We had a good breakfast and set off on the track alongside the river. Nice and flat, and we made fast progress to the next village. We walked through the village and then entered the gorge (no fee today), supposedly following the route that Barbarossa took with his troops on return from one of the Crusades. Quite why he would want to lead his troops up a narrow gorge, going nowhere, wasn’t obvious. However, according to the story described on various plaques on the way up they saw a beautiful woman bathing in the water, then one of his troops drank some water which didn’t quench his thirst. After this a hermit appeared, men drank more of the water and turned into stone. Barbarossa’s companions fell asleep and he fought and vanquished the devil. We then reached the top of the gorge, having survived any possible evil spirits. The forest road tracked along the hillside, then turned into a tarred road so we again made good speed. We passed an enclosure with three ostriches, and lots of other farms along the hillside. We finally left the tarred road and followed a narrow path up to a restaurant where we enjoyed a cold drink. The tarred road then gradually lost height as it went along the hillside, leaving us with a final climb in the heat up to our night’s accommodation. As we neared the guest house the Germans’ luggage taxi passed us, also carrying them! We had a drink on the veranda and the other two Germans also arrived. They couldn’t understand how we had reached the finish before them as they had left before us this morning!
I can’t quite make out if the beautiful woman had put a spell on the water. Otherwise, it seems a draconian punishment for Barbarossa’s men to be turned into stone for just noticing her!
He seems to have met a sticky end in a gorge. Watch out for ravens!