Tag Archives: Cami de Cavalls

Cami de Cavalls day 18 – Departure day and final thoughts

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Saturday 2 October 2021 – We’ve been home for a couple of days, so now that we’ve caught up with the unpacking, washing and ironing, and are starting once more to get used to the rhythms of life at home – which don’t sadly, involve drinking gin every day – I thought I’d reflect on our final day in Menorca, the journey home and any other rambling that occurs to me.

We were due to be taken to the airport by taxi at 1345, which gave us the morning to fill. Although we’d seen pretty much all that Ciutadella had to offer the tourist, it’s such an attractive city that we went wandering round anyway.  This was last Thursday, 30th September; when we visited Menorca previously in 2019, October 1 was the date when all the bus services beyond the main route connecting the large towns was suspended, as this was officially Out Of Season.  So it was interesting to note, as we walked around in the harbour, that some of the restaurant umbrellas were being jetwashed.

Now, it may be that this is a standard practice for a Thursday, in preparation for the weekend; or it may be that this was an end-of-season activity, preparing to put things away for the winter. We don’t rightly know, but it had a slightly sad valedictory feel to it, somehow.

We carried on wandering around, noting a couple of other quirky artworks.

(The chap with the plunger was connected to a drawing of a pile of TNT.) We’d bought a couple of bottles of the local gin to take home with us, because we know that, unlike much booze that is consumed on holiday in The Foreign, Xoriguer gin travels well.  So we complemented it with a purchase of some sobrasada, the local sausage meat which figures prominently in Balearic recipes, particularly tapas. Let’s see if that travels as well, eh?

After a final farewell coffee in Es Pou, it was time to get back to the hotel and await the cab to the airport.  From there on, the travels went perfectly smoothly, with the minimum of time wasted standing in a queue waiting for the check-in desk to open.  The flight was on time – well done, EasyJet – perfect punctuality for both outward and return journeys and a perfect amount of gin and junk food available for purchase on board – and the UK passport gates seemed to be talking to the other Covid systems so we wafted through the border with no queue at all and without having to show any paperwork beyond our passports.  My bag was number 19 on the conveyor, with Jane’s not too far behind, the taxi was not only awaiting us but had enough fuel to get us home, and so we entered our front door some 80 minutes after the plane touched down, which was nice.  The 15°C temperature and the steady rain was less so, but it was still good to get home and find it still standing.  No-one had raided our cars for fuel, either, which was comforting.

The only fly in the ointment was our Day 2 Covid test back in the UK.  We’d booked it and DPD were supposed to deliver it, but failed because their driver (who I’m pretty sure has delivered to us before) got us confused with the nursing home at the end of our track.   The UK government web pages don’t specify what you’re supposed to do if the test delivery is cocked up. And anyway the rules change on Monday.  We’ve both taken Lateral Flow tests (negative) and have a full audit trail of the efforts we’ve been to to get a test delivered in a timely fashion, and I have no idea whether The Men From The Ministry will follow up in any way.  We’ll just do the PCR tests assuming that DPD don’t cock up again on Monday, but it was very frustrating.

So, here we are, back home, and here I am on a rainy Saturday in Surrey, with the temperature at 13°C outside, thinking final thoughts about a memorable 18 days.

  • It’s been a great experience; although we’d recreated the mileage a year ago, it was pleasing to know that we could still take this sort of mileage in our stride.  Although we did less vertical ascent than last year, we found this year generally harder going; the heat was one factor and the surface underfoot was another which made this year’s exertion greater.
  • The pattern of the days was different from my original expectations. Like last year’s re-creation, I had hoped to be able to walk about half of each day’s distance, find a hostelry of some sort, have a drink and some lunch and then finish the walk.  As it turned out, with only a couple of exceptions, we did all of the walking without breaks of any pith or moment. The heat had a lot to do with that – we wanted to get the walking done before the day got too hot.
  • The exercise emphasised to me what a wonderful thing the human metabolism is.  On our longer walks in the UK, ones on which we take water with us, it is not unusual for me to have to dive off into the bushes for a discreet pee.  Over a fortnight of walking in the heat, despite taking on a fair bit of water as I walked, not once did I feel the need to relieve myself; and I never got dehydrated, either.  My bodily systems just sent the water where it was needed, including as sweat to try to keep me cool.  It nearly succeeded in that last. Nearly.
  • One of the great things about this holiday was the fact that we could indulge ourselves with slightly too much to eat and drink (what’s a holiday for if not that?) and not come back half a stone heavier than when we left. Garmin Connect estimates that covering the Cami used up 18,625 calories, which converts to just over 5lb in weight.  I have arrived back weighing pretty much the same as when I left the UK.
  • Would we go back to Menorca?  Actually, probably not, not at least in the foreseeable future.  It’s a lovely place and I’m glad we (a) visited and (b) went back; but we’ve now seen a great deal of what the island has to offer, and there are plenty of other places in the world we haven’t yet been to that I think now have a higher priority (particularly whilst we have our health and mobility).
  • Would we recommend it?  Yes.  The island’s a delight, the Cami360 team do a great job, and I would unhesitatingly recommend it as a walking holiday, though I think it wouldn’t be wise to undertake it in the heat of August.  Apart from anything else, they need tourists – we were quite surprised at how few English voices we heard, and one of our taxi drivers was quite vocal about the excessive number of Spanish tourists that have visited this year.  Covid has had quite an impact it would seem.
  • Photography note: I could have taken my Big Camera with me, but didn’t.  I trusted that a Samsung Galaxy Note 20 would do a good enough job and it has.  I also had a small video camera with me (DJI Pocket 2, since you ask) but I only used it once and actually the phone would have done a pretty good job if necessary. The light was normally perfectly good, there weren’t any tricky wildlife shots or other unusual circumstances where a more capable camera would have been needed, with the one exception of the Cova des Coloms, where I would have liked to have with me a camera that could cope with a bigger range of light.  But one photo out of a couple of thousand doesn’t in my mind justify having to lug the extra weight, particularly in that heat.

Here’s a map of where we actually walked. The various colours are assigned by Garmin depending on the speed we walked.

So there we are – another holiday over and another set of blog pages satisfactorily drafted.  I hope you’ve enjoyed reading them as much as I have had writing them.  There’s still a lot of uncertainty about international travel so our plans for future trips are still somewhat fluid.  But I plan to be back among these pages with more photos and commentary and I would be delighted to have your company whenever that happens.

For now, stay well!

 

Cami de Cavalls day 15 – A Towering Achievement

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Monday September 27 2021 – Well, here we are – at the start of the final day of walking around Menorca on the Cami de Cavalls, the horses’ trail. The official distance we had to cover was 18km – the three final stages, 18-20 of the Cami de Cavalls – and for the first time for a while, we had a deadline – 5pm in the Cami360 office in Mahón. In the end, we left our studio in Binibequer Vell early, which gave us some time to wander round and take some photos of this amazing, if slightly shabby, place. Rather than bore you with all of them here, I’ve collected them into a Flickr album alongside some others I took a couple of years ago, in case you would like to take a look.

As ever, you can see the route and some photos in a summary video on Relive. I may try to merge the thirteen videos into a single, fascinating, overview. You never know your luck.

Having started out early, we realised that we were going to be on roads for much of the day. This can be a bit dull, but progress is faster; so we knew we had some slack in the schedule. This turned out to be A Good Thing.

Anyhoo, along the road towards the end of the first of today’s stages at Punta Prima, we saw some interesting houses

some interesting pedestrian crossing design

some interesting garden decoration

and some steps,

which, for once, we didn’t have to climb, thank goodness. We passed Cala Torret, which was a lovely jumble of buildings

and presaged its USP, which is a tower – watch tower, and one of several we visited during the day (hence the title).

We walked round the tower and. having spotted the entrance, decided to try the door. It was open, to the amazement not only of us, but of the lady who was inside. It turned out that this tower can be hired (for example as a youth hostel overnight place) and she was cleaning it. She actually let us go up the tower and have a look from the top, which was wonderful.

We had a great view of the Punta Prima lighthouse

and over Punta Prima to the next Tower on our route,

and down the spiral stairs! She was really delightful in giving us a lovely moment of serendipity on our final day.

We carried on around the coast towards the next town, bidding farewell to Punta Prima and its lighthouse

and its beautifully colourful coves

and, via a stop for coffee and extra breakfast which also marked the end of this short stage of the Cami

moved on to the next stage, stage 19. We actually left the road for a trail

which led past a Mystery Object

and what we think are the foundations of some military buildings once related to the tower

but, I’ll be honest, we’re guessing on that last bit. The path ran parallel to the road, across which were some buildings which looked to me like the sort of thing American architects would create as being their version of what a Spanish Villa should look like.

They looked more like something one would see in Florida rather than in Spain. Nice, but slightly out of place, somehow. The road led on, as these things often do, to the next town, and, in this case, the next tower.

This stands guard over the town of Alcalfar, which is stunningly photogenic.

We walked into and round it, past possibly the local version of Stamford Bridge.

The track beyond the town went past a magnificent bloomer

which Jane identified as Port St. John Creeper. Just thought you’d like to know. And we found another wild tortoise!

The track continued between drystone walls

past some handsome buildings

and finally led to my road

which was to lead to my cove. However, on the way there, we passed a couple of unusual things: a line of palm trees, unfortunately behind heavy gates so I couldn’t take a really satisfying picture of them (and neither, by the way, could any of group of 15 German tourists with whom we were by now entangled);

another watchtower, the Torre d’en Penjat,

which was still sufficiently fortified that, after ten minutes of unsuccessfully trying to get near it, we gave up and moved on (but the Germans didn’t; it looked like they’d found a way in, but our schedule was calling us on by this stage); and some great views of the fortifications which guard the entrance to Mahón’s extensive harbour.

So we walked down into my cove, the Cala St. Esteve, which is very pretty,

and which is the end of Stage 19, and hence the start of the final Stage of the Cami, no. 20.

This stage starts with a little bit of track, but it soon turns into road for the rest of the trail into Mahón. There are only four posts marking this first part of the stage, which means that post no. 4

is….wait for it….The Last Post. Thank you. Thank you for reading my joke.

The Cami from this point simply follows the main road into Mahón, which is a bit dull, even if you get an interesting view back to the palm trees,

but we had a small diversion planned, which was to end up by the water in a cove called Cales Fonts, which is achingly pretty

but which also – and this is important – features a place to stop for lunch called Dinkums; we knew about it because it had rescued a hot and sweaty walk two years previously. So we treated ourselves to lunch there, and it turned out our timing was spot on. As we were ready to leave, the group of 15 Germans turned up and sat themselves down – great for business, but something of a strain on the bandwidth of the waiting staff and probably the chef, too.

The reason we needed to leave was another piece of serendipity, as we had to get to Mahón, and specifically the finish of the Cami, to meet someone we’d never met before – a chap called Ian Burley, whose acquaintance I’d made online when he started following this blog and my Instagram posts about the Cami, because he was about to undertake the trail himself. You can see his Instagram posts about the Cami and other stuff here.

He started the circuit from Ciutadella a day after we’d passed through, but, being younger, fitter and much more experienced at hiking than us, was doing the whole thing in ten days, as opposed to the wimpy thirteen we’ve been taking. It turned out that he’d overtaken us in Binibequer Vell and had already reached Mahón. So, the miracle of technology and the internet meant that we could arrange to actually meet in person, rather than simply exchanging likes on social media.

So we hit the road, passing through Es Castell and its military buildings

and ignored the main road into Mahón, which was the formal Cami trail, in favour of the old road, which kept us away from the boring old traffic for a while.

But then we had to finish the route on the main road, passing the end of the harbour

and arriving into the town.

The Cami route passes along my favourite road in Mahón, the Calle Es Castell, with the trees along its centre (see the post at the start of this series), and we ended up having coffee and beer with Ian near the Tre Cavalli (Three Horses) statue where our trek had started, 13 days ago.

It was a pleasure to meet Ian – actually meeting him IRL is a great example of the good things the internet can do. He’s a very keen traveller, kayaker and hiker and you can read about his peregrinations on his blog.

For us, though, all that was left for the day was to get to the Cami360 office to pick up our baggage and our congratulatory tee shirts, and to say “thank you” to the Cami360 guys and girls who had done such a good job of keeping everything together for us – and the other several dozen groups they are supporting. Their last act of kindness was to organise a cab to take us to Ciutadella. As I type this, I am sitting in the dusk outside the lovely and superbly luxurious Can Faustino hotel, where we can relax for the next couple of days, enjoying the delights of the city – and getting ourselves Covid tested so that we’ll (hopefully) be allowed back into the UK on Thursday.

According to Garmin, we covered 15 miles today, so our total mileage for the trail has been 145 in 13 days. I suspect this is somewhat overblown; I’ll do some more detailed analysis in due course and report back.

I hope you’ve enjoyed reading these pages as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. I will post a couple more updates over the next couple of days about our time in the city and the experience of getting Covid tested and getting (I hope) back into the UK, and I’ll include those detailed stats about our fortnight’s walking; but for the moment, this marks the end of the long trek round Menorca, the Cami de Cavalls. We’ve had a blast!

Cami de Cavalls day 14 – In the Bini

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Sunday September 26 2021 – After a reasonably  comfortable night, but a breakfast which using the word “adequate” to describe would count as fulsome praise, we set off on our way, officially some 14km, to Binibèquer Vell; there was one small diversion planned to the Cami route. As ever, if you want just to se the route and some photos, there’s a video of today’s walk up on Relive.

Having said that, the first thing we did appeared to be a diversion from the official Cami trail.  The interactive map which we had been consulting occasionally on our way showed a straight road, whereas the route markers on the lampposts and street signs took us off to the right.

The interactive map track is the orange path in the above. We decided in the end that the Cala en Porter Marketing Board had got to the official Cami route organisation to make sure that we passed a viewpoint so we could see a couple of attractive views.

We rejoined the straight bit and then plunged off into the undergrowth, heading steeply down a rocky path and then, yes, up another steep path for some farewell views of Cala en Porter

on a fairly broad, level path.

The diversion we had planned to visit was a little way away from the Cami trail, and we had a choice of a country trail down to it, or to keep with the Cami path.  Jane opted for the latter, on the basis that it might be an easier surface.

Ah, well, never mind. We got down anyway and went to the “cove caves”, a necropolis in use to bury people from the 11th century BC until the Roman invasion, after which it was used for a wider variety of purposes.  All one can see from the cove is caves in the cliff.  Thanks are due to Jane for the second photo which was quite difficult to get because it was more or less directly into the sun and I frankly couldn’t be bothered.

Once again on our way, we passed views of a hillside community called, I think, Binicalaf, that we didn’t actually visit

before the path took us into a change of landscape to farming country.

We saw another wild tortoise, a bit larger than yesterday’s

Before the path suddenly jinked left

Past some impressive rock formations

and into a place called Es Canutells

at the top end of which is a pretty substantial tourist village.

The next couple of kilometres were, frankly, dull and hot; simply ploughing along a road and occasionally diving out of the way of oncoming traffic (including some motorcycle gangs – it seems that there are commonalities between England and Spain when it comes to lads on a Sunday morning).

There were a couple of handsome properties to see as we toiled along, such as this one

which we assume is a farmhouse – it appears that farming is a lucrative business to be in here –before we once again headed onto country track.  It’s worth recording that the road itself gave us a clue as to when to head off into the country, via a red-and-white band on the road surface itself which stopped when we were due to turn off.

We stopped for a rest and an apple to fortify ourselves before heading off through farmland again, marked out by some fortified farmhouses such as Sargossam (now disused, it would appear)

And Santa Caterina (still, it would appear, operational).

We also passed other farm buildings and evidence of fortifications, so it was clear that at one stage this was an area where the farms had a role in defending against various marauding riffs.

This last place had a nice vegetable garden outside, mainly ploughed and awaiting new planting, but with crops at one end such as chillis and lime and persimmon trees.

The path then led us (gently, fortunately) down into a ravine called Barranc de Biniparratx

(where it became clear we were on the flight path into Mahón airport)

and up again until we caught sight of the town marking the end of this stage of the track, Binisafuller.

Sadly, much as we would have liked this to be the end of the day’s walking – it was very hot in direct sunshine – we had a couple of kilometres to go to reach our overnight accommodation. There were some handsome houses to look at as we passed

and a nice view over the beach.

There was clear evidence of fairly brutal clearing of bushes to keep the track passable

and we stumbled along this and back on to the road which fairly soon led us to our overnight stay – the remarkable place called Binibèquer Vell.

This is a sort of designer fishing village, which we had visited before a couple of years ago, and so we were quite looking forward to staying here, to satisfy our sense of curiosity about the place, which we regard as being Menorca’s answer to Portmeirion, the unique Italianate village in Wales used as the set for The Prisoner and also a popular tourist destination. “Vell” means old in Catalan, by the way, which is rather an ironic word to use for something built in 1972.

Our first task as to find a reception desk among the jumble of buildings, so we wandered sweatily around for a while past apartments, restaurants, car hire desks and supermarkets before Jane spotted a small sign saying “Reception”.  After the usual Charlotte Hayward discussion, we were allowed to get to our room, a small studio apartment – with no Wifi! Shock!! Horror!!! – where we could hose ourselves off and relax for a bit.  We went out to the (Spar) supermarket to get milk, water and other supplies, so that we could award ourselves a Nice Cup Of Tea (oh, and an ice cream!) and thus fortify ourselves so that we could find some lunch.  The main body of Binibeca Vell looks good from a distance, but it’s very much a beach- and swimming-focussed enterprise, with a very touristy feel to it.  So we went a short way, back to where I took the above photo, to a restaurant and “pool chillout bar” called Sa Cuina, which was altogether calmer and more restrained – but also no Wifi! (I begin to detect a pattern, here).  Jane opted for refined food like tapas and salad, and I had a burger; and the beer (me) and gin (both of us) were very, very welcome indeed.  We’d only covered 10 miles, but most of it was in direct and sizzling sunshine; I’m only glad the going was not too difficult, as this would have made it a very trying day, I think.

Today was our penultimate day of walking the Cami, which must mean that we will complete the circuit tomorrow as we make our way along the last 18km back to where we started in Mahón .

Our stats for the day:

  • 10.08 miles walked
  • 210 metres climbed

Therefore we’ve covered over 130 miles, according to Garmin. I have one pair of clean socks left which I have carefully saved for the last day’s walking, but I’m certainly going to need to order a fresh sock stock for continuing exercise once we get back to the UK, as the ones I’ve been using here are utterly shot.  Remarkably, though, we are not suffering from any walking-related injuries from this trip, despite the miles covered.  You’ll have to tune in again tomorrow to find out how the day unfolded.