It’s raining and the mountains have disappeared.
We’re in no rush when the weather is like this so we just hung around, put the heater on in the Van and hunkered down for the morning. Around midday, we decided to head off to our next destination and left the delightful Ecocamping Rurale Valle de la fueve and headed south down the A2206.
We couldn’t see much, the cloud so low. The mountains had morphed into substantial hills with deep ravines, tendrils of clouds drifting across them, making the whole scene very atmospheric. We went through one large village, all sandstone coloured buildings while other communities perched on the hills. We weaved down the valley passing woods and craggy rocks. It was beautiful even in the damp rain. Below us was the Embalse de El Grado 1, a huge reservoir and the biggest body of water we had seen since arriving in Spain, the rivers feeding it just mere trickles.
A oncoming car flashed us with his headlights and we wondered what for – a few more bends and we came across two cows and a calf straddling our side of the road. They weren’t for moving so we went around them as they watched us impassively.
The terrain started to flatten out – well, as far as we could tell – as we approached the sandstone town of Barbastro. The satnav took us towards the town centre and we hoped for a cafe bar for a coffee, but we knew it wasn’t going to happen. There were cars everywhere and nothing seemed open, so we abandoned the idea and picked up our route. The satnav fell back into their old habits, by taking us down a very narrow lane on the outskirts of town in order to pick up A1232 heading north (yes, we did a big U today in our travels) – we were not impressed.
The land, which was very dry matched the buildings – a yellow sandstone as we headed to Alquezar. It was a mixture of smallholdings, agriculture and wooded areas with stumpy trees. It was quite pretty with the hills returning. Autumn was really showing here with the leaves turning golden, contrasting against their green counterparts. We hadn’t driven very far, just over an hour as we pulled into Camping Alquezar and tried to check in – we had booked online the night before, but there had been no acknowledging email and now at the reception, they had no record of our booking. After a few minutes, they discovered it in the depths of their computer system and we were in. We found our pitch under some trees and parked the Van on the stony ground – with the rain, it was turning into a gloopy sandy mud that stuck to the soles of your shoes (it would be very dusty otherwise). We set up shop and made some lunch, the rain still steadily falling. The actual village of Alquezar was some 20 minutes walk up the road, but we didn’t really fancy it in the rain. The campsite had a little “supermarket” and opposite was a little restaurant so we wouldn’t go hungry.
We had brought about six flies with us from Ecocamping, who bothered us all afternoon despite our best efforts to evict them. The rain fell steadily and we just relaxed in the Van (I relaxed so much that I had an afternoon nap). We took Pup on a couple of circuits of the campsite and then nipped to the little shop for goodies before settling down to watch a film with nibbles and wine. It was probably the slowest and most uneventful day of our whole trip.
Tomorrow it’s not really going to improve, but we want to walk up to Alquezar and check that out, even if it’s just stretching our legs. This weather is just a blip hopefully and warmer weather is due to return!
