London, day 1

Today, London.  In fact we only spent one day in London despite saying that is where we were going.

On the agenda?  For Youngest...fish and chips.

For the Man and me, the Manet exhibit at the Royal Academy.

For all of us, the British Museum.

So....we took the train into London, then the tube and then, in a city the size of London, we managed to walk right past the apartment that my parents used to have in London.  No planning on it, but we went right past it. As we got closer Youngest, who has spent a week with them every year for five years there, recognized more and more landmarks.....and we went right by.  A little weird feeling.

Then off to the British Museum.

Crowded, amazing.  The Man wanted to see the Lion of Kneid (?) that is in the atrium, we visited Kneid many years ago on a boat with Eldest when she was 6 months old and that was something he wanted to see.  Fortunately there was a little food kiosk right next to it so we sat down to eat a little something.  Then Youngest wanted to see items from North America and Canada.  Fine.  In some ways it seemed a little odd to go to the British Museum to see artifacts from N America, but she goes to school in Spain and there is little to nothing about it here and she wanted to know.  The collection was, to say the least, limited.  One room.  That's it. One.

In the entire British Museum.  However, we looked at it all closely. Weirdly some of it was not marked correctly on the signs, who'da thought the BM would screw up like that, but...whatever.

Then, as we had timed tickets to the Manet exhibit and we weren't sure how long the walk would take us, we headed out, walking down through Soho towards the exhibit.  We found a nice looking pub, the Three Greyhounds, and got us a fish and chip lunch.  With lemonade.  And fine it was too.  Youngest ticked that off her agenda.

On we went, got to Piccadilly Circus, got some souvenirs for some of Youngest's friends and then to Waterstones (no apostrphe) to get some reading!  The man and Youngest found stuff they wanted, so all is good.

Then to the Manet.  It was fine, better than fine, but hear this oh Royal Academy, if you're reading this....for timed tickets that was WAY too crowded.  You could barely see the pictures, and I would think more than twice about going to another exhibition there.  Horridly overcrowded.

From here we walked along the embankment to the Tate Modern to see what was on in the Turbine Hall (disappointingly, nothing) but we got something to drink at the cafe and made our way over the Millenium bridge, which the death eaters explode at the beginning of the 6th HP movie.

The tide was way out so we went down into the river bed, found some bones and a bit of pottery and went home.  Ahhhh, a lovely day indeed.

The Space Station! L'estació d'espai

The man is fantastic, he subscribes to something-or-other at NASA that sends him an email when the space station is going overhead!  Went by tonight and we were out there waving at it.  It moves SERIOUSLY FAST!

SO incredibly cool to think that there are people up there, going around and around and around us.

SO cool

Go here if you want an email notice for when it will fly over your location!

L'home meu és fantàstic.  Està apuntat amb un grup o el que sigui de NASA que li envien un missatge quan l'estació d'espai estigui passant per a sobre nosaltres.  Ens ha passat aquesta nit i estàvem allà fora saludant-los.  Va MOLT RÀPIDAMENT!

Està tan impressionant pensant que hi ha gent cap allà donant voltes i voltes i voltes de nosaltres

Increïble.

Ves aquí si voldries rebre una notificació per correu

wipe out on the bike, vaig caure de la bicicleta!

OUCH

Hauria de passar, però....deu meu, m'he fet una mica de mal.

Estava baixant una riera, molt ràpidament, com sempre, i he havia moltes caques de cavalls.  Estava intentant de no trapitjar-les i llavors no vaig saltar un desaiguà gaire bé.  La meva mà, de la dreta, va saltar del manillar i pim pam.  A terra.  He tret la pell de tots dos genolls, un braç i una cuixa.  Unes blaus, i el fre del darrer va afluixar força.

Però, mira, ara tinc crostes, però poc més i una botiga de bicicletes em va revisar i reposar bé el fre.....gratuït!

No puc queixar de res.  Està molt divertit anar amb bicicleta.

It had to happen, but OUCH!

I was screaming down a riera, which is a dry river bed, very quickly as always, and it was full of horse crap.  As I was going to a friend's house and I park the bike in the living room while I'm there, I was doing my best to avoid them, soooo, I didn't jump concrete ditch quite right, my hand lost control of the handle bars and the fat lady started singing.

Skinned both knees, my hip and an arm.  A couple of bruises and the back brakes on the bike, which were already loose, were MUCH looser, fortunately a bike shop in a neighbouring town checked them over and tightened them up for me for free - remind me to go back!

I can't really complain.  It is a lot of fun riding the bike.

Day 4, Malllorca, dia 4, last day. L'últim dia

Last day of the trip.  Again, a beautiful day.  Much lighter from both the time and effort perspective and somewhat less spectacular visually. 

One of the guys whose boot had broken had bought hiking boots for 16€, as you can imagine, these were not all that could be hoped for and were wearing his baby toe right off, indeed the nail was getting loose, so for the last day, he decided to go with the nearly dead shoes with some electrical ties to try and reinforce it all., see?

We had a relatively longish walk down through to the town after a lovely walk down and down through the hills.  Not spectacular, but truly lovely.  One couple in the group had spent a week in this town so knew a great place to eat.  They even kindly let us leave our packs there while we had a wander around town. How light and free I felt without the pack on!  So light that when we got to these stairs up to a sanctuary I wanted to go up.  They thought I was joking and said they'd wait for me, so I started to run up the stairs.  You can see that there are a lot.  I was just kinda jogging up them when one of the other guys BLEW by me, so I picked up the pace and we ran up them.  Eventually we both thought we were going to die from lack of air so we brought the pace down a little, still fast, but enough that we weren't wheezing....the stairs were those kind of long ones, about a half meter long to a little bit high, but the last three flights up to the sanctuary are normal, as we got to them I broke into a run and Toni after been caught flat for a second ran them too, we got to the top at the same time....good fun.  Took in the view, lungs heaving, and we were about to descend again when we noticed the others, more sensibly walking up.

One other guy and I had started running down when they called us all back up for a photo, *pant - pant* then we were off again, right behind me one of the biggest men in the group and a bit of a loose cannon, frankly terrifying having him running down behind me, I hunkered down to one side and let him blow by me.  People were pulling off to each side to let this crazed group of middle-aged people in matching orange shirts bomb down the stairs. Toni and I actually stopped running, the chance that we were going to fall and do ourselves serious harm was a little too high for me.

Hilarious fun.  A great way to cap off a great 4 days. 

race (?) recap, com ha anat la cursa

Went off and walked 87(.2) K (with 6000m of accumulated elevation, this means adding up both the climbing and descending) yesterday, and I have to say that above all, it was beautiful.  Long, hard, I am tired and achey today, but it was beautiful.

I went into it a lot more tired than I should have been, after the 4 days on the Travessa de la Serralada Tramuntana in Mallorca, my legs did not have the rest this event really called for and that became apparent.  Normally, nothing hurts or feels tired till after the 50K mark, nearing the 60K, but yesterday, but 40K things were hurting, lots of things were hurting.

Something I've figured out is that when things are aching, they generally only do it for a while, and then stop, so if you think about something else, generally it is gone after a bit.  That was happening, but fairly consistently, something or other was hurting at some moment or another.  After only 40K of an 87K race.  OUCH.

40 - 50 K were fairly tough. It was hot, it was sunny, I was achey, there was a big fat long long long climb, I had had to leave my hat behind as it was SOOOOOO windy and I wasn't even half way through.

That said, there were parts that were unbelievably beautiful and wherein I felt amazing.

I was supposed to have done the walk with a friend, but he had been sick for three weeks and there was no way on earth that this was a good idea for him, but a good friend he is cause he drove me up there, with another friend of his I hadn't met before, then they decided to hang out and cheer me on at 64K, called me several times to cheer me on, and then decided that they would drive me home as well!  HEROS!!! Finally, they got a hotel room up by the course and we crashed out there for the night, returning the next day.  Good friend.



Here's some photos:

Just before this photo was taken I got chatting with another walker, 25 year old physiotherapist who had never walked more than 20K and was doing this in shoes he'd bought 2 weeks ago.  The woman he was walking with didn't let him stop for lunch or dinner so he just nibbled at the various tables all the way through!  He finished!  From the look of him, in terrible pain, but with a big smile and chatting with folks!  I am totally impressed.  He pulled that off with his head alone.  

Above is one of the crazy descents on this route, it is a little hard to see in the picture but this drops away at an incredible rate, when I took the picture I was already part way down.  If you click on it you can see tiny dots of people!  After descending this, running, it was more work to go slowly,  we took the upper of the two roads that go away on the right.  We also went up the highest peak you see there in the background.

Below is an old church, the second control.  The more experienced in the group also brought along a sturdy plastic cup with a hole drilled in it for a carabiner, for drinks, they didn't give out cups on this route, which apparently is typical for these long walks(/runs.  The first guy finished the entire route sometimes around 5pm, that would be 9 hours for 87K and 6000M of accumulated elevation.  Unreal.

We went by quite a few abandoned houses, and this little church nestled into a valley.

Climbed back up to the remains of this church.  The name is well beyond me..  Should have taken a picture of the plaque.

A gigantic monastery we walked past and then climbed up to that building on the crest, the remains of a castle.  This is the peak in the background of that other image.  The climb up was l.o.n.g.  Mostly beautiful, but rather grinding.

A view of Cadaqués taken from somewhere or other.
It was a beautiful day for the walk.

If you click on this you can see how rough the sea was, it was WINDY!

This is inside the ruins of the castle.  It wasn't really a sight seeing tour, so I didn't get much of a look around, have to go back.  They guy in the background was working really hard.  He didn't like it one little bit when I passed him a while back and he is knocking himself out to get away from me here.

No idea where he finished.

This is the trail on and out of the castle very narrow and while there is a drop off to one side it wasn't that bad, it just kept dropping away at that rate, you wouldn't go too far if you fell.

We then went along this ridge which was, for us non-professional trail runners, quite technical, as in you had to use your hands and climb up and down and around a lot.  Honestly quite good fun.  I had just passed a woman who was INCREDIBLY slow on the descents, she was obviously very afraid of falling and went like a grandma.  The problem was she didn't want to let anyone pass her.  I did.

Continuing along this ridge, it was really lovely, and the wind had died down a bit which helped.
If you click on these two pictures, you can see some people in the trails.

This is coming down off of the ridge, we went along this softer wider part of the ridge and then worked our way down to the left before that next hill.  Please note the cows.  I always grew up thinking of cows in flat fields, but na-aaaah, cows are serious mountaineers, these babies LOVE to walk and climb, the sheep stay down lower as far as I have seen, but the cows? My goodness, they are mountain folk.  

 This is looking back from further along the course, the ridges of mountains in the background are where the castle and I think the higher peak on the right was the first one we did.  Of that ridge, we climbed up the first, went along the second and round the third, starting from the right.  You can see a road in the image, and just as the road curves away to the left there is a trail coming down the mountain, we came down that, pretty much had to run it it was so steep and loose, honestly a great moment, a lot of fun, and they had a cop stopping traffic for us to cross.  Nice.

Here we are walking out towards the cape.  Beautiful sea and sunshine.  As you can see the shadows are getting longer, which was frankly a blessing, it was a long long day in the sun for this giri without a hat.

That's the last of the photos as it was getting darker out.  We went on and on, after I got to the checkpoint at 51K things got better for me, we were past half-way, I realised part way up that we were finishing the last of the big climbs on the route, we were coming into the supper station and friends were waiting for me at 64K, this was also an exceptionally beautiful part of the route, really really lovely with the mountains and the sea.

I also have to say that in sharp contrast to our experience in Mallorca, on the few occasions when we met up with people from the area who had 350+ people walking by, they were UNIFORMLY helpful, and cheerful  EVERY LAST one of them.  Urging us on no less.

As we came down into Cadaqués, also a very touristy spot, folks helped us find our way, cleared the way for us, we were walking considerably faster than most people out for a stroll before dinner, and cheered us on.  

Dinner was honestly gross, but gave the necessary energy, I was starting to not really want to eat at this point.  Meh.  I did though anyway.

I do have to say that my only beef with the whole thing is that in a course of 87K, there was not. ont. toilet.  Not one.  *slightly gross discussion coming up, if you want, skip down to the next paragraph*  Now, for the guys, peeing is not that big an issue, for the girls, somewhat more, especially as you might have noticed that there are very few trees on this course, it is pretty darned open, and the women were probably outnumbered 6:1 easily.  Then there is the real issue.  Poo.  If you have 350+ people walking this far, working this hard, all of them with the weight of a pack hanging on a belt around their waist, very nearly all of them are going to need to have a crap at some point.  If not more than one.  The course directors had emphasised, at some length, that they did not want to sully the environment, they were not giving out cups or plastic wrapped food and provided garbage at the check points.  But they really expect all of us to crap along the course?  I don't get it.  Now, I will grant, some of these checkpoints are pretty remote, but a porta-potty or two and the lunch and dinner stations would be a no-brainer.  Honestly boys, get that organised.

By the time I left the dinner station it was full dark.  The headlamp I had on was adequate, but really should have been much brighter, were I to do something like this again, I would get a stronger light, if only to find the trail markers which were red and darkish green.  Remarkably difficult to find in the dark.  I ended up trailing along with a group of guys to get out of Cadaqués, it was tricky, but they were slow so once out of town I went off on my own.  I also felt kinda nauseous coming out of dinner, but that quickly passed and the stars were gorgeous.

Made it out to the lighthouse and my friends, dumped extra food, sunglasses and sunscreen with them and went off on the last leg, which felt like nothing, only 23K, I was already there!  Odd the perspective you get, but that's how it felt.  This section of the trail was however, kind of annoying.  It was like it had been marked by several different people, some had done a really good job and some, meh, not so much.  We ended up getting lost a couple of times, a little bit of plastic tape, like the cops have, hung strategically would have made a big difference. I probably lost about 20 min getting lost in here. Flat, rocky and multiple trails.  Tricky.

This section also had three parts, the flat-get-lost section then a series of climbs and descents.  Slightly demoralising these were, we dropped about 100m into a valley, climbed out the other side, over and over and over again.  Ho hum, each time hoping to see the sea, but just seeing another ridge.  Obviously it eventually ended, but it was somewhat tedious.  If I were to do it again, it would be better as I have a reasonable idea of what to expect.

The last section was along the sea and except for one badly marked intersection, it was basically flat and if there had been a little more light, it would have been beautiful.

My friends met me about 100 meters from the finish and we ran the last bit in.  Felt astonishingly easy weirdly!  Folks at the bar nearby cheered.

Then it was done, handed in the chip, the man had to take it off, my hands were too swollen to do so.  When you walk a long way, especially with a pack, your hands swell, the pack cuts down the circulation a bit and they just hang there at the ends of your arms, swinging, both gravity and centrifugal force working against your circulation.  It doesn't hurt and it isn't serious, just makes your hands very slow and clumsy.

And that was it, we hopped into their car, drove back to the hotel, climbed 4 floors up to the room (wasn't positive I'd make that bit!) had a long shower and crashed.  Breakfast on the beach in Cadaqués the next morning and we were off home.  

I was honestly pretty achey yesterday but today feel surprisingly good.  Yes, still a little achey, and definitely tired, but pretty darned good!

I'd do it again, with a brighter headlamp and a better map of the confusing section at the end of the course.

Overall, quite good fun.

Dia 3, day 3 mallorca

 

Having slept better than anticipated on the hard floor, and getting up to make a fire we set off the next morning, a beautiful sunny day.

 



 

Saw this tree growing out of the top of this rock, really, it didn't touch the ground anywhere.

We climbed up and up and up and up to a pass, this is looking back.  It was OUTRAGEOUSLY windy, I was for the first time on the trip truly grateful for my 8kilo pack, holding me down to the ground.  One woman did blow over in fact, and as I was out front by quite a bit I decided to slow down and wait for the next person so if I did blow away someone would see me go.  Tremendous fun.

 

Looking ahead from the pass, you can see the sea if you make the picture bigger.  Absolutely beautiful day.

The left hand slope is the pass, we came down well into the valley there then climbed up to where I took the picture again.

Climbed a wee bit higher, came over a ridge and this is what I saw.

Honestly, I could walk this route again tomorrow so happily.

The path down was a series or really tight switchbacks.  They were pretty groomed, not like the goat track we came down a day or two before, but still, pretty solidly steep.  A little hard on the knees of those who have a wee bit of weakness there.  I was OK though.

We got down to a sanctuary, this is the first motel I've ever seen, you keep your horse in the space down below and sleep in the room above.  Pretty clever, no?

View along above the horse stables.

A lovely little bridge on the way to that night's hostal

After we got to the hostal we had a few hours to kill so I went for a little walk, and look who I found!

A truly beautiful place. 

Last instalment to come, though I am going walking again tomorrow, so I'll have a tough time getting these in order!

Sorry no Catalan today, just too tired.

Day 2, Mallorca. Dia dos, Mallorca

Day 2 dawned sunny and beautiful, and we were walking along a coast trail beside the sea.  Stunningly gorgeous the entire way. Honestly this trail and walk was amazing.

Dia dos, quin dia més maca, passejant a costat del mar.  Absolutament impressionant per tota la ruta.  Sincerament, aquesta ruta em deixava boca abada.

We got into a largish town and we had a 800m or so climb to get up to the refugi where we were to spend the night.  However, after the 10 hour day the day before, one person with a sore back, another with a busted boot, and two others with a sore leg (one with a cold to top that off) and one simply tired too close to her limit, it was decided that we would catch a cab up the hill.  I was absolutely fine, but as I have a rather challenging weekend this weekend as well, skipping this 4 hours straight of climbing seemed a good idea.  A wise choice for all if we were to continue to enjoy the following two days as well.

Once at the top we went for a bit of a walk (with another charming Mallorquí told us to b*ugger off) to look over the edge where we were to have climbed from, you can see it in the picture below.

Vam arribar en una poble més gran i després vam haver de pujar una altra muntanya per unes 800 metres, o quatre hores de pujada, més o menys.  Però el dia abans vam fer 10 hores, una persona li feia mal l'escena, una altra ha trencat una bota, dues més els feien mal una cama i un d'aquests era constipada a sobre, i una simplement al límit.  Vam decidir de pujar al refugi en una parella de taxis, saltant aquesta pujada per desfruitar molt més els dies seguënts.  Una decision ben fet.  

Un cop arribat, vam donar una mica d'una volta (amb una altre Mallorquí molt gràcios ens va donar una butifara metaforicament) per veure la vista d'on hauriem hagut de pujar.  Ho pots veure aquí a baix.

Looking down the valley towards the lake where the refuge is.  Aquest a foto està mirant enrere del vall, i el refugi és a costat del llac.

There were lots of cows up there.  Hi havien moltes vaques allà.

Lots of very curious cows!  Vaques molt curiosos!

And sheep, who decided it would be a good idea to hide away from the wind on the front porch of the refugi, which would have been OK, except they kept BAAAAAHHHHHhing, know what?  THey're really loud early in the morning.

I unes bens amb nens que van decidir d'amargar-se del vent al porxo del refugi, no ho seria una dificultat si haguessin parat de cridar.  Van fer molt de soroll al matí.

The refugi was my favourite, no electricity, no water.  Heated with a fireplace inside and we cooked on a fireplace outside.  There was a single small room, about 30 by 15 feet, with a loft up stairs just big enough for four people to sleep side by side.  No matresses (though I brought a sleeping pad and was very glad I did), and we kept the fire going all night.  One man got up around midnight and put some wood on, I woke up around 4 am, the fire was nearly out and it was getting cold.  I had a debate about whether it would be better to wake everyone up by getting the fire going again, or let everyone wake up cause they were cold.  Went for the fire in the end, had to go outside to get some kindling, glorious night out, huge cold sky and big mountains all around.  Blew and stoked the fire back into life and crawled back into my sleeping bag.

Aquest refugi era el meu preferit, ni electricitat, ni aigua.  Té un llar a dintre i un barbacoa de llenya a fora.  El refugi és una sola habitació de 9 per 5 metres, més o menys amb un espai a sobre la taula a on quatre persones poden dormir un a costat l'altre.  No hi han matalases (vaig portar una estarilla i estava molt contenta que ho hagi fet), i vam mantenir el foc per tot el nit.  Un home va aixecar a les 12 per posar més llenya i jo vaig despertar a les 4, el foc gairebé mort i feia una mica de fred.  Vaig rumiar per un rato si seria millor despertar tothom fent foc o deixar el refugi que refredi i tothom desperti pel fred.  Vaig decidir de fer foc, vaig sortir per llenya petita, quin nit més esplendoros un cel enorme i fred amb muntanyes encerclant-nos.  Vaig fer el foc i em vaig gatejar al sac de dormir un altre cop.

What a wonderful night.  Una nit molt especial.

radio silence, silencia del ràdio

Sorry about the radio silence of late, end of term and t.i.r.e.d.  I'm committing to be a better blogger!

I've just come back from four days in Mallorca walking the Travessa de la Serralada Tramuntana.  I have to recommend it enormously, though I also have to say that with the exception of one stellar person, the Mallorquins were, uniformly, *ssholes.  The ones we dealt with in the hotels and taxis were fine, but the ones who weren't making money off of us, again aside from that one individual who I'll tell you about later....meh.

Ho hum.

HOWEVER

We arrived there Friday night and stayed in a nice place, had a good dinner there, and early in the morning we were off.  We promptly got lost because the land owners in that area, where the designated trail goes, don't want the trail to exist, so they've taken down the signs, hidden the trail markers and made it as difficult as possible.

We ended up putting in an extra 4 hours of walking on this section because one of the people we met actually deliberately sent us the wrong way, a long, intricate long way.  Niiiiiiiiceeee!

The second person we spoke to as we were finding our way out to the next town essentially told us to F-off, and the the third, with incredibly unbelievably bad-humour angrily told us the right way.  At least.

Today Youngest did the translation while I made a dinner the she had wanted to make in the first place and then got bored.

Perdó per no escriure, però he estat cansada gràcies al fet que és el final del trimestre. Estic intentant ser una blogger més dedicada!

Acabo d'arribar de quatre dies a Mallorca caminant la Travessa de la Serralada Tramuntana. Ho recomano moltíssim, però també haig de dir que, menys una persona, tots els Mallorquins eren "jilip*llas". Els dels hotels i els taxis eren normalets, però els que no estàvem pagant... (menys aquell únic individu).

Aaaaaiiiiiii...

A L'ALTRE BANDA:

Vam arribar allà al divendres i ens vam quedar en un hostal maco, després d'un bon sopar i dormir vam marxar. Ràpidament vam aconseguir perdre'ns perquè els amos del terreny, per on el camí passa, no els hi agrada que passin els excursionistes, pertany havien tret les senyals, i havien amagat les fites per fer-ho lo més complicat possible.

Vam acabar afegint-hi 4 hores d'extra en aquell dia perquè la primera persona que ens vam trobar ens va enviar en la direcció contrària.

La segona persona ens va dir que ens anéssim a la merda, i la tercera ens va dir la direcció, però de molt mal humor. Que maco....

Avui la Petita m'ha fet la traducció mentre jo feia el sopar. 

The flight into Mallorca was like a postcard with the sun going down.  Quan vam arribar a Mallorca, amb la posta de sol, era com una postal, no?

See?

Una oca que ens va saludar.  Lovely goose, isn't she.

The Catalan in Mallorca has some modifications, most strongly noticed in the articles, instead of 'la', you get 'sa', 'el' goes to 'es' I think, and 'en' to 'na'.  'Tis a might confusing.

The hills there are full of these huge pits lined with clay, that we think were used for storing ice to sell later in the summer in town.

En les muntanyes hi ha moltes d'aquestes estructures, fet, ens semblem, per guardar gel en l'hivern per vendre a l'estiu.

Here we are frankly bushwacking to try to find a way out of the mountains to where we needed to be.  Aquí estem intentant de trobar una ruta, a on gairebé no hi havien cap.

Mallorca is filled, at least this region of Mallorca is filled with the most amazing mile after mile of drystone wall, beautifully put together.  If you ever need a really skilled mason, this must be the place.

Mallorca està ple de parets fet en sec, impressionant.  Han de ser una colla d'experts per la illa.

We found this spring.  Hem trobat aquesta font.

Oliveres, molt antigues i molt fascinants.  We found ancient gnarled olive trees.

Dry stone bridges, ponts de perdre seca

Donkeys, burros, 

Also throughout the mountains there are these flattened circles, built up, always with the remains of a house beside them.  We were pretty sure that these were for making charcoal.

Les muntanyes també són plenes d'aquestes cercles planes i ben fetes.  Pensàvem que estaven fet per fer carbó.

Una de les cases, one of the houses:

A view from the mountains.  We had actually started to go down the wrong way, after someone very kindly misinformed us of the route, here's hoping it was accidental.  We had gone down a couple of hundred meters at least, and been chased by goats fleeing a dog when the kind Mallorqui caught us up. Seems he has been a guide in these mountains for 30 years, and we were going the wrong way and would have to go up again.  I am so grateful he told us or we would have missed the most spectacular part of the journey.

Una vista...vam haver començat de baixar una parella de cents de metres per una ruta MIS-recomanda (espero que no hagi estat fet expressament) quan el mallorquí maco ens va trobar i ens va explicar que vam haver de pujar amunt un altre cop.  L'home ha estat una guia per aquestes muntanyes per uns 30 anys i estic molt agraïda que ens va explicar la ruta correcta perquè si no, hauríem hagut saltat el part més espectacular de tota la recorregut.

See those cliffs on the right?  We got to walk along the ridge there.  La ruta correcte va per la carena d'aquestes muntanyes a la dreta.

Aquí som amunt.  And here we are at the top.

Looking ahead, mirant endavant

a baix, down,

and back.  If you look closely, you can see some people on the route.  I enrere, si mirés amb molta atenció pots veure algunes persones pujant.

A view looking ahead, una altra vista mirant endavant,

Una altra olivera amb una forma excepcional.  Another olive tree, with a truly amazing shape.

These are called 'fites' and they mark the route, normally they are a pile of stones, but here whoever made it was pretty talented!  Una fita, que normalment són simplement una pila de pedres, però aquesta fita té un punt especial, no?

It was really very green and lovely as we got further down.  Més avall, és molt verd.

We spent that night in a refugi, it was fine, mostly filled with Germans, a LOT of germans, and in general, we slept well, though one man had a mattress on the floor so we could all fit into the same room together. Ready for the next day.

Aquesta segona nit vam passar en un refugi, força bona i ple d'alemanys, però PLE!  En general, vam dormir bé, encara que un home havia de dormir amb un matalàs al terra per quedar-nos tots junts en una habitació.  Llest per el dia seguënt.