Since the 4th of July, 23 days now, I’ve been dragged through these Pyreneen mountains by Jon…
Here, in Hospitalet pres de l’ Andorre, we have decided to go our own way for the last 10 stages, which in a way I surely regret!!
In the past weeks with many hard days Jon has proven to be a true friend on which a man can build; we had a lot of support of each other.
The weather has been a constant source of concern now for the forty-three days since I began walking at the Atlantic (I may have already mentioned it once or twice) but one thing we haven’t had to deal with too much so far is extreme temperatures. The last few days though have been grey, windy and unbelievably cold – we’ve been walking in fleeces, hats and gloves, and sleeping wearing socks and hats.
After 37 days going back and forth across the border between France and Spain, we reached our third country on Thursday: Andorra. I’ve never been here before and don’t know a great deal about it, but I learnt the other day that the official language is Catalan. They learn that together with French and Spanish at school, and most of the people we’ve met seem to speak English too.
Speaking of Catalan, we met some kids from Catalunya at the campsite in Arties. They seemed as keen as the Basque people to be independent from Spain – they’d been supporting Holland against Spain in the world cup final, so were commiserating with Klaas.
During the first ten days I got used to walking in the rain, but I never had to pack up and set off in the rain, partly due to luck and partly because I stayed in refuges so much. For some reason walking in the rain is OK, but setting off is a different matter.
After we left the refuge and pitched our tents on Wednesday night the rain returned, and carried on through till Thursday morning. Neither of us had the courage to pack up until there was a gap in the rain, so we didn’t get moving until 09:30. Even then we were warily watching the clouds, trying to predict when we’d get soaked.
Although section 4 of the HRP only has one staffed refuge, Klaas and I decided when we were making our plan in Arties that we’d take maximum advantage, to reduce the weight of food we had to carry. As it happened, the refuge fitted perfectly with my birthday, so yesterday at about 14:00 we arrived at Refugi de Certascan and started eating.
After a lunch of salad, lentil casserole, canneloni and cake, we spent the afternoon chatting, then had soup, pasta and a rather bizarre course of sausages and crisps, before finishing off with a chocolate dessert. This morning we had a decent breakfast and left with an excellent picnic lunch, so altogether saved ourselves the weight of four meals.
I used to work with a wise man called Mr Tipler, who had a phrase for every occasion. My favourite (apart from “beware the dangerous floater”) is “there’s always a bigger fish”, a saying that has proved itself time and again.
Leaving Hendaye, the HRP felt pretty special, but over the last five weeks it’s become obvious that we’re very much entry-level HRP’ers. The people I met in Lescun were all on similar timetables and doing the walk in a similar way, but I met a French chap at Refuge d’Arlet who was doing it in 41 days, without any rest days. At the time I was quite impressed.
When we were in Gavarnie a few weeks ago trying to decide which route to take, we read a section of the guidebook that said “the choice of the HRP is a choice for challenge!” This has become a bit of catchphrase, and is now wheeled out whenever things get a bit tough.
As far as the route goes, today’s challenge was the largest boulder-field Klaas or I had ever seen, full of the largest boulders either of us had ever seen (1st photo - it’s worth looking at the full version as Klaas is actually visible in the middle of some enormous rocks). At one point Klaas dislodged one that he described as “about the size of a refridgerator.” The boulder-field was only about 1.5km across, but it took about an hour and a half to cross. The GPS showed that we’d only actually been moving for 34 minutes though - the rest of the time was spent balancing on a rock trying to work out a way through.
For the last three days we’ve been in the Vall d’Aran. We saw three villages there, and a remarkable proportion of each one looked new - very tastefully done so that it fitted in with the old buildings, but quite obviously new. It turns out that there are two reasons for this: the first was a tunnel that connected the once-isolated valley to the rest of Spain, and the second was the ski resort at the end of the valley, Baquiera-Beret. The locals seem very proud of the resort: they’ve told us that it’s the most important in Spain, and that it’s where the king skis.