We woke Monday morning still near the Santuari de la Mare de Déu d'Arboló. Another beautiful day weather-wise. We decided to take the short walk up to the Sanctuary. Wow, that was short but very steep. We made ourselves more than a little warm. How do you deal with that in a motorhome..? Take a dip in freezing river. Once the screaming had stopped fom our lower legs, it was actually nice. Very, VERY cold, but nice.
Spud and the humans loved the place so much, we stayed Monday night too..!
Tuesday was Father's Day in Spain.
Tuesday morning drove to La Pobla de Segur to get a bit of food shopping. When we parked, we were immediately met by a herd of goats (with a couple of kids) and sheep, with the farmer and his sheep dog. The farmer was lovely, asked me if I looked goats, then asked if I wanted to buy one. Oh how I wanted to say yes...! 🤣
Tuesday night we slept by the Pantà de Sant Antoni reservoir.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/GJwMu7PaL83W48cRA
Wednesday morning we were woken at 7am by the sounds of strimmers and workmen. Great that they are keeping the area neat and tidy, but not sure we appreciated it. We dried to doze for a bit longer...then approx 8-10 cars and vans appeared and started unloading inflatable boats etc. We gave up, got up and headed off.
We managed to finally find a post office that said it would be open, back in La Pobla de Segur.
We found it and managed to post off the CanCan watch to Alyson Jones, our winner. We had a little look around the village as we had parked in a different place this time (sadly no goats this time.)
Our next planned place to visit was Aramunt Vell,
the abandoned village near Aramunt. We parked and reviewed the info on the internet. Apparently it was going to take 1-2 hours to hike there. 🤦🏼♀️🤷🏼♀️ We checked Google maps and the road I had seen, did go to the village still, but was a 12km dirt track route. Did we dare take Perse up there..? I left the choice to Darren. He eventually said yes. You'll have to watch the video to see the road for yourself, but several times he regretted his choice.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/1pgaSFjfXHJraDWP7
It was easy to see why this village was abandoned. It is tough to get to and on the top of a lump of rock.
We safely managed to get Perse back down the track on to tarmac roads again.
We headed up a windy, narrow road towards Puente de Montañana, where were had intended to spend the night, but when we got to the Coll de Montllobar, top of a mountain, we pulled into a Mirador and decided that this would be where we sleep.
Thursday morning, didn't start much better than Wednesday. Beautiful peaceful park up, until 15 or so tiring motorcycles arrive. Nice alarm clock, but a little early. We had seen a few sort cars for professional cycling teams in the last few days, so asked the all knowing oracle Google, if there was any cycle races locally. It turned out to be the Volta a Catalunya, which just so happened to be having a stage through La Pobla de Segur and Tremp. So we headed back down the windy mountain road and say up at the edge of a garage, to wait and watch.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jiGmZZz2CLFr7yyk7
2 hours wait for about 3 minutes excitement, but we like watching them.
After the roads had reopened, we went to nearby Tremp to do some laundry. It's not all rock'n'roll lifestyle you know.
We then headed back up the windy mountain road, fought our instincts to stop again at the beautiful mirador and aimed for our next location, Puente De Montañana.
We arrived at a really rural park-up between Puente De Montañana and Castissent. A lush green field beside a fast flowing river. This time it gave us the use of the Casita on the property, a toilet, kitchen area, table and chairs, plus an open log fire, with a stack of wood. None of which we used. 🤣
We had one other van for company Thursday night. The owner of the land arrived to collect his €15 for the park up and in return gave us some fresh bread, a huge beef tomato and 2 oranges. What a welcome..!
This time we had a really peaceful night's sleep again, after the crickets stopped singing.
Friday was so warm and the park up was so lovely, that we spent the day relaxing and drying our laundry. There was a little creek nearby with small splash pools. It would have been rude not to check them out. They were cold, but refreshing. We walked back to Perse via the river instead of the track and took an extra dip in the river for good measure.
We decided to stay Friday night.
Saturday morning went to the owners Carnicería just a few minutes drive away, to fill up with water and make use of their showers....Afterwards we wished we hadn't. We broke Perse.
The slope of the drive was steep and had an extra dip in the middle. We ground out the rear bumper and caused the first damage to poor old Perse. We collected the pieces that broke off. Thanks our hosts and went on our way, with Darren swearing at himself.
We stopped off in Puent de Montañana toi have a look round. Such a small village, but it lacked nothing in beauty, cats or purrsonality (did you see what I did there😻)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/ZuWHLCUj189QWtPS8
Then we drove towards our next park up, first taking a little detour to the Montfalcó refuge.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/M7unBdGPgysaHJFDA
We attempted a hike of a stunning gorge and scary steps.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/TAbeiYfcPRfqjhof6
We didn't start the hike until 4pm. Our first mistake (not first mistake of the day, but first mistake of this hike) We read that it would only take an hour to get to a suspension bridge across the gorge. (Our second mistake of the hike...believing Google's time) We stomped off downhill, knowing the end of the hike would be all uphill. An hour later, we get to the scary steps up the cliff. Darren doesn't like heights, but managed really well. I was proud of him. The board at the bottom of the steps looked like there was still a fair way to go to the first bridge.
https://maps.app.goo.gl/gKy1xikRasgTrPxdA
When we reached the top of the stairs, we passed a couple of hikers. The husband said it was about 30 minutes more to the bridge, the wife made a typical Spanish sound and flapped a hand, which meant she disagreed and thought it was more. We betrayed ourselves for attempting the hike so late in the day. I was already knackered, so we decided to call it a b*****d and return to Perse. The slog back was a killer. It took almost double the time to get back, as it had taken us to get there. Even with refreshments and bananas....
We drove back down the incredible road (thankfully this time mostly tarmac, with a little concrete and a tiny bit of gravel) and spent Saturday night parked in a motorhome rest stop at a place called Viacamp.
Sunday, I slept most of the day (I was really shattered from the hike) whilst Darren edited an upcoming video. We stayed there Sunday night too.
The plan for this week is... Ainsa a traditional small and beautiful village and Jánovas another abandoned village. The weather seems to have taken a turn for the worse today and has been heaving with rain, so the plan may have to morph a little...
Watch this space....
Much love Alison and Darren 💜🤟