Downed

After nearly two weeks at home, we needed our fix of unmade mountain roads, so we popped over to Spain today ... destination Requesens. Thanks to the new border controls, there was an impressive 6-km tailback of stationary lorries on the A9, but fortunately cars were filtering through separately, so we weren't unduly held up. Soon we were back in our comfort zone: 10 km of bare rock, loose gravel, potholes, and hairpin bends. Halfway up, we were flummoxed  by a gate barring the track, with a notice on it, and thought we'd have to turn back. But it turned out that the gate wasn't locked, and the notice did not say "Authorised vehicles only", but "Please close the gate behind you." Which we duly did.

Literally the only thing there is in Requesens, apart from cows with their cute little calves grazing among the cork oaks, is a bar/restaurant in a tatty old barn. Amazingly, it was open, so we had a cup of coffee before setting off on our walk. The owner was busy setting many long tables for lunch with white napery and long-stemmed wine glasses.

This wrecked plane is only a few metres from the path, but it's thoroughly embedded in the trees (see second extra), and it's a bit of a scramble to reach it. A plaque on a rock above the path commemorates the four firefighters who died here on 19 July 1986:  Jean-Pierre Davenet, Jacques Ogier, Jack Le Bel, and Roland Denard. Evidently a French plane, although it was across the border in Spain. It remains as a monument to them, although some visitors apparently see it as a handy surface for graffiti of the "I was here" variety -- see first extra. After thirty years, it's remarkably well preserved, I suppose because it's aluminium, but definitely derelict.

We walked back down to the bar, where the number of cars in the car park was evidence of the fact that the hunters we'd seen earlier had arrived for lunch. Instead of eating there, we drove back down to Cantallops and had a copious lunch in a restaurant we last visited 20 years ago -- R and H, if you're reading this it's the country restaurant we went to once with you, before A was even born!

Then a stop in La Jonquera, where apart from the usual hypermarket shopping we popped into the fishmonger and bought a nice big piece of bacalao, having failed to find any in Ainsa. And a very windblown journey home -- the wind wasn't exceptional at all, we just got out of the habit during our six weeks in windless Usana.