long we see signs of bear. They have evidently enjoyed a feast of berries too. We are in head high Willow herb following a patchy trail down ‘Eagle hill’ when a fleeting shape below catches my eye .

This, I discover, is a bear. Our guide up front deciding not to tell me at first as a precaution to panic. It seems that animals are all around us as we descend on barely discernable paths, the sheer extent of the tree cover and the possibility of coming upon ‘serious’ wildlife slowly dawning on me, but soon, after hours of padding on soft leafy ground we are clattering along the tarmac of the village, heading for a low fenced garden a bowl of fresh cheese and a glass of raki (or two).

Like with the stories of Fairy women and Vampires of the past weeks, my mind fills in the missing details of the bear and conjures up a suitably ferocious beast to give me a vivid ursine dream later.

All momentous experiences, it seems, accumulate and resonate in your mind once you are away from their source, to be played back at will (or otherwise), seemingly with added features, like a new DVD .

To accompany these I now have a suitcase full of pickled mountain mushrooms, porcelain white beans and a lingering taste of raki.

© Jon Macleod, 2006