Spain - Day 9: La Mina to Candanchu

The storm which raged most of the night was gone in the morning and everything was wonderful again in the Land of Oz. What a view to wake up to.

View from the patio

Of course, nothing is free in this world. And the price for such a morning view is drying everything that got wet the night before. We've been going 9 days and this was the first real rain, so we are not complaining and we didn't get too wet. Plus our trusty tents small and light though they may be. Held up during the storm and kept us warm and dry.

The price

The trouble was we were in the shade still so we repeated all of the drying again once we found a nice place for lunch in the sun. Today's destination was Candanchu, a ski resort, so real mountain territory. Gulp. 

We set off up the valley. Waiting for the sun to reach us and looking for a promised water source. The book of course was right again and the water was about where it promised. Given the scale of the maps sometimes the precise location is pretty vague. The river in the valley ran blood red. Well, dirty reddy brown, but that's not so dramatic, as a result of the previous nights storm.

Once the sun came out we we found - well - a big yellow digger. But it made for a nice bit of contrast. We have been told that they were repairing the mountain road and that it would be dirty. But the storm had cleaned everything and it was stunning. Surely a photo to win awards.

Incongruous 

The views got better and better the further we climbed. Nearing the top we started to meet people coming the other way. Then a police car passed us, in Spain Mountain Rescue is a police job, they were picking up someone who had, by the look of some of the paths that we saw later ,a sever case of diarrhea. 

(Note to Spanish Scouts: We all have to shit - but why on the path?)

We had been promised a hidden valley. By the book. This valley although a classic example of valleyness was not exactly hidden from anyone. So we just took it as poetic license on behalf of the author. Looking at his picture in the book - we believed that he might be a bit poetic at times.

Little mountain hut - with plastic chairs

Hidden valley - hidden by clouds

We climbed in the sun and when we got to the first top we found a nice little mountain hut. That might have slept 4 or so people had it not been filled with lots of peoples stuff. We left and started the down bit. And there low and behold was the hidden valley. Not the site of an ancient city (but there should have been a dolmen around somewhere - one of the best preserved in the Pyrenees. Our archaeological alter-egos were excited). Not full of hitherto extinct dinosaurs, but full of cows and scouts. Millions of  both.


And just to give a nod to all that goes with  hidden-ness, a blood red river.

The blood red river

The path it seems had been designated as the toilet for these millions of scouts. Not a highlight. Probably better in the sun

The book and maps promised a big beautiful lake - Ibon d'Estanes (sorry for my poor pronunciation).

Warning educational bit: Ibon - in English means tarn - tarn, in English, means glacial lake

Ibon d'Estanes - well some of it

 As I have said before the path is very well marked. So we had fallen into the habit of just following blindly. Note to self: don't follow blindly. But we had been promised a lake and the path certainly wasn't looking lake-y. So we checked the book, the map and the GPS. Whilst we were firmly and demonstrably on the marked path .We were also firmly and demonstrably not in the right place according to the book, the map and the GPS.

Scouts down below and us refinding the path

A non-typical sign

We had a 'conflab' and decided on a route to take us back to our 'right' route. To be fair there was an alternative route today but we didn't want to take it - it added time (an extra night) and distance, without any discernible benefit.  So we stuck to the planned route. This luckily turned out not to be such of a disaster but only bu luck.

Our route took us through a forest with bits of limestone and tree routes. A truly awful track with no redeeming features at all (we were tired and hungry and running low on water - so even paradise itself won't have impressed).

All of our beloved red and white signs had been painstakingly, if not totally, removed by a guy with a hammer and chisel. We found this odd but the path was clear and the missing marking really stood out on the rocks. So we continued - wondering to ourselves. I suggested that we may find out, to our cost no doubt, why the route had been changed. But we (foolishly) continued.

Death Valley

We got to a dry mountain stream (potential deadly torrent type stream) to the right of the picture below. After the storm the night before this should have been impassable - would have been impassable. But it seems the storm had missed the relevant bit of mountain. So it was dry. Still scary to cross but bone dry.


In the middle of the photo is the path, one half of the zig-zag (or zag-zig) that we had to do over a recent land slide (the reason for the re-routing). The photo does not do the steepness or the looseness of this path any justice. It was death waiting to happen. But given the choice of potential death and walking back to the escape route we chose death.

After wondering through the ski fields (depressing in Summer) we got to Candanchu. Met Junius, who else, who had found a cheap hostel so we were set for the night. A hostal but we had a room for 4. Which is effectively a private room.

We went out for dinner. Too early of course. We hand been to France today but decided to walk to the actual border post. But it was on a road and we soon gave up - too far. Back in 'town' we met a French lady walker who was doing the GR11 and had fallen at a place called Pineta (meant very little to us) and had been rescued by helicopter and taken to hospital.

Walking is a serious business.

We told her about the hostel and went our merry way. Dinner and bed. Happy as we were now a day ahead of our schedule with no real effort - so an extra day on the beach at the end.

We had also passed the 200km mark - but no celebration. Less than a quarter of the way there.

A perfectly packed rucksack? *

* Actually no. But we had tried and tried.