Gandesa

The landscape in this part of the world is amazing. We are in the Parc Natural dels Ports.

Today we walked from Prat de Comte to La Fontcalda, a gorge with supposedly warm springs. I had a quick swim. The water wasn’t that hot but was, I guess, a lot warmer than mountain streams normally are.

The walk was about 8k and was pretty good but the walk back was mainly uphill and quite hard going.

Apart from the fantastic scenery, the main point of excitement came after I had walked ahead to check out whether a tunnel under the Via Verde cycle path was passable due to thick mud. it wasn’t. As I was stepping at the edge of the path to avoid the mud I disturbed a snake which slithered across the path in front of me. I was so surprised that I leapt across the path, lost my footing and fell on top of the snake. I shrieked like a girl - sorry, I know that sounds sexist but it is exactly what I did - I absolutely shrieked and fell in the mud.

Sara didn’t see any of this. She just heard my weird scream and didn’t have a clue what had happened. She thought I’d broken my leg or something. Anyway, I’m not sure who ended up being more scared - me or the snake. But pretty sure I ended up being more embarrassed! 😀

No idea what kind of snake it was.Read more