The marvellous descent

Sometimes one’s body rebels. Alice’s decided that it wasn’t going anywhere despite being a nice day. Luckily there was a great view across the mountain plain from the hotel and Alain was not too difficult to persuade to pause and catch up on penguins.

The next day, our legs are willing to cooperate. We have just a little more climbing up through wide mountain plains with fresh snow on the surrounding peaks, bright blue skies and great visibility. Then comes an unexpectedly marvellous descent through a dramatic rocky winding valley. It takes longer than expected as we keep stopping to take photos.

We turn off the main road and find ourselves on a narrow muddy cow track. Still, it’s rather beautiful and luckily not too long. Then its small roads through little villages. In the villages there are walls and mounds of dried cow-dung-bricks and areas of drying dung - we assume it’s for winter fuel. The villages are typically a mix of old stone buildings with grassed roofs (which appear abandoned) and newer houses with bright red or blue metal roofs.Read more