GR10 Day03

We were up early and had a very nice breakfast.  We left at 8:30 and immediately started climbing on a road that became a path, ending up at three crucifixes about 300m above the village.  We had a short stop here, and then continued upwards, traversing round the northeast side of a hill.  We reached a col, and crossed over to the southeast side of the next hill.  There was a long section along the hill before we gradually worked our way down to a farm.  The path led us to a large pile of manure, with deep mud on either side and pigs lying in it.  We found a route through by jumping over the mud onto the dry manure and following other footsteps over and onto dry ground on the other side!  This was followed by a section on road, including some very steep sections; so steep that a couple of cyclists had to push their bikes up the road.  The road was blocked by horses and hen a short while later by cows, but they didn’t seem too concerned as we made our way past.  At the col, there were several Neolithic grave sites.  There was then a lovely walk on grass, slowly descending, before we arrived at the cliffs at the top of “the worst descent on the GR10”.  We had another rest and then started down.  The first section down was very steep, with wires to hold onto at certain points.  As Christine said, if you are only 5ft 2in with short legs, some of the some of the drops between stones were a bit of a stretch, and necessitated a sit and slide technique.  We reached the bottom of that section, where the path then traversed across the slope, gradually losing elevation.  Some bits were OK, but there were many steep sections down rocks that required care.  You weren’t going to fall over the edge and die, but a fall could easily lead to a broken ankle or leg.  Egyptian vultures were living on the cliffs opposite and every so often there would be twenty or more in the air, both above and below us.  We finally reached the bottom and were back onto tarred road.  After a couple of kilometres there was another track leading uphill, before a final section of wide path and then road leading to the village and our accommodation.  We had a good meal in the restaurant, finishing before the TV was turned on for the Spain-France football match.