The Pyrenees 2010: Day 13

Granges D’Astau – Germ

We woke up to a gray rainy day with some thunder. At first we decided not to walk but two French guys we talked to at breakfast made us change our minds. We confident each other that some rain wouldn’t hurt.

We started by walking upwards through a forest, it didn’t rain so much and we were protected by the trees. But shorty after we came out of the forest it started to rain really heavily. After a while we where soaking wet down to our boots. It was like walking in water.

Anna in the rain

We came to a valley, we couldn’t see much because of the fog. It started to thunder and we felt like we were caught in a thunder cloud. It didn’t feel like the best place to be at the moment. There was nowhere to hide from the rain or the thunder; we stopped by a big stone that was at least a little bit higher than us, it wasn’t much of a shelter but we waited for the thunder to move on.  After a while we continued upwards.

When we came to the top, we almost stepped into a tent. We said hello but we got no answer (later we would meet the owner of the tent). We continued down the hill, the rain continued poring down.

Finally we came down to a small shelter where we met the two French guys from breakfast. They were surprised to see us as we had told them we were not walking in this rain. They seemed to regret their decision (who can blame them) and they where not in a good mood. We tried to keep up the spirit by making some jokes about the whole situation but we didn’t get much of a response.

Lunch together with two French guys.

We had some lunch and then we continued, because we were already wet there was no point waiting for the rain to stop. Outside of the shelter we met Arne, a Dutch guy. He was the owner of the tent we had passed by earlier. He had spent the night at the top and had stayed in his tent to wait for the rain to stop, but it didn’t. After he heard us passing by he decided to continue despite the rain. And now he hooked up with us and we continued walking together.

We continued down towards Germ, we got more and more wet and at some  moments it rained so heavily it felt like a waterfall.

We found a place to stay in the small village, Germ at a auberge. Luckily we got a big room with some radiators, we could dry our clothes’ but most importantly our shoos.

Our soaking wet boots

Down in the restaurant we met Arne again and we had dinner together. He had been hiking in the Pyrenees for several years and came back every year. We had a nice evening. As usual we went to bed at 10 pm.

Ýrr and Arne in the restaurant.