Outdoor Adventures with Ancient Brit
Pyrenees GR11 2003 - Day 37: September 15th
Monday 15th September
There were clear skies again and a hot sunny day was in store. Now that we were
down to lower altitudes temperatures would reach over 90ºC, even in the middle of
September. Today was easy walking along roads, pista and paths through wooded hilly
country. It wasn’t particularly interesting and I was now aiming to get to the finish as
soon as possible. There were big discrepancies between the map and the route and some
extra distance because of loss of permission to use a more direct route. I picked up my
final supply at Vajol. I was now doing higher mileages than anticipated and I had too
much food! Eventually I made it to another disused monastery, the Ermita de Santa
Eugenia, where I camped on their front lawn.
Here I was soon joined by the 2 Catalan girls and 2 Dutchmen. The Dutchmen were
on a short backpacking trip around the local hills and were going to head into France in
the morning. One of the Dutchmen had been living and working locally as a
cabinetmaker and spoke Catalan, so was able to act as translator for the group. The girls
hardly spoke any English or French. As usual the Dutchmen spoke good English.
The amazing thing about the site was that it had a swimming pool! The pool was
supplied by water from a little spring and appeared to be well maintained. I imagine it
would have been used by the locals during the day, but it was deserted in the late
evening. The 3 men were soon stripped off and in the pool, to be joined by the girls, who
unfortunately had included swimming costumes in their heavy packs. We stayed up until
11am. The girls were studying Biology at Barcelona University. I gathered from them
that most of the lectures were in Catalan, rather than Spanish.
There were clear skies again and a hot sunny day was in store. Now that we were
down to lower altitudes temperatures would reach over 90ºC, even in the middle of
September. Today was easy walking along roads, pista and paths through wooded hilly
country. It wasn’t particularly interesting and I was now aiming to get to the finish as
soon as possible. There were big discrepancies between the map and the route and some
extra distance because of loss of permission to use a more direct route. I picked up my
final supply at Vajol. I was now doing higher mileages than anticipated and I had too
much food! Eventually I made it to another disused monastery, the Ermita de Santa
Eugenia, where I camped on their front lawn.
Here I was soon joined by the 2 Catalan girls and 2 Dutchmen. The Dutchmen were
on a short backpacking trip around the local hills and were going to head into France in
the morning. One of the Dutchmen had been living and working locally as a
cabinetmaker and spoke Catalan, so was able to act as translator for the group. The girls
hardly spoke any English or French. As usual the Dutchmen spoke good English.
The amazing thing about the site was that it had a swimming pool! The pool was
supplied by water from a little spring and appeared to be well maintained. I imagine it
would have been used by the locals during the day, but it was deserted in the late
evening. The 3 men were soon stripped off and in the pool, to be joined by the girls, who
unfortunately had included swimming costumes in their heavy packs. We stayed up until
11am. The girls were studying Biology at Barcelona University. I gathered from them
that most of the lectures were in Catalan, rather than Spanish.
Puig de Bassegoda
Dutch men and
Catalonian girls
Catalonian girls
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