A break in the rain

To speak to people in this part of the world you need to know Basque, French and Spanish. My French is passable, and I can say hello, thankyou and goodbye in Spanish, but it was a great relief when the lady who ran the taverna last night spoke a few words of English. She explained this morning that it’s rained for the last 10 days, and said “this year is very strange”! She then read something from the local paper, telling me it had rained a huge amount on the local mountain yesterday. Having been there at the time, this didn’t come as a huge surprise, but she was making an effort so I thanked her anyway.

I was slow getting going again this morning, put off again by the rain, but after an hour or so it died out and I actually spent the rest of the day without my Goretex jacket on, which made a nice change.

Today was an easy day with only 800m of ascent, and it only took just over 5 hours, so I wondered about pushing on and trying to make up some of the time I lost when I missed the train on Monday. In the end though, it started raining just I was trying to make a decision, so I’ve stayed put in Aldudes. Climing for 2 hours wouldn’t have been too bad, but having to camp with a load of wet kit wouldn’t have been great.

Blisters are holding up OK, and I’m generally feeling better about things. I still haven’t seen a decent view though - the rain may have gone but the fog has been hanging around since I woke up on Wednesday. The friendly woman in the taverna said there might be some better weather on Sunday, which would be nice!

I’ve just tried reading the SD card from my camera but the antediluvian PC I’m on seems to find it too much of a struggle - I suspect 4GB cards hadn’t even been dreamt of when this machine was built.