Happy birthday Justine.
Moved on last Wednesday to the Val d'Echo about 25 miles further east in the Pyrennes. Interesting drive over there to say the least. The mountain road was very scenic with enough gradient and turns to make us glad we weren't in anything larger than a Rav4. It was also interesting how the quality of the road deteriorated when we crossed from Navarra into Aragon. The basques obviously receive more funding to keep them quiet! The town of Echo itself is the Grasmere of the Pyrenees; all it needed was a few teashops and a coachload of Japanese tourists. However, further up the valley we found an absolute gem of a campsite, Borda de Bisaltico. Uncrowded (apart from a seemingly almost permanent Spanish tented village), amazing views, washrooms so clean you could eat your food off the floor, loads of hot water, enough walks virtually on the doorstep to keep you going for several weeks and best of all a bar/restaurant which served cold beer (mandatory after a day on the mountains) and a three course meal + wine, water, women and song (alright, not the last two) for 13euro.
We had intended to stay two nights; somehow we remained for seven.
No mobile coverage to speak of & no internet but you can't have everything.
We can't recommend this area of the Pyrenees enough. There were very few foreign tourists there but it is popular with the Spanish - don't let them keep it all to themselves!!
Highlights:
Three very challenging day walks to the Punta de la Cuta(a mountain overlooking the campsite), the Castillo d'Acher (a amazing fortress of a mountain with a seemingly impenetrable cliff-face. The summit area is reminisant of a cordera of a volcano) and to the Ibon d'Acherito (most westerly lake in the Pyrenees) and the summit of Mallo de las Foyas. Terrific views across to the snow covered central Pyrenees.
We also completed several lower level walks and a climb up to the Collau de Lenito Baxo.
The road up to the head of the valley. A fearsome almost single track road up the side of the Rio Aragon through the Boca (gorge) de Inferno - which speaks for itself.
We had British neighbours for some of the stay, who Kate immediately nicknamed the Cor-blimey crew. As cockney as they come, drank copious amounts of tea and were twitchers (feathered type). All they seemed to eat was potatoes, cabbage and broad beans; all no doubt boiled to within an inch of their life. When not twitching, they visited monastories - of which ther are plenty around, with or without chanting.
The owner of the site 'El Presidente', who ruled his staff with a rod of iron and spent the day riding around the site in his motorised wheelchair. New arrivals were given plenty of instruction on where to pitch, which was interesting in our case as he spoke no English and we are not renowned for our Spanish....
The terrace, with views down the valley where we sat most afternoons to down a beer or three.
Perfect weather, until....
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