Back on Track – Day 49
August 5th, 2008 Posted in Hold the Heights, Spain
After finding yesterday’s route across the scree simply too hair-raising, we study our guidebook with care this morning for word on any hazards ahead. Yesterday’s horrors merited the comment ‘cross a steep scree slope (care is needed)’ whereas today’s route includes the alarming description ‘somehow find a path up the dauntingly steep rock face at the end of the valley’. This sounds even worse – but how much meaning can we put onto care-free words of description by an author who probably finds it all very easy?
So we ascend a long, tiring valley with some sense of trepidation, only to find that the ‘steep rock face’ actually has an excellent path with little exposure. Maybe yesterdays scree problems had been made much worse by recent landslides – I hope so, as I don’t want to have to ponder the guidebook for dangers every morning in the Pyrenees.
At the top we reach a couple of gorgeously deep blue lakes with stunning views across into France; here we settle down for a special lunch. We’ve reached two thousand two hundred metres, our highest pass so far, and today is our fourth wedding anniversary. We’ve bought wild boar pate and French toast up from Candanchu as a celebratory feast. I’ve never felt happier.
Three Spanish men approach us from below, asking for directions to the Pico d’Anayet. I point out the shark-tooth like peak of rock to the southwest and they set off towards it, leaving me thinking that if you want to climb such a hair-raising peak you ought to at least have the navigational nous to work out which one it is. Clearly we’re just cowards.
The descent ahead is long, but with further carpets of Irises and views ahead of the great, snow-clad Balatious massif, it couldn’t be more idyllic, all the way down into the small town of Sallent de Gallego. We are going to stay here for our first rest day for a couple of weeks, but can only find a hotel with a vacancy for one night. Never mind; it’s our first en-suite room since Cape Finisterre and it even has a bidet, perfect for cooling a decent bottle of cava before heading out for a relaxing meal. It’s been a fantastic anniversary. We’ve been getting on better than at home, which is amazing considering our poor language skills mean that talking to each other is the only real conversation we get to have. Never have the simple things such as food, a bath and a bed given so much pleasure.
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