8.06.14 Sunday. Burguete to Middle of Nowhere. That’s Nowhere with a q and a z!
We sleep extremely well and with a few aches and pains we are off out of the village having bought food for the wild camp in the little supermarket just outside town back toward Roncesvalles. The GR11 crosses the camino frances in the middle of town and we are in flat grazing following a stream at first. There are many locals out for a walk or a picnic and after the first ascent and descent of the day we get coffee and beer and an excellent cheese tortilla at an alburgue/refuge which seems a useful halt but not well positioned for us. It does have an interesting gents loo that Betsy is impressed by (don’t ask). We expect the numbers to thin out but not so, climbing up the delightfully forested valley with the ever steepening path there are many butterworts in full bloom along the path, and we are amazed at the group of elderly ladies slowly ascending and having enough breath for a natter on the way up to the col which seems a favoured spot at 1200m altitude and 350m from the road, must be something in this transhumance business.
After lunch on the top with glorious views and a sleep for some we continue our way along a high sheep grazed ridge at about 1000m. Soon we gradually descend though more beech woods past multiple hunting hides of all ages many set up for migrating birds flying up the valleys and over the Pyrenees. We reach a road crossing that has some stream water flowing and water up, we are on a wild camp tonight and start to head up the concrete road after Tony prospected and found a possible site a short way up. We don’t want to go too high but would like to start early tomorrow and cover the second half of 40km and a lot of up and down before the rain promised for tomorrow afternoon.
A meal of gnocchi with a lentil and tomato sauce, Tim’s nod at Indian Italian fusion cooking fills up well once the lentils are cooked. So we seem alone except for two dog walkers passing our roadside encampment. They seem unconcerned. Wild camping is well tolerated in Spain.
21km 1250m up and 1170 down a good day