Rapids and a Bun...

As we leave the hotel in the morning to buy today's provisions, the smell of cooking Paella is overpowering. In the adjacent main square a large market has just been set up including two competing Paella sellers. Stalls selling local produce from goats cheese to sausages predominate, but spreading down all the side streets are shoe and clothes stalls. Our hotel owner/chef struggles back with his shopping bags full of fresh veg for dinner. Our last full day in A-G, a rest day. Only an 18 mile cycle up and down a valley just south of the town, following a river (with no name on the map) as it cascades in waterfalls and rapids from the steep wooded slopes above.


The cloud is sitting very low in the valley and as we gain height the humidity is visible on the wet road surface, and our clouds of breath. At the mountain village of Estaing we are getting into thick cloud, so head back down. Just before we leave the bridge here, a white bibbed dipper dashs up stream, then does his characteristic bobbing on a rock, bringing our bird count to 86.


Houses here have steep slated roofs coming almost to the ground, and impressively large neat log piles. We take a detour to a hamlet on the way back down, just because its name is Bun. Last year's flooding is evident where a torrent of water has carved a swathe through the houses, washing away gardens and a section of the road. Big boulders have been brought in to hold back steep banks. All is very tranquil now, with only a group of chewing donkeys stirring. A notice explains the local vernacular farm building, a "Poulailler". About the size of a single garage but 3 storeys high, these have stone pig pens on the ground floor, with timber slats across the front of the next storey to keep foxes from the chicken house, over which is a timber pigeon loft. All the protein needed to see them through a hard winter.


Miles to date:- 1781

Location:Argeles-Gazost