Distracted by donkeys

When we left Lluca this morning after a terrific breakfast, Kin's dog Zorb wanted to come with us.

It rained last night which cooled things down a bit and made a short and easy day even easier. We wandered along happily but when we saw some interesting donkeys we lost our focus and missed a marker. Luckily we soon realised we had gone wrong and turned back, much to the surprise of the donkeys.

Later on our trail we saw cyclists, a horse rider and Rob made friends with some handsome horses.

When we got to Alpens we discovered that we did not have a booking at the hostal. The owner was not renting out rooms for various reasons, but was very helpful and tried to find us a flat nearby, but with no luck. Eventually he said we could stay in his hostal, AND we could have dinner and breakfast! The room is very basic and the water in the shower kept turning off, but we are exceedingly grateful to our host for having us.

BIG mistake in Lluca!

Our hostess Kin said dinner at 9, too late for us, and she offered to make us a simple meal earlier, to which we readily agreed. Then problem with water so couldn't feed us early and we were still in the dining room eating our simple (delicious) meal when other patrons arrive and get fed course after course of the most amazing gourmet dinner we have ever seen which WE could have had!! Rob VERY big grump. Now back in room listening to the happy chatter of the diners below and feeling miffed. Sigh.

Lovely place though and really we are quite happy! Photo is of our comfortable lounge. We are of course the only people staying here.

Nice walk today but stinking hot in afternoon, and track rerouted so gpx trail and our guidebook didn't match the signposts causing much confusion for quite some time....

A day in the life of a long-distance walker

Daylight creeps in to the bedroom. Rob says "Time to get up". Debby says "Noooooo".

We drag ourselves out of bed and bleary-eyed slowly swing in to the put-everything-back-into-the-packs routine; every item has its own particular place.

If it is a long day we make our own breakfast so we can leave early - no one in Spain seems to eat breakfast until 9.00am. But if breakfast is included in our booking then we ask if we can have it at 8.00am so we can hoist packs and leave by 8.30.

We find our trail, lose our trail, flail around in the undergrowth, walk up and down a dirt road looking for waymarks, Debby reads the guidebook instructions yet again,  Rob turns his phone this way and that trying to work out our position. Compass comes out for direction finding.

We find the track, cheer, and plow on. Find some shade and stop for water and a snack mid-morning. Carry on and find some shade and stop for water and a bocadillo about 1. Carry on, grumping about wiggly trails that go around or over hills when they could go straight and moaning about nettles and grass awns and blackberry that snag and scratch and hurt. Have another moan about muddy patches.

Stop for water. Debby slaps on yet more sunscreen. Move on. Stop for water. Take a photo. Move on. Pee stop.

Arrive at pueblo. Hunt high and low for hostal. Check in. Shower/collapse on bed. Drink water. Have some snacks. Clean shoes. Wash socks. Sometimes wash other things. Write diaries. Research and ring next hostal hoping we can make ourselves understood. Check the forecast. Check emails to see if anyone back home remembers us. Stagger out for a beer and a look around the pueblo. Buy supplies. Try to get dinner at 8.00pm - no one in Spain eats dinner before 9.00pm by which time we are beyond starving and utterly exhausted.

Go back to room, throw all duvets and blankets off the bed. Go to bed, try to read. Rob snoring in 5 minutes.  Try to sleep.

Next morning, daylight creeps into the bedroom and we start all over again.....

Truly insane.

0bjects of joy for the long-distance walker

End of section 6, dusty, but not so tired

Here we are in Gironella at the end of section 6 having walked 867 kms in total. We embark on the final section tomorrow which feels somewhat  unbelievable.

The Cal Majoral where we stayed last night has been in our hostess Rosemary's family for 3 generations. It is a beautiful hotel on pretty landscaped grounds. We were the only guests! We had a stunning room with big windows looking out over the green landscape. Rosemary had many Michelin awards on display, and she served us a 3 course dinner. Each was beautifully presented and absolutely delicious. Breakfast was also incredible, she put out enough food for 10 people with so much variety, it would take ages to write it all down. She also cheerfully did our washing herself and unlike another place we know, charged us nothing. In fact the entire bill was exceptionally reasonable.

Our walk today was through a softer landscape, lots of green fields. Bit of a shock to be in a more populated area though, with cars whizzing past us on dirt roads and spraying us with dust. Not such a lot of climbing over the day and although it was hot we arrived here feeling a lot less tired than usual. Different scene in our hostal, it is tiny but we are in a newly refurbished room, very modern and flash. It was fun eating tapas in a local bar full of people.

Stayin' Alive...

Call us chicken if you like but today we chose an alternative local trail rather than our GR1 so that we could avoid a "10 metre section of exposed track with a significant drop". Significant drop from the perilous heights we have been walking at could only mean death if you fell. Now we are celebrating our survival by living it up in a gorgeous hotel.

Yesterday there was karma at the monastery. Rob broke off a piece of bramble which was in our way only to have another branch of bramble pull the hat from his head and fling it in a mud puddle.  Hilarious.

Photos are of a narrow street in Sant Llorenc de Morunys and our gorgeous 13th century hotel at Sant Lleir - one of our favourites. Also a view from today and Rob enjoying a bocadillo in the sunshine.

A tough day to Sant Lleir de la Vall d'Ora

At one point today I thought I couldn't possibly take another step, I was all out of energy and cursing the mountain goat way ahead. Still don't think it's fair that the old boy beats me hollow up the hills, especially in the heat. Talking of goat's,  we came across a couple of friendly ones on our track today. Rob had a moment of close communication with them. He also rescued a little bird this morning, and a slug - he will surely go to heaven.

We looked down upon, and later visited, an especially beautiful ermita, once part of a Benedictine monastery, and now a national monument.

A rocky track was part of our 1200 metre climb today, one of our hardest in terms of ascent. It took us 8 and a half hours, so it was mighty fine to get to our very remote Masia el Pujol to be greeted by 3 big friendly dogs, and our hostess bearing a jug of ice cold water for us. Wonderful. There are delicious smells wafting from the kitchen  and the tummy is rumbling!