Casa Juantxo is in the tiny town of Uztarroz, located in the Valley of Roncal, at the base of the Pyrenees. Paco, Inaki's father, has a lot of extended family there and we stopped to say "hi" on the way back from the tribute of the 3 cows. Here's a map of where we were, so tiny, it's not even on the map:
Our first stop in Uztarroz, before Juantxo, was the only bar. We sat, had a coffee and visited with one of Paco's distant uncles who owns the bar. Paco was a little iffy on going to the bar first, as he knew the word would spread fast that we were there and he only wanted to visit part of the family. Uztarroz is located on a hill and is the kind of place that, when you come to visit, the news of your arrival has reached the top of the hill before you have. Paco's uncle was a nice guy and made a kick-ass cafe con leche. An interesting thing about this cousin is that he is almost completely hairless. Other than on the top of his head, where he had quite thick, silvery locks, he was all smooth, like a naked mole rat. No arm hair, no Selleck peaking out of the top of his shirt, just pink skin. Weird. I guess I'm kind of weird for noticing that, but with the small town dialect he was rocking, he was a bit hard to understand and I had a lot of time to look around and observe. For those of you who don't use the term, this is a Selleck:
After our coffee we drove up to Casa Juantxo. On the way, Inaki worked with me on my pronunciation. "It's not Wuan-cho, with a "w", Darby. It's hhhhhhhhhhggggggguan-cho!" All those h's and g's are how I write the sound you make when hocking a loogie. I can make the sound, but I don't like to because then I have to spit.
We parked up above the house and strolled down a cobblestone road to get there. Here it is:
Inma was nervous because it was the hora de siesta, but Vitoria was at the front door to greet us by the 4th knock. First impression, so tiny! She had rollers in her short, black hair, donned a knee length flowery black dress and like most Spanish grandmas, her skin seemed to be slowly settling around her ankles. She was the sweetest, hugging and kissing us before she even really realized who we were. As introductions happened, I found out that Vitoria, Florencio and Feli are brother and sisters and the cousins of Paco's mother. They all live in casa Juantxo and Feli, the young one in her late 70's, takes care of the older 2, who are in their 80's. Inaki told me today that Feli walks all the way down the hill to get bread in the morning to hand out to all the older folks in town who can't make the trip.
We noticed that right inside the door there was a list of brands for sheep.
All of the different homes in the town are listed and each of their brands. Casa Juantxo is in the lower left. At one point, every man in town was a sheep herder. Florencio, when he worked, was a sheep herder as well and sold cheese in Pamplona. There's a shop near Paseo Sarasate that has a huge photo of Florencio in the middle of a flock of sheep behind the counter because they did so much business together.
Paco asked Vitoria about the view and she led us right upstairs. The house was laid out like the typical sheep herders home, I'm told: stone walls, a room for cheese-making and a room for sheep on the ground floor, kitchen and living on the next floor and bedrooms on the top floor. Everything was connected by a large staircase that ran up the middle of the house. The house was so old and settled in it's ways, that when we walked down the long, creeky hallway to get to the balcony on the 3rd floor, it felt like we were walking up hill! Totally worth the risk of the house falling on our heads though, because here is the view (click on the long one):
Inaki and I both had to duck through the doorway, but the view was just beautiful. You could see every house in town and then the Pyrenees peaking up through the hills.
We headed back downstairs and sat in the kitchen for a while with Vitoria. She offered us everything she had in the house to drink or eat, but we were stuffed from eating all day at the tribute. She was relentless though, as all good Spanish grandmas are, and got us to take a rosquilla and a glass of water in the end. Rosquillas are a sort of dry Spanish doughnut, really yummy with coffee.
We were just finishing up our snack when we heard the patter of tiny feet coming up the stairs. The heavy kitchen door flew open and in walked one of the tiniest ladies I've ever seen, with more energy per inch than a jack rabbit on speed. Feli. Short for Felicia, which basically means happiness, and wow, was she happy to see us. She ran around the room like a tornado kissing all of us and chattering the whole time. She couldn't stop moving or shrieking with laughter and when she finally sat down, she was constantly fidgeting. What a doer! My favorite part of the conversation was when she asked Inaki a question and he got about 2 words out and she broke in, "oh, Paco I love his deep voice! So many times you meet these big tall men that talk like mice, but he has a great voice!" And then she went on to offer us more drinks and snacks. A word of advice: DO NOT go to visit people in Spain on a full stomach. If you don't eat or drink something, your host will feel like their job hasn't been done properly.
I know I haven't shown you any pics of the family yet, but I wanted to save them for the end because they are so cute. Here are Vitoria, Paco, and Florencio in the kitchen:
Feli was so taken with my size that Paco demanded she stand on a chair for the picture, classic:
She's still smaller than I am! We need to send her this pic. What a wonderful time we had in Uztarroz and what a warm group of folks live in Casa Juantxo. We've got to go back and visit soon.
