Afternoon-Sorholus

The night was rainy and cool, the sun took a little longer to reach the valley floor in the morning. The streets were still damp, so I was happy to take my time with a hearty breakfast.

The road meandered leisurely up the Rio Salazar valley, with every now and then a small village in between. The houses are in a completely different architectural style than the day before. The turnoff towards “Francia” soon followed, the 11km climb to Puerto de Larrau. By now it had become warm, the climb in the sun made me sweaty, the road with hardly any traffic and the magnificent panorama made up for it all. Next to me is the Irati Forest, the second largest and best preserved beech and spruce forest after the Black Forest, and the Orhi with a height of 2,017 meters above sea level, which marks the border between the Spanish autonomous region of Navarra and the historic Basque region of Zuberoa . This makes it the highest mountain that lies entirely in the Basque Country.

Shortly before the top of the pass through a short tunnel, followed by a short straight exposed to the wind and then... Yes, then you're actually happy that you're at the top. This time it was surprising because there was a barrier on it indicating that the road would be closed from here.

After a few conversations with people on the pass and observing that vehicles kept using the closed road and not coming back, we also drove down to Larrau. The descent was very steep and quite long, which was a challenge even for my racing bike brakes. I was also very happy to have climbed my first Pyrenees pass in this direction.

We continued a few kilometers further along the river to Tardets-Sorholus on a lush green meadow of a farm campsite with a view of the mountains. A very idyllic, quiet place, only the cowbells and the mooing and mowing of the animals can be heard. After sunset, thousands of stars appeared in the sky.

During the night a storm came up, the wind shook Louise violently and sleep was out of the question. There were four other parties standing next to us on the large lawn. Headlamps on everywhere, cars unlocked, some tents taken down, the wind was so strong. I also hopped outside and collected not only our shoes but also our dishes that were spread out on the lawn (they were in the sink!). Another look at the trees, one on the left and one on the right, wind from the front, nothing should happen and go back in quickly.

The following day is quickly told: the forecast rain was significantly less than predicted, but it didn't stop us from having a quiet day of reading and just being a little bit quiet.