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Cami de Cavalls day 7 – Ets Alocs less demanding than we thought

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Sunday 19 September 2021 – today had been built up as being The Big One, the Tough Day; short, only 8.63km, (or just over 5 miles in Brexit currency) with steep climbs (28%) and descents (32%), so we were a bit apprehensive about whether we’d be Found Out and have to be airlifted off in some dire emergency situation.

We also had a couple of “gently uphill” kilometres to do at the end to get to where the Cami360 folk could pick us up and whiz us to our next overnight accommodation.  Plus, it had rained very heavily during the night and didn’t immediately show signs of stopping…

There was a certain amount of dickering about the schedule, not least because of the triathlon planned for the day (which you remember from yesterday’s thrilling instalment). In fact, as we were about to leave, cyclists were whizzing past on the main road near our hotel

and our pick up was slightly delayed because of road closures in support of the event.

The practical upshot of all that bdickering was that we could only be picked up at the far end of our walk at 3pm.  So we would have a generous amount of time, 5½ hours, to complete the total 11-odd kilometres. The morning’s forecast was for cloudy and cool weather, which, frankly, suited us fine.

By the way, if you want just to see a summary of the following guff, you can watch it on Relive.

We had a robust breakfast; the accommodation might have been basic, but there was muesli for me and plain yogurt for Jane and toast and Marmite an’ everyfink. The same lass (Maria, we think) who picked us up from Binimel-là took us back there along the same horribly bumpy track

with the big difference this time being an almost total lack of cars.  When we left yesterday, on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the track above was packed with cars parked along it.  Today? Not so much so.

It had stopped raining as we retraced our steps to the end of yesterday’s stage and the start of today’s

and it was, indeed, cool – and windy! We stumbled across the sandy (and, it has to be said, smelly, possibly from rotting seaweed) beach to the official start post for The Big Day.

We passed some evidence that there might have been human habitation

(though why you’d want to live somewhere with no mobile signal is beyond me), past some great rocky scenery

and came to the first steepish bit.

The view from the top was nice enough

and the path abruptly led to a complete change of scene

followed equally quickly by another.

Before too long, we came to an uphill stretch that was a lot more industrial strength

with some interesting rock formations along it.

We did actually scramble up this bit, but honesty compels me to admit that we might have missed the approved path somewhere around here, as we had to adjust our course to get back to the posts that marked the track. So that was exciting. And once we got back onto the True Path, still quite steep.

(You’ll notice that a lot of the photos today are in portrait orientation – that’s tall, rather than wide. I prefer landscape, which is the other way round, but rather a lot of the scenes needed height in the picture, as you’ll see if when you read on.)

The view from the top? Not too bad.

Once up, the path led past some interesting greenish-tinged rocks

before starting another uphill stretch.

Of course, once you get up a steep bit, what happens? You have to go down the other side. Experienced walkers (including this Walker) know that going down is often actually harder work than going up – maybe less puff needed, but more strain on bits of the anatomy such as ankle, quads and knees.

 

The goal of the path is a gate you can just about make out, far below us, at the far end of this cove.  Looking back, one can see it’s quite a steep descent.

If you look carefully at the top horizon, you can just about see a marker post telling you where the descent started.

At the gate, there is an indication of progress along the stage.

Referring back to the chart at the beginning of this screed will tell you that the previous toil was simply a warm-up and the hard work is about to begin. You’ll also have noticed, being observant types, the shadow on the sign which tells you that, yes, the sun has come out and is once again shining fit to split any paving stones it can find, accompanied by a lovely cooling (but stiff) breeze.  This meant I had to dig out the hat I’d fervently hoped not to need today. It did a good job of keeping the sun off my head, but only because I spent most of the time clutching on to it because it kept trying to blow off in the strong winds (the hat, not my head…).  Anyway, back to the mainstream of today’s symposium….

So: up we go again

and down a bit

and then up a bit more.  Quite a lot more, actually.

Once at the top, the path passes a mystery object, perhaps from the island’s Talaolitic past?

(either that, or some hikers decided to build a cairn and got a bit carried away).  We tried to find some information about it, but there was no internet, so we just carried on. And, of course, down – the track led alongside the wall in this picture.

and then down some more.

before the very last uphill pull of this part of the track.

which takes you into yet another change of scenery – farmland.

There was even a farm building; deserted, but recently-used, to judge by the fresh straw outside it.

Very soon after this, we got to the end of the stage. Phew!

(Notice that the sign says “Ets Alocs”, which for some linguistic reason far beyond my ken is different from the official name for the place, Es Alocs.  But it suited my purpose to use in the title.)

As it happens, neither of us felt that the stage was as difficult as it had been made out to be.  Yes, it was tough and steep in places (definitely not suitable for anyone with vertigo!), but it wasn’t exhausting and didn’t feel too much harder work than yesterday.

Any feelings of satisfaction about a good job well jobbed, though, were abruptly snuffed out by the knowledge that we still have over 2km to walk to get to where we could be picked up, following a forest track

along which we walked to the finish.

 

It may have been “gently uphill”, but it was not a rewarding surface to toil up in the unrelenting sun and it adds an interesting twist to the end of the day’s walking as recorded by my Garmin device.

So we ended up a little higher than one of the high points of the walk! Not only that, but we had over an hour to wait for our pick up. There was no mobile signal to contact them, but in any case it had been made fairly clear that the schedule couldn’t be altered.  So we found a shady spot to rest and eat a couple of apples while we waited.  Eventually, some 10 minutes early, Philip from the Cami360 team came along and so we were able to get to our overnight accommodation, the Aparthotel Loar, where rather pleasantly we didn’t have to explain about Ms Hayward; they were ready for us, even having our bags stored for us in a locker, and so we were able to get to a shower and some moments relaxation with minimum fuss.

Since we had an apartment room, with cooker and fridge, we were looking forward to going out to have a Nice Lunch somewhere and to buy some milk and other provisions in a supermarket. Wrapped as we were in the happy haze of Being On Holiday, we had, though, forgotten that it was Sunday.  All the restaurants shut at 4pm until 7.30 earliest, and the supermarket was closed until tomorrow. Thus we had to make do with a beer/juice (delete as appropriate) in the bar and retreated to our room to hope that the bread, butter and ham that we’d bought back in Arenal, so many, many days ago (OK, only three) was still fit for human consumption having been bumped around in a suitcase all that time. So, ham and Marmite sandwiches it was, but at least we could get some milk from the bar for a Nice Cup Of Tea, which was very welcome.

The bar was quite noisy, and the source of the din was a couple of tables of old geezers, playing cards

and dominoes – something I haven’t seen for ages!

 

Our room is perfectly nice, with a decent amount of room and a tiny balcony which gives out on to a decent view.

We’re about to go down to the bar for beer and crisps, because we know how to have a good time, but I thought I’d leave you with the stats of the day.

  • 8.26 miles walked
  • 486 metres climbed
  • Cumulative distance is therefore just over 48 miles in 5 days
  • My Garmin tells me that this stage consumed 1320 calories, which is  couple of hundred more than yesterday’s 8.35 miles. So, yes it was tougher, but yes not that much tougher.

Tomorrow’s walk sees us take on two stages, 7 and 8.  The total distance is about 15km, which means we’ll be walking 17 by the time we have to trek down to the start.  On paper it should be a little easier than today, but there’s rain in the forecast as it stands at the moment. We’ll find out as the day unfolds, and I’ll report back in these pages, where I hope you’ll join me once again.

Cami de Cavalls day 6 – Ooh-la-la, Binimel-là

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Saturday September 18 2021 –  I was expecting an easy day today – not too far, not too high – and the early light seemed to augur favourably.

The weather forecast was a bit uncertain.  The UK Met Office promised sunshine, the Spanish equivalent suggested that rain was in the offing; but in any case the temperature was due to be a bit lower than some of the roasting of our first couple of days.

We had the Breakfast of Kings, or, rather, perhaps that of minor despots of unimportant fiefdoms. But Marmite figured, as did toast and Earl Grey tea, and some Proper Yogurt for Jane; and since we were due to stay in this hostal for a second night tonight, we didn’t even have the hassle of packing before we were able to set out at, as usual, 9am.  A minor difference from yesterday – we have a target destination and time: Binimel-là and 1300, giving us four hours to cover some seven miles, which should give us time for a beer at the far end before the Cami360 folk arrive to whisk us back here.

As usual, if you have only a couple of minutes to spare, instead of reading my deathless prose, you can see a summary of the walk on Relive.

So it was that we started again just back down the road to where we left off yesterday

along a paved cycle/pedestrian track.

We got a different viewpoint of the Mystery Building,

showing the farm buildings behind it, which gives credence to there being a farm shop there. We also passed some somewhat exotic trees…  Dragon trees maybe…?

Just down the road is the town of Platges de Fornells, which is another of the many tourist outposts on the island.

In the foreground you can see some keen bean two-wheelers, who were either Saturday cyclists or who were practising for a half-triathlon to be held tomorrow (see later).  Eventually, we turned off the road towards the town’s beach and passed a group of German tourists, who were having some aspects of the Cami explained to them.

It was a slightly surreal experience to hear German spoken in a Spanish accent, the first time I’ve particularly noticed this.

There was a walkway up to the beach

which appears to be a fine example of its kind (I say this as definitely a non-expert, though)

and then a walkway down

so that one can stumble awkwardly across the sand to the point where the path leaves the beach again. You get a nice view back over Platges de Fornells (indeed the view is of very little else for quite a while)

and the path is a wide track at this point.

However, it soon gets much steeper

(an e-bike won’t help you here, mate!)

as it leads past a view of a lighthouse at a point called Cavalleria

(a detour from the track is on offer – 2.7km up a road to see a lighthouse and 2.7 back again – we declined the opportunity)

and some interestingly-striated rocks on the ground. These have rather obviously fallen from above

taking bits of fence with them, and there are warning signs about the danger.

To misquote Michael Flanders, “there’s not much you can do about it – keep your hat on”, I suppose.

The trail ends at a road, where you can turn right to waste minutes of your life walking along  road in baking hot sun to see a lighthouse, or you can turn left, past a nice view, overseen by a watchtower

to get to a beach at Cavalleria, which (it being a Saturday) was very popular

but also featured a kiosk which provided us both with welcome ice-creams as we paused for a moment.

There was a touch of irony here, in fact double irony.  We are at this point on the Cami de Cavalls – the horses’ trail – and at a beach called Cavalleria (obvious horse reference in the name) and yet

horses are not permitted here.  Frankly, I’m not sure I’d want to try to get a horse up or down the steps, but I permitted myself a chuckle at this point.

There is a nice view of the rocky coastline along the last couple of miles of the trail to our pick-up point,

and some beaches where topless sunbathing is not unusual, as is nude bathing

which would probably suit anyone interested in seeing free willy. We moved swiftly on towards the end point of the trail, which involved, yes, going up another hill and round a headland

and through some rather bare countryside

before giving us a glimpse of our eventual end point – the restaurant at Binimel-là, where we could treat ourselves to a beer whilst awaiting pickup from the Cami360 folk.

I had been expecting the day’s walking to be similarly light to yesterday’s, and it definitely wasn’t.  It was a bit longer (8.35 miles as opposed to 6.8), but involved somewhat more climb (255 metres as opposed to 140) and some much steeper scrambles.  This is probably a good thing, because tomorrow’s walk is tougher still: shorter than today’s but with twice as much vertical ascent and even steeper sections, according to our trail booklet.  It also has no restaurants or anything along its length, so if you come back to the blog tomorrow, you can have a good laugh at our discomfiture as faithfully reported by your correspondent.

Anyway, today’s 8.35 miles means we have now covered a smidge over 40 miles in the four days we’ve been on the trail. Just so you know.

The restaurant at Binimel-là looks an imposing place, and it has great service and beer so delicious that I felt the need for two large ones; but it has no wifi and there’s no mobile signal.  So when our Cami360 pickup didn’t materialise at one o’clock, we were in a bit of quandary.  In the end, a lass with a van turned up at 1.30, which is almost on time by the standards of these here parts, and took us back to our hostal – along, it has to be said, a very lengthy and bumpy access track before reaching normal roads.  It seems odd to me that the beach at Binimel-là is so very popular and yet so inconvenient to get to – an unusual case of a popular tourist destination with practically no local exploitation.  Thank heaven for the restaurant and its beer pump, then.

After the necessary shower and siesta back at base, we set out into Fornells with the intention of having a Hairy Crab lunch.  Fortunately, there was a table spare and we had a lovely meal in cool comfort whilst being able to see the harbour and watch the people in the sunshine – a very nice interlude. Once we’d finished, Jane we decided to pop along into the village proper to have a look at the preparations going on for a half-triathlon due to happen tomorrow. It looks like there are over 500 participants, so it’s quite a big deal, and explains, possibly, the large number of cyclists we’ve seen on the roads hereabouts.  They’d set up a long corridor where the cyclists could pick up their numbers

store their bikes with the front wheels in washing-up bowls (WHY?)

and get their bikes sorted out.

One chap doesn’t even appear to have unwrapped his new bike yet; I do hope he’s happy with it when he leaps on it tomorrow

and another was so in love with his that he was sharing a hotel room with it in our hostal.

Anyway, all the best to the participants tomorrow, even if they have comprehensively buggered up our original plans for the day. Several roads are closed at inconvenient times (bloody cyclists!) and so although our pick up is at the usual 9am, we’ll probably spend a lot of time waiting for them to open roads so we can bump our way back to Binimel-là in order to restart.  The Cami360 folk have done their best to work out a new schedule and we hope it’ll work out well. As I say, it’s looking to be a very tough day tomorrow, so you can come back for a giggle at our suffering if you stay tuned to the blog.  See you then!

Cami de Cavalls day 3 – First day of walking; our Favàritx Thing

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Wednesday September 15, 2021 – Well, This Is It.  Today, we started walking the first stage of 20 over 13 days which will take us round the island – if we survive, of course.  It is one year and two days since we started our Camiflage walks, the exercise of trying to recreate in Surrey the walks we couldn’t do in Menorca due to the pandemic.

If, by the way, you can’t bear the idea of reading through the following screed about what we did and saw today, and if you’re prepared to spend 3 minutes watching a video, then the tl;dr can be viewed on Relive. You’ll see the route and some photos, but you’ll get more information by staying with me here.

To sum up: we had to walk 20.37 km between Mahón and Favàritx, over hill and dale with a vertical gain of some 450m – and we had to get to the end by 3.30pm, as this was the time we’d agreed to be picked up by the Cami360 folk to take us to our accommodation for the next stage.  The hotel breakfast started at 8am so we took as early a breakfast as we could and then Got on With It.

The start, as I mentioned before, was at the Three Horses statue by the convent, and we’d researched the first few metres of the route, making sure we were aware of signposts and such.

The route took us past a view of the industrial end of Mahón harbour

past caper bushes embedded in stone walls

and out on the road north of the town.  The first several kilometres of the route were on paved roads, which was a but dull, but the views were OK.  For example, we got a good sight of Mahón from the north side of the harbour

and a look at the back end of Golden Farm.

We wound our way along the road, occasionally spying mysterious things in the distance

before arriving in Sa Mesquida, which is a town with a popular beach, but also some nice residences.

Some convenient benches

gave us a chance to look over the place

and we eventually discovered the mysterious object.

We couldn’t get close to it, but it looks like it was once a watch tower, similar to those found all over the island.

Mesquida has a popular beach,

and also marks the point where the trail leaves paved roads.  From this point, the marking is done via posts.

and the surface becomes a lot rougher.

(The posts are very well-placed.  Above you can see one in the foreground and if you look carefully, you can see the next one.  It actually takes no little skill to get lost because the trail is so well-marked.)

The trail winds up and down

(occasionally very steeply up – see later) and can be very rocky.  The purity of the air is attested to by the existence of some very colourful lichen on the rocks.

As I said, the trail is very clearly marked, occasionally passing through traditional-style bentwood gates.

I don’t want to bore you, but actually some of this trail was really quite steep

(20% according to the booklet) and overall the going was somewhat tougher than I’d expected.  In theory, we’d covered pretty much exactly this mileage and ascent in one day in Surrey a year ago; but here, on rocks and tree roots, in 30 degree heat, it just seemed rather a  lot harder going.  So it was with considerable relief that we reached the mid-point of the day’s trekking.

The Cami goes left at this point, but we headed straight on into a town called Es Grau in search of beer and lunch.  I’m glad to report that we were successful, and, much refreshed but feeling we had to get on with it to make our 1530 deadline, we headed back to the track to get on with the next bit – officially Stage 2 of the Cami, from Es Grau to Favàritx.

The first part was on a very different surface – almost like a forest trail

leading past a lagoon.

into some weird woodland

and eventually offering a nice view back over Es Grau.

We got our first sight of our finishing point for the day

which was the lighthouse at Favàritx (you can see another watch tower in the foreground). From here, the track wended up over headlands and down into coves and beaches.

through some rather blasted scenery

past some actual cavalls (whose copious product could be found, piled up on the path by some unknown force)

past tantalising glimpses of our lighthouse destination – closer, ever closer –

through more weird woodland

past mysterious government-sponsored things hanging off trees (moth traps?)

to the end (phew!) of today’s part of the trail.

All we had to do was to walk to the lighthouse (which began to seem a long way away at this point, although it was probably only one kilometre on a paved road) but eventually we reached it

and got to our pickup point

with about five minutes to spare before our official pickup time, which is either brilliant planning or a source of considerable relief, depending on your view point.  Anyway Juan Gabriel (“Juanga”) from Cami360 turned up bang on time and drove us to our overnight accommodation. En route we asked him whether they were very busy, and he said that they really were: they had to manage 40 groups of people doing the trail in various places.  That’s a lot of co-ordination; let’s hope they carry on as well as they’ve started.

Our accommodation was actually back in Mahón – a fairly basic hostel, Hostal La Isla. It describes itself as being “family run”, and the practical upshot is that a single person runs the reception and the bar – he whole place, in fact.  It is not at all fancy, but at least it has a lift to get us and our bags to the second floor, even if the timer switch on the corridor gives out before you can get from lift to room, leaving you in utter darkness. Once inside, you discover that the room is almost entirely taken up by bed; but it was at least spotlessly clean and the cramped space was quite well-organised.  And since we were fair knackered by this stage it didn’t really matter.   To validate our tiredness. let me bore you with some stats.

  • Garmin Connect says we walked 15.6 miles, or 25km. OutdoorActive says 14.2 miles, or just under 23km. The Cami 360 book says 20.37km and we did a few detours. Whatever, it was quite long enough, thank you.
  • Garmin says we ascended 449 metres, much more than OutdoorActive’s 1000 feet. The official datum is 475 metres. Whatever it was, it felt tough.

We showered and rested a bit and then pottered out for some tapas before an early night, because we have agreed to be on the road again early tomorrow; the Cami 360 guys will take us back to Favàritx so we can carry on our trek round the island.  So, please come back to the blog so you can see how we got on.  See you then!