Day 5 : Lebana to Cabanes and back again

Honestly, I have to say that I was mighty pleased to get back our our mountain home yesterday. Gosh it had been a hot walk back to the car; I felt a little out of sorts from that hot sun for the rest of the evening and I probably should have made more effort to cool down at home. It was a really beautiful walk but we’d been foolish to not cover our heads; we know better than this! I normally always carry a cotton scarf and when we know it’s going to be hot we take UV umbrellas. It was a lesson learned for today!

Also, unfortunately Gerry stood in dog poop as he parked up yesterday, twice! So he had the really unpleasant task of washing his shoes before dinner. And if that wasn’t bad enough we spent a while hunting down a particularly terrible smell in the kitchen; one of our eggs had cracked and gone rotten. Oh my word! The smell was awful and no amount of fresh air could totally clear it! Thankfully we can laugh about it all now!

Sometime in the middle of the night Gerry leapt out of bed and rushed to the front door. On went the lights and he checked from room to room. What are you doing? I asked… I heard the door open he replied. He still says that he heard someone open our door but hands up who thinks that maybe he was dreaming?

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Day 4 : Lafuenta to Mirador de Santa Catrina and back again

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Day 3 : Cades to LaFuente and back again!

You know some days you wake up and nothing feels quite right? Your morning tea doesn’t taste as it should, the shower is a bit too cold, the heating too warm, the toaster doesn’t work and things just aren’t quite as sunny? This was my morning. Some folks would say that “I got out the wrong side of the bed” or even that “I was just plain grumpy” but the simple truth was that I was feeling out of sorts.

I made our picnic and we packed our bags and made ready for the day with very little chit chat… I’m guessing Gerry sensed it was for the best. We left later than we intended and headed off back down the road to find the start of today’s walk. As with yesterday we knew that there was a long drive ahead and I was more than a little apprehensive as I’d seen the road on google maps and it looked high and very very bendy… thinking back perhaps this was why I was out of sorts… I knew what was coming!

Typical of my morning, just as we got to the steep section google announced that the GPS signal was lost so it was just us and the road… but as there was only one road we assumed we should just keep going. Up and up we drove, switching left and switching right and wishing and hoping that no other car or tractor came from the other direction. The road was steep and narrow and our poor little car barely left second gear. We passed an old lady bent over her stick, strolling up the hill… a few hundred metres further up we saw a chap trying to catch a calf that had escaped his pasture and was stuck on a ledge beside the road; Gerry wondered if the old lady was the support team coming to help. But we’ll never know as we carried on higher and higher until the road opened up into a valley and instead of mountains and rocks we had fields and high pastures.

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Day 2 : Barrio Basieda to San Vicente de la Barquera to somewhere after Serdio… and back again

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Day 1 : Bordeaux-ish (France) to Potes-ish (Spain)

How are you? How has life been for you during these difficult, difficult days? I am well. My loved ones are well and thankfully our life in South West France has changed very little over recent months. Of course we were restricted to home but we consider ourselves fortunate that our lives rolled on as usual. There has been no singing and no concerts and no music and so many walks have been cancelled. I was due to walk with two groups along the Camino Frances and also planned to walk the Camino Ingles… all dreams now. But there are always new plans.

At first we planned to walk the Camino Lebaniego starting the 8th June; this date came and went. Then we thought perhaps a week later on the 15th June but again this came and went. However, Spain announced that the border would open for us on the 1st July. That was enough for us. It was time to go walk.

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