Walking And Hiking In Spain

May has been a great month for walking although there have been less spring flowers in bloom due to the extended drought conditions. Although few expats resident in the village walk the valley and surrounding mountains I have led four great walks with fellow English, French, Dutch, Scandinavian, Belgium, and Irish members of the Costa Blanca Mountain Walkers Group with which we have walked since 1990. We walked east west north and south in the valley and ate, afterward, hearty lunches at Bar-Restaurant Mosset.

When on Day 44 of our 52 day Pyrenean trek described in the book 'Our 52 day retirement adventure along the Spanish Pyrenees' we were astounded to meet 15 inexperienced Japanese tourists doing a day walk over the highest point of the entire GR11 .long distance walk across Spain, the La Vaca (Cows tete) peak with a height of 2824 metres. That day we had had a tough morning climb with heavy back packs up from the Nuria Ski resort and were about to start a long afternoon down hill walk which would drop down some 1600 metres to Setcases.

Celebrated a mixture of the New Year and the Three Kings with an international group of friends last night. Having catered for 13 persons on a Friday and then had to clean up  I was not upto a long walk this morning. But as sunny, 20 degrees centigrade in the shade, I took a pleasant walk to the village of Barx and on to a friend beyond and back, some 5 km in total.  The  mountains on both sides of the valley shone in the sunlight and only the call of an unseen bird of prey broke the silence.