Going with the flow

A lovely day today. After dawdling over breakfast, we drove down the mountain and then several kilometres along a very rough and stony track in our supposedly on the brink of death car (Spoiler: it was fine). Then a lovely walk, well within my capabilities, on a track alongside a rushing mountain stream to the Pla de Boavi, a Pyrenean meadow. Plenty of butterflies along the way as it was warm and sunny, but my photos were useless.

En route we met a couple lugging very serious Canon DSLR kit, featuring at least one lens worth more than all of my cameras and lenses put together. We had a Babel-like conversation in English, French, Catalan and Spanish and they showed us some photos on their phones ... amazing. If you're into Instagram, they are MeteoPallars. At the meadow we met some Catalans that G and A had met previously a couple of weeks ago, so we had a chat with them too. They were very impressed by S talking to them in Catalan.

Stats: 5.25 km, 123 m climbing, 2 hours. Then we drove back down the horrible bumpy track to Tavascan, where we parked and had a slap-up lunch at the local hotel. We felt absolutely bloated after this, getting back to Bordes de Graus at about 4:30 and promptly taking a siesta (everyone else) or blipping (me).

Eventually we stirred ourselves, G did a little food preparation, and then we poured ourselves glasses of wine and went outside to sit and listen to A playing waltzes on her accordion as dusk slowly crept in. It was just lovely. Followed by our eating every scrap of a delicious Lebanese dish of green beans, onion, yogurt and lemon that G had prepared -- a perfect light and refreshing snack to round off the day. I will definitely be trying this at home, it was gorgeous. 

Then to the bar for a nightcap, where we met a couple of guys from Nottingham doing the Haute Route Pyrénéenne and  chatted with them on the terrace for far longer than intended. And now to bed!