If Carlsberg did valleys...

Waking up in the car park in Benasque was a nice experience, with the river rushing below that had provided some calming white noise through the night. There had been one disturbance of about fifteen minutes when, in the early hours, a car came into the single space between us and the next motorhome. Why they didn't stop in the mass of open space that wasn't marked for parking, no-one will ever know.

What sounded like four people then got out the the car and had a loud but very amicable discussion over a cigarette or two. Unfortunately this isn't compatible with sleep, especially when the fly screen-covered windows were open. As they have insulation over them there's no visibility issues but the voices were clear enough. I had to be persuaded not to go out, an ungainly proposition anyway, emerging from the top half of a Defender rear door half naked. Happily they left with a mañana to each other and the night sounds returned to the white noise from the white water.

For a final day in los Pirineos we again searched out a road that would take us into the heart of the main mountains. Initially we drove south from Benasque on the N260 which then made a turn to the west. Yet again, as has happened so frequently on this trip, the road took us through a knife-slash of a gorge with the road carved from the rock to the side of the river. On and on it went until suddenly we were driving up to a high point and there was an opportunity to stop and gaze, this time at the turbine hall of a small HEP plant.

The road continued west and it almost felt as though we were leaving the mountains but the route then switched to the A135 which headed north and straight to the western side of Monte Perdido (3,355m). There was a fantastic point where it abruptly changed to a narrow road, under cliffs and for a moment we hesitated to check that it really was the correct route. The surface was a mix of concrete and gravel with the road pushing up and up into this narrow valley.

At pretty-much the end of the road, the narrow valley widens out to a large flat area at Bujaruelo, and there is the most peaceful campsite. Surprisingly there were various vehicles including some modest motorhomes (or are they camper vans). The road had been fairly rough in places so they had made a considerable effort to get up. The hostel was heaving with hordes of walkers and valley visitors. They were doing a roaring trade in meals and beers.

There were a lot of day trippers who all left before nightfall. We spent an hour sweating up the side of the valley, just to say we'd been here. It's no good doing this in alpine region though, you have to prepare for a long day which then gives plenty of time to stay up at a high level, without expending too much energy eating-up vertical height without having time to wander and appreciate.

Next time, assuming the weather is with us, we will come back and do some long days. The ultimate of course is to not necessarily descend to the valley overnight and bank the height, staying high in a refugio de montaña.

There was time for one more Spanish omelette and due to popular demand, here is the method.

In the morning we had a taste of mountain temperatures. It was cool (13C) but whilst waiting for the sun to emerge from behind the mountains there was a sudden change in air and breakfast became chilly at 9C.

It was a beautiful end to the trip with a steady drive back to Bilbao planned for the day and a night dockside awaiting the ferry. This is a nice touch by Brittany Ferries who open-up check in from 16:00-19:00 the day before and allow vans to stay. For us this meant a saving of €15-20 campsite and no pressure to drive into the port the next morning. 

Fallas del Pirineo

We drank a beer but then our interest in La Pasarela wained and we went in search of the preparations for Tradicionales Falls de Sahunc. Wandering the tiny streets it was clear that someone is taking a lot of care over the restoration of the buildings and many are beautifully done with the stone walls either rebuilt or at least re-pointed.

I’m appreciative of this sort of building work but find it confusing when differing types of stonework and painting are employed. This happens just as much at home in the Peak District National Park. Some buildings have had rubble walls re-pointed, flush-style, where the mortar is scraped back and rubbed if needed to provide a flush joint. Others have been re-built in the coarsed style of some old buildings, with occasional large pieces of stone and much thinner pieces used to in-fill. Such care has been taken over the selection of these stone pieces that it almost looks artificial. Some are then flush pointed but others have the mortar joints raked back behind the stone surface to produce a quite severe look that I think is totally out of keeping with the style. Two hundred years ago the builders would never have bashed the stone about as much as it would have taken too long.

We saw that the youth of the village were beginning to gather, collecting their previously made Falles from wherever they had been stored and they were gathering on one of the main ‘streets’, close to what would be a fire used to light them.

Meanwhile we followed a relatively small group of people and walked a little way up to the outskirts of the village where we realised the main event would be held. Here 90% of the visitors were already assembled. This explained where all the people were. They hadn’t bothered to watch La Pasarela and were instead sitting on the steep grass hillside above and on chairs, around a wide flat area that almost resembled a bullring.

Here the local fire crew were in position with hoses ready and a small band were tuning up.
It was great to be able to sit on dry grass. There was no dew, yet it was almost dark. The band’s playing got more intense and then as darkness proper fell, the music changed to signify the first Falle and down the slope and into the ring ran a very young child, aged four maybe, with an adult helping. Between them they held the big stick, the bark well alight and proceeded to “twizzle” it around at shoulder height in a full circular motion horizontally around their bodies. The crowd cheered them on as bits of burning bark, thrown off by the motion of the stick, fell onto the ground and continued to burn.

A second child and adult joined and then a third until it was time for more to run in, now unaccompanied as they could be considered old enough. The timing of the entry was decided based on the number of “twisters” still in the ring and as one left, the flame having finally burnt out, a new carrier came in to a chorus of cheers and whistles.

It was now very dark and careful positioning ensured that even with four of five “twizzlers”, there was just enough room for them all to do the job. There was little separation between flaming falles and the heads of others. Meanwhile all the debris, still burning, built up on the ground. Every new person ran in with a bigger flame and twisted it with more gusto, so that flaming bark was scattered widely, sometimes into the crowd at the sides, whereby the Firemen would open a hosepipe and damp it down. Surprisingly no-one was hit by a twister, even at the end when the old hands, with plenty of muscle, took the twisting to new heights, going faster and faster, with the crowd cheering even more loudly.

Finally after maybe fifty Falles it was clear that it was over, at which time the old hands embraced each other and a short firework display then started on the hill above us. The bangs reverberated around the mountains just as a thunderclap. It was a sensational event.

Many of the crowd then dispersed and although we thought about sleeping in the parking field, some cars near us didn’t leave and we imagined that the owners were staying for the final event, that wasn’t scheduled to finish until the early hours. We therefore drove back to Benasque and to a “Park4nite” indicated spot, which was a car park being built specifically for Autocaravans in which to “overnight”.

We parked at the end, levelled the Landy with the ramps and climbed in the back. It’s all very slick. We are used to that now.

Warming up in Les Pirineos

We have had a little "multifunction" display in the Landy for a few years and it has turned out to be very useful. As well as showing the time (not useful) and the voltage (again not useful as other things show it too), it does show the internal and external temperature. If you are careful with sunlight, the external reading is very accurate.

As the weather warms up outside, the Landy cab does too. We drive with the front flaps open which are extremely effective. It doesn't happen often but slow or stationary traffic does cause a major warm-up. Even so it sometimes gets too hot and this was the reading when we were moving at high speed.

So we went into the Pyrenees which after all was the objective for the whole holiday until we arrived at cold and wet Bilbao three weeks ago. There was no time for any proper walking but we still intended to search out a suitable Fallas del Pirineo. An ancestral tradition celebrating the arrival of summer in different parts of Aragon and Catalonia. UNESCO has declared these festivals to be intangible cultural heritage.

After an overnight stay in a campsite where the toilet was emptied and showers taken etc. etc, we spent the day touring and first drove to Benasque, beautifully situated at the southern end of a magnificent valley stretching right up to the border with France.

Walking around the town we happened upon rehearsals for this event taking place in the town. It's just amazing what happens. Why does this tiny place host this kind of event?

We were standing in the doorway when a young girl took her turn at the rehearsal piano and it was staggering to listen to this without any warning!

After that refreshing few minutes we drove to the end of the road and "made a small hike" as they said in Monty Python's sketch, so that, with elevation, we could see some proper mountains.

The Landy is somewhere down there on the road but the green paint makes for a nice camouflage.

Few places in Alpine regions seem to be without these path markers. there are plenty of other but red/white is prominent. I used to think that they marked a specific GR but I don't think that they do - I might be wrong though. I think of them as the AS of my childhood, in the cartoon version of Jules Verne's novel, "Journey to the centre of the earth", Arne Saknussemm's initials were followed in much the same way!

That night we drove to Sahun, close to Benasque, to watch their fire festival. These are held in various mountain villages in the Pyrenees and are part of a Europe-wide (I think) celebration of the Summer Solstice and tied to the feast of St. Juan.

Depending on the traditions of each village, the participants come down from the highest point carrying flaming home-made torches (fallas), drawing shapes in the air with fire, dancing, or lighting a large bonfire in the village square. These rites are passed down through the generations and different villages regard them as symbolising the transition to adulthood, purification or fertility.

As we approached the hamlet we realised that this is a big event with several fields marked out for parking. We walked up to the centre where things were in full swing - except not in the way we intended! There was a full-on Euro-pop style concert underway. It was hilarious and i must say, very well done. What a laugh.

Moving north

Still wondering what the Mayor might do about some Land Rover overnighters down below his village, we slept and there was no noise and it was dark. The moon has only just got started on its new cycle and so we have had some great dark skies. Most nights I have gone outside to have a look and the Plough has been prominent but low and surprisingly Cassiopeia too has been visible from most places, not so low as I would have imagined, in the eastern sky.

If we are in a position to catch the ‘early’ sun, which isn’t early anyway this far south, then the Landy warms up and we jump out of bed. Otherwise it is fairly chilly, especially at altitude. This morning wasn’t too bad and the view of the village was worth stirring for. It's Algarra, nearest town is Teruel, north west of Valencia

There was a twist to the tale though as another vehicle drove down quite early and with my best Spanish I again explained that we had slept overnight. It turns out that this guy was more interested in the pile of sand next to us and once he was happy that we weren’t suspicious, he simply waited for a tractor to arrive. They then lifted a couple of buckets of sand up and into a trailer and then were gone.

We never did meet the Mayor!

We had decided to drive up to the Pyrenees as the weather had turned for the better and so we continued north and headed for Albarracín. Driving up yet another stupendous gorge, we noticed another "big bird". There are many soaring birds but these attracted our attention and we stopped to look more closely. High on the crags we saw at least six vultures. I'm afraid that x10 optical is all I have.

At the top of this gorge we really were "on top" with a high level route that reached ~1,400m. It wasn't so obvious except that even in full sun the temperature wasn't rising as quickly as one might have expected. We made another unscheduled stop in order to buy bread. We happened on a village, Terriente,  a week too early as they were preparing for a festival, to include a series of bull fights. It was obvious something heavyweight was going to happen just from the size of the gates that were being installed.

So to Albarracín which the 'big' map shows to be on the eastern side of the country, west of Tarragona / Barcelona. It is stupendously situated at the entrance to another gorge, through which flows the Rio Guadalaviar. Traffic exiting the gorge has to pass under the town wall in a short tunnel.

We were happy to walk around the old streets but less than happy not to be able to locate a single café, Nada. There's only so much interest to be had when there's no access to a late afternoon coffee.

This whole region, the Sierra de Albarracín is characterised by 2,000m heights and canyons and gorges. They apparently receive 100cm of rainfall per annum, however the late Spring and its rain is already a distant memory.

"I'm the dog"

El Berro and Camping Sierra Espuña are nicely positioned for walking in these 'low' Sierras and of course the obligatory GRXYZ long distance path crosses the village. The campsite people gave us a couple of short walk suggestions, written on A4 and translated by some English guy, Michael Ball. We waited until the end of the afternoon, so that the temperature was somewhat manageable and then picked one of the ~1 hour walks that start at the campsite.

The walk is so simple that there's no description, just a small diagram that's well annotated with the type of path (wide main track / footpath), other markers (gate, incorrect route, fence). You can't go wrong, can you? Well the first part was easy. Follow the path out of the village, up a valley, through woodland, up and up. Then reach the ridge and the marked ring of stones. Don't turn right, carry on straight across. Then wander through a few trees and down to a dry riverbed, at which point you walk the (very short indicated distance) back to the village. Simples!

Well somewhere between ridge and dry river bed, the path disappeared and we walked across scree, scrub and tried to move down the side of the valley in which we expected to find the dry river bed. Well we did, but it was quite a tricky descent and I was concerned because glancing back to see from where we had come, it was really hard to see our route. At the dry riverbed I made a pile of stones to mark the point of entry and checked my watch. We began to walk downhill. Ok so we were in the correct place but we didn't know for sure. There was no phone signal and I hadn't done a download of the local Google maps (top tip if you do expect to have "no signal").

It was a thirty minute walk back but the point is that this was a massive ravine lined by huge crags, there was no way out up the sides and if we had made a mistake and were walking down the wrong path, there was no way of knowing. The area is so sparsely populated that getting back to El Berro might have been a challenge. Anyway we didn't get lost after all!

We left our site (and some squabbling sixty-somethings from the UK in an adjacent motorhome) and set off north-ish, expecting a nice scenic drive and a wild camp somewhere. It was to be a great day.

There were plenty of almond trees. We have seen small scale orchards? in Andalucia but now we were into the big stuff.

The landscape looks like South Africa or Utah, with huge crags rising from the plains, sometimes as table lands.

Every now and then a village appears. usually in a stunning setting and a castle is almost always involved!

I could go on an on about the amazing landscapes but my descriptions won't be sufficient. Vast areas appear to be open-cast quarries with associated spoil heaps. Others look as though they will erode so quickly that there'll be nothing left next week. There are huge rocky outcrops, big escarpments, bluffs that are bigger than anything in the UK. The quarry thing is just that it looks as though the big "heaps" are loose material. In fact they might be loose but there is so little precipitation that erosion happens only slowly. At the side of the road you can see rock and soil that in the UK would be gone in a flash, yet here it must take years to erode, or at least there's only one or two events per year where some gets washed away.

This landascape continued through the drive north until, near the end of the day, we started to look for a wild camp. On this trip, having the toilet has made things so much easier. We can stop anywhere and leave no traces. 😆

We made an instant decision to turn up a little side road to have a quick look at a tiny hamlet perched on a crag. We drove up and around, past a guy splitting logs in his garage and then were stopped by a no entry sign as the narrow street was blocked by long term building walk to a house. We got out and walked around. There was nothing there but we took in the view back to the castle and walked back to the Landy.

Still wondering where we would sleep we saw a short track just below the road that petered out after 200m. Driving down it actually stopped in a small picnic area, alongside a constant water outlet of the type that are found all over. They are marked as agua potable sin trata(miento)

That's where we made dinner and got ready for a peaceful evening.

Whilst we were eating, two local ladies came for a walk to inspect the new area and I felt that I should tell them what we were doing. Our Landy doesn't look like a normal motorhome and anyway no normal motorhome would drive down here.

So using Google translate, I said something like, "We are going to sleep here for the night. We have our own water and toilet so will respect the place. Will that be OK?"

The ladies were quite serious but very friendly and said all sorts of stuff that we couldn't understand. Eventually I gave one my phone and asked her to type-in what she was saying.

...which translates to, "we will ask but should be no problem".

ASK?? Who are they going to ask for permission? It's a tiny place. So I typed in the question and the reply was..."The Mayor". I nearly choked on my dinner. Why does a place with about three houses have a mayor?

We decided to risk it and said goodbye, hoping that the Mayor would come before bedtime at least. We finished dinner, washed up using hot water from one of our 10l containers, that we put on the wing of the Landy as soon as we stop. In these temperatures it soon warms up.

The sun went down, the temperature dropped and just as we were relaxing, a truck came down the track and a man got out and walked towards us, with a stern look on his face.

"It's the Mayor, who else?"

"Yes but he's wearing a boiler suit."

"Well he's definitely coming this way"

After some posturing it became clear that he wasn't the Mayor but a concerned farmer who wondered "what the b';^&&y hell you are doing here?"

He explained that his flock of sheep were on their way onto our track and this is Carlos who appears to do this every night. By writing in the gravel we learnt that there are 480 of them and they know where to go. We were able to impress him by telling him that Dawn is the daughter of a well known Derbyshire sheep farmer. They came past us slowly and remarkably were controlled by three huge goats wearing the biggest bells I've ever seen.

The absolute best part was that when they were about 100m past us and starting to stray from the desired route, Carlos whistled, a shrill whistle and they all moved to the right and continued to walk. He did it one more time and they did the same. There was no sheepdog and we told him, "In England we need a dog to do that". He simply said, "I'm the dog".

He jumped in the truck and was gone. We went to bed.

Quiet Spain

Flamenco had been advertised for 17:30, at the campsite restaurant. The campsite isn't busy yet as it isn't July or August, which seems to be the only time any quantity of Spaniards go on their holidays. The restaurant is commensurably quiet too but we thought we'd go and listen.

I'd assumed that Flamenco is just guitar with some clapping but here we had a couple of guys, one who could play the guitar, properly and one who could sing, properly. The guitarist often played two different melodies simultaneously and without checking Google, I think that is Flamenco. I was expecting the other guy just to clap, Flamenco style but clapping was a mere sideline, as he could sing. It was no ordinary lament but a serious, sad almost haunting sound and I only wish that I understood the words. It was a very informal session.

I should say that this clip isn't particularly representative of the Flamenco style that I think they were playing!

A bigger draw however, was the World Cup 2018 opener for Spain against Portugal. The masses were gathered around TVs at all the bars but Cristiano Ronaldo spoilt the evening somewhat with his hat-trick to level the match at the close. It was a great family occasion though, so nice to see a well behaved mix of people and not a vest in sight.

We drove north from this far south-easern corner of Andalucia, hugging the coast on the A7-E15, just so we could gobble-up some kilometres. We were always an hour or so inland, heading through Sierra de los Filabre and the Sierra de Las Estancias until we were just a little further inland from Murcia in Sierra de Espuna.

We left the motorway and headed up into Espuna. Again and again on this trip we have been amazed at the scenery, its sheer size and splendour. There's nowhere in all our travels that wraps up remoteness, crags, height and dizziness into one country and then keeps it coming where ever you go. Why we didn't know this years ago I don't know. There might be the Costas but inland (and not far inland at that) it's an entirely different proposition.

The campsite reviews for the site at El Berro were good, so we rolled-up.

What can I say? A three-terraced site, with an amazing pool, a bar and a restaurant just on the road outside. All this in a tiny village that has nothing else except two panaderías and a shop for comestibles.

You have to look hard in theses villages to find anything moving, especially in the afternoon. I'm sure that the age profile, heavily skewed towards the older generation, has plenty to do with that. We wandered the little alleyways, looking over walls and into doorways. Everyone is curious to see you but happy with a Buenos Diás / Tarde. Even though we saw English people in the restaurant "We have a place on the coast", they never seem to walk around, except car to table to car.

We ate Menu del Dias during both afternoons we were there. I hesitate to describe the meal in detail ("and what good value it is"), as that's something I should reserve for later years. However, it was €9 each and that included a drink. So we asked for white wine and were brought the bottle and a bottle of water. Ensalada, Primo, Segundos, Postre, plus a café solo or con leche to finish. I tried to pay more for the wine and water but they would have none of it.

It got me wondering about business rates here and in the UK. I mean, how can they do it? They served between fifteen and twenty diners I think, during 13:30 to 15:30. It was great food, no frills and just perfect.

As for the campsite swimming pool, what can I say that isn't summed-up by this photograph, taken at the busy time, that is when someone was actually in the water (me). It was about a 20m length and so Dawn was in her element and I was trying to keep up.

Gareth and the boys were playing that night and so we did our bit and pegged our colours to the washing line. This wasn't just because there was a couple from Aberdeen next door, I really do want us to be proud of our team. Everyone else seems to support theirs.

I watched the match in the main room of the restaurant where we had just eaten. It was a lonely affair until a Dutch lady came in from outside. "They nearly look Dutch" she exclaimed, looking at our red shirts (with an orange tint maybe). "Well you may as well support us", I said (as Holland didn't qualify this time). She went back outside to her husband and to dinner but couldn't resist another visit at the death when we got the winner! Tunisia 1 England 2. Roll on Sunday.