Yesterday, when I arrived, plum tuckered out from the effort it took to find the place, I asked  el señor if there was an easier way to get back to the bridge, from which you then take a path to the abandoned church, and from there start the business of the day.  He looked at the trackback line on my GPS, which had dutifully recorded my fruitless attempts, went tsk tsk tsk, no no no, and pointed to this swingy little gate through which I was to go, and then made zig-zag motions with his hand in imitation of the way down, and added that goatherds had added to the path.  Had I not been worn out and the afternoon so hot, I would have rehearsed the instructions, but I could not.

The morning, i.e. at 6:00 a.m. did not start out well.  Guess why?  After about 35 steps, the “path”  became a maze of possibilities. Where are the goatherds now? It took the better part of an hour, much cursing, fighting with scratchy foliage, and, oh, the loss of HAT, probably during a slide down an embankment, which saddened me muchly.  It is not easy to walk east in the morning without a brim—in addition to sunglasses— to shield your eyes from the glare.  Fortunately, there was a slight cloud cover, a fair amount of the walking —climbing would be more precise—was shaded, and it was not brutally hot, just plain hot, only a problem at the end when I had to walk 35 minutes on a major highway to get to my accommodation, where I arrived at 1:30.

The stage today was a stunner, and one I had worried about a lot because not only was it physically demanding, but it had the only section of “exposed walking after which there is a short scramble” on the entire route.  “Exposed walking” is a euphemism for “if you slip here, you won’t be talking about it.”  And as far as the “short scramble” is concerned, well, since there is no option, you just make yourself do it and hope you get it right.  I was so relieved to have survived the demands to that point, that I celebrated with a tasteless plum and a drink of water.  All I can say is, Thank God for the excellent and frequent placement of red and white stripes, without which I would be lost forever somewhere in the foothill of the Pyrenees.

A bit of haze, but impresionante all the same:

There are valleys, too:

But the mountains seem to go on and on and on.  Truly they are daunting, and you are among them:

Those scarecrows have an important job protecting the weeds:

Oh, yum!

Yes, and you, too!

Then it opens up:

The views were stunning, whether you looked down:

Or ahead:

Art:

The  mountains are everywhere you look!

Another 5:45 pick-up to return about seven miles to the walk site.  This was a two part walk.  The first part was fairly pleasant on decent track except for the nightmare through the trees where the path had been obliterated by fallen limbs and trunks, oh, and the part that said “cross the valley and go up,” but where you go up is your problem.  There are no markers and a valley, is, you know, large.

The second part began at an intersection of two highways.  According to the book, there were two possible routes.  I found neither one.  The one I did find was on my GPS so I took it.  The first half hour or so was fine, rather scenic, in fact, and I was feeling quite accomplished.  Then, for about two and a half hours it was like this:

Sometimes with curves:

Finally, I am within 1/2 a mile or so of my accommodation, the only building for miles around.  The route stops.  The GPS reads “Go!”  There is a fence of electric wire, barbed wire and regular wire.  There is no choice but to cross it.  Two burros were accommodated there:

Finally, I get to a road, but it was not the road I needed to be on.  More transgressions of property defences to gain higher access.  I cannot believe that I actually got to where I needed to be.  It is a lovely place, though, out here in the middle of nowhere.  I can use a huge kitchen and, having noticed a large number of hens as I approached, asked the señora for eggs, which she willingly provided, and for bread: four huge slices. And, oh joy, there is a toaster.  Today’s lunch//dinner was way better than dried, reconstituted noodles.

Dudu and I had our last adventure today.  Since he was planning on coming at 6:00 to pick up the bag, I asked if he would drive me to  spot about half way along the route because I knew it was going to be a scorcher.  The problem was that there was not really a road where Google Maps showed one, so we had a lot of hithering and thithering until he finally figured out a way to get there.  Thank God I did that, though because it is over 100 degrees now.  I would have started out fresher had the dogs, many of them, not been woofing and arf arf arfing  at 3:00 a.m.

One roll of hay:

Set in the lowland:

Bridge into Oliana, a rather ugly town with a good supermarket, and nice hotel after you walk the extra 3/4 mile in the heat, laden with your groceries, to get there.

Everything was patas arriba (upside down) today.  Dudu, el taxista, did not know where I was staying in Ager, nor did he know where to take me to start the walk even though I had given Cristina explicit instructions.  Where the lack of communication came in, I do not know, but I was driven miles from where I needed to be.  Now, just to interject, may I say that I was going to take an alternate route anyway because of descriptions such as this, “Above Rubies, is a huge cliff with two distinct gashes.  The one on the left is Portella Blanca.  The GR1 l leaves Rubies on its northern side and takes a faint path directly up the cliff face.  The path is steep. difficult to follow and local goatherds have created a number of alternative routes.  Persist, and after the initial gullied scree the ‘path,’ which seemed to be heading for the wrong gash becomes evident….”  And that is just the beginning.  I was planning on taking the “you can walk directly to your accommodation” path.

Anyway, after much conversation with Dudu, I gave up hopes of returning to my alternate route as the time was ticking away and there was not going to be any shade.  Instead, at his suggestion, I ended up doing a four hour walk, a weak imitation of yesterday’s—hardly shabby, though—after which Dudu drove me on to Vilanova de Meia, with a stop at a grocery store on the way.  Gracias, Dudu.  Al final, ¡todo salió bien!

Wow!

Which shots to keep and which to delete!

Transitioning:

River views:

River view, farther on, with flowers:

See that skinny little bridge?

Here it is up close.  It also shimmied and shook like the bridge of yesterday.

Keeping lox cold until you are ready to eat it.  Turns, out, though, that the bidet was leaking all over the floor.

On the other side of the gorge, a series of wooden steps has been built into the side of the rock.  To get there, you have to take a boat!  That would be really fun, but must be saved for another time or never.  Since I started the gorge walk at about 7:00, no one was out doing the steps or doing anything, for that matter.  I had the whole canyon to myself!

Another view because I could not decide which one to delete:

Looking back:

Puente de la Montañana is where the walk was supposed to go, but sadly, it did not.  There were two routes: the shorter one, which I opted for, was over 16 miles, (think 19+), so, since most the first few miles were on the road, I decided to have a taxi take me just past that part.  And he did.  However, not only were the instructions in the book particularly deficient and vague for this stage, the route was impossible and/or impassible. I could not find the way to go.  Signage was virtually absent, the thorns and thistles were cutting me to shreds—OK, that is a bit of hyperbole, but I was getting pretty scratched—honestly, it was impossible to figure out where a path was supposed to be.  After six hours, I had covered just a few miles.  Just when I thought it was going to get better because for twenty paces there was a REAL path, it turned out that that real path was for other people, “my path” ascended a huge, and I mean huge pile of loose dirt,—picture an ant hill the size of a stadium—and for about the fourth or fifth time, the book did admit that “the going i difficult here.” It was noon by now.  I had been struggling since 6:15 a.m.  It was hot and shadeless, too.  So I looked at that huge pile of reddish brown dirt, and I looked at ViewRanger, saw that I could get to a road where cars can go, called the taxi driver who was supposed to pick me up in Puente de Montañana, and Q U I T!!  Then I trotted off to the new pick-up spot where two particularly ugly, barking dogs awaited.  What beauteous sights I missed, I will never know, though I had been excited about the bridge at Puente de Montañana, which, apparently, is quite spectacular.

Later, after investigating on-line, and speaking to the taxi driver, who has a compañero who knows the area, I learned that that etapa (stage) is notoriously difficult to get through.  The on-line info was from a guy who walked this route a few years ago and he admitted that the only way he managed was because someone helped him, and his description of the climb up that huge dirt hill you don’t want to know.  The compañero said you need a guide.  I do feel validated.

Now I just have to worry about tomorrow’s walk, which is supposed to be well signed, but a little bit scary, going down into a deep gorge and stuff.

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Graus also has a post office, hardware store, a flower shop, and evidence of people living there, like human beings on the street.  The hotel was quite nice:  frig in the room, excellent bed, but hot water that never got hot and cold water that never got cold.  The wi fi worked the first day but not the second and there was no cellular connection.  It was a blackout zone .  So, what to do?  Go to a bar where they let you use the wi fi.  That is what you do.

A street in Graus:

Sunrise through the trees:

A bridge not crossed:

The artistic impulse cannot be suppressed:

That rock, which has probably been there for millennia, looks as if it is going to fall ANY MINUTE:

Another example—to add to yesterday’s— of amazingly nice.  Today, arriving in Lascuarre—quite worn out, may I say, since the 13.3 mile day turned out to be almost 18 miles; the navigation problems were horrific, a nightmare, really—anyway, 2 minutes before 1:30, the time until which the panadería was supposed to be open, I arrived to find it really closed at 1:00.  So, OK, I would figure something out.  But across the square a very little old lady, littler and older que yo, was sitting and watching.  She got up, tottered over, and told me that she would ask her daughter-in-law (who runs or owns the panadería) and lives across the square) to open it for me.  And she did!!  A loaf of bread and a box of ice cream thingees to give to the señora of the B and B, which happened to be two steps away, and our business was concluded!

Was someone planning on coming back to continue the repair?