Monarch of the glen

Yesterday, S went on a 12-hour walk up Ventolau to Mont Roig. On the way, a cat joined him and determinedly trotted after him until he reached a hut more than 2800m above sea level. He felt so guilty that he gave it his entire cheese sandwich, keeping only the slices of tomato for himself. Despite this, it refused to get in his rucksack for the journey back down to where he found it. Instead it hid under a rock, so he ended up asking a couple of Catalans heading up to the hut for the night to let it join them.

The cat was wearing a collar, but no tag, so when he got back to Bordes de Graus he got onto his local network via WhatsApp to try to track down where it belonged. He got some leads (another refuge) and this morning he hiked back up again, where the cat was delighted to see him ("It's the man with the cheese!"). The Catalans told him it had had a splendid time hunting shrews.  It duly trotted back down with him and he left it at Musta the shepherd's hut with a message for its owner. Apparently it is well accustomed to roaming the mountains. So, happy ending. A tiring couple of days for S though.

He was back for a late lunch, and after he'd had a shower and a siesta, he and I went for a guided tour of the famous hydroelectric power station in Tavascan, which is entirely built inside a mountain. The work was started in the 1950s (they had to build a road first) and thousands of tonnes of dynamite were used, since they didn't have tunnel-boring machines in those days.

We expected some cathedral-like cavern, but actually it was quite boring: after walking along the 500-metre tunnel you ended up in a large room with a few turbines in it -- not even working as demand was low at that time. I had lugged the proper camera along, but all our bags were confiscated at the entrance, and only the guide could take photos with the visitors' phones. Not that it was at all photogenic, so my hopes for a blip were dashed. Hence another guest blip from S.

On the plus side, I managed to walk over 1 km in total and my foot actually felt fine, albeit in need of an ice pack when we got back.