Spain's wine country - a great place to end the journey

I won’t be home for another four days, but as far as I’m concerned my trip is done.

After two straight months of travel through 23 cities and towns (give or take), I’m ready to settle in at home for the winter. Or at least until I can scrounge up the money for another trip.

I just finished one of most enjoyable legs of this journey, and it couldn’t have come at a better time. For six days I relaxed and ate delicious local food with an old friend and his in-laws in a tiny town 2 hours south of Bilbao, in the heart of Spain’s wine country. While there, I realized that although I’ve loved seeing the beautiful, famous sites that certain places have to offer, some of my fondest memories from this trip were made possible simply because I enjoyed the people surrounding me.

Dallas, for example, didn’t seem like a great city in and of itself. But I loved it there. I spent 3 days getting reacquainted with an old college buddy, who introduced me to a great troupe of his friends. I also happened to be there during Oktoberfest and the filming of a TV show, so that helped.

The town of Tricio, the 300-person village where I spent most of the last week, is as attractive as the most beautiful Spanish women I’ve seen (which is high praise considering the eye candy riding the subways in Barcelona). I tend to like big cities because of the convenience, diversions, variety of people, sights and experiences, etc. But I loved Tricio. Before I came, my host Jason, an old friend and an Army vet with a fair number of stamps on his passport, said of Tricio, “I’ve done enough traveling to know that I will be buried here.” Granted, he has a wife and in-laws in Tricio, and I probably wouldn’t stay there long-term without such roots anchoring me. But the charm of that little town is undeniable, and not just because it sits on a hill looking out over mountains and vineyards that were every shade of orange, red and yellow during my November visit.

Jason and his wife Maite live in an old house owned by Maite’s family. The first time I entered it, I felt like I was on the set of a movie about rural life in Spain’s wine country. “This is way too clichéd,” I thought. But it was all real. There were peppers and garlic hanging from strings in the kitchen, but they were edible, not plastic like the décor you see in restaurants back home. There was a grinder for making sausage upstairs and spicy chorizo drying in a pan downstairs next to the dinner table. There were three newborn chicks peeping away in the backyard. Jason had recently picked tomatoes from his garden and stomped some grapes into his very own wine. I’d get to do the same with a neighbor’s grapes a few days later. 

Making wine with Jason and his friend, Mike. Photo: Jason Richards

Every room in that ancient house, from the entryway to the attic, was cluttered with trinkets and antique objects, like century-old rifles, horseshoes, paintings, and books, books, books. Maite’s father doesn’t like to throw anything away, and he loves to keep himself busy tinkering, refurbishing and of course developing new debate fodder by making use of the veritable library stored in his house.

Every day I was there, Jason would buy a baguette from the town store down the street. Most days, he’d include that bread in the central meal of the day: lunch. Currently a student, he’s become sort of a house-husband and a talented cook, in charge of the kitchen while Maite works in nearby Nájera. 

Jason liked to pick peppers from the strands to spice up his meals.

Collected books and antiques in the Tricio house.

Jason’s cooking was delicious, but my favorite meal was the one we had next door. On my second night in Tricio, Jason took me to his weekly guys-only meal with his father-in-law and their friends. Eight of us sat around a long table and dug into various types of chorizo, sausage, ribs, eggs, and of course bread. Everything was homemade, save for the bread purchased at the local store. Some of the men drank wine from glass bottles with spouts coming out of the side, pouring it directly into their mouths without wasting a goblet. At one end of the table there sat a leg of cured ham, with the hoof still intact. Jason cut me a thin slice of the jamon serrano from the leg and as soon as it touched my tongue I had a new meat to add to my list of favorites. It was somewhat firm and chewy like jerky, but much softer, with oils that emerged as it sat in my mouth. I washed it down with some wine the Irish expat across the table had made. “It’s a bit fruity, isn’t it?” I said. “It is,” he responded. “It may not have fermented long enough this time.” It was last year’s batch, the first he’d made in the two decades he’d been married to his Spanish wife. I sat back and thought about how similar he and Jason already were, despite being separated by 25 years of age. Then I realized just how much of the dinner I’d eaten, and my attention turned to keeping my stomach from bursting.

In addition to the food, I was impressed by the people I met in Tricio. Jason’s father-in-law, Humberto, was friendly from the start, as were most others. I neglected to take photos during my first couple of days in town because I felt like a guest rather than a tourist. (Also, I suppose the tourist attractions and photo-ops were somewhat limited.) Tricio was a break from the frenzy of the big cities that was not only relaxing, but necessary.

Now I’m back in a big city. Perhaps too soon. As I write this, I’m sitting in the morgue-silent lobby of a hotel on the outskirts of Bilbao, Spain. I’ve been here a little over a day, and I’ve got about a day left before I fly back to London. It’s raining lightly outside, and I already saw most of the city yesterday, and I’m trying not to spend money, so I’m sitting here next to the vending machine trying to keep myself occupied.

I can’t wait to get on that plane to London. Once I arrive there, I’ll be back amongst friends for a day and a half. Then I’ll leave them to fly to Miami, where I know no one. But the following day, I’ll fly home (via Chicago), where family and friends are plentiful and where I can (hopefully) find a job to keep myself busy and earn a little cash for the next trip.