Tag Archives: Spain

Cami de Cavalls day 14 – In the Bini

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 11^th 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.

Cami de Cavalls day 13 – Talaiot Ho!

Leave a Reply

Saturday 25 September 2021 – I was going to do another silly schoolboy thing and call this post “Cole Porter”, because the destination of today’s walking is Cala en Porter and I’ll use any tenuous link if necessary – as you’ll no doubt have noticed if you’ve been reading this blog for more than a day or so. However, this got overtaken by events and an even more tenuous link, and you’ll just have to read on to find out about it. Won’t you?

(Well, you could get a hint by the usual short cut of viewing the highlights on Relive, I suppose.)

We took advantage of being in an apartment to have a Nice Cup Of Tea as part of breakfast (note to all socialists everywhere – proper tea is not theft), and generally made an effort to finish up those bits of our recent supermarket purchase which wouldn’t survive another day. Then we checked out and started on the day’s walking on a day which the Met Office promised to be partly sunny and rather warm (up to 28°C); it was certainly very humid. It stayed that way. Unfortunately.

The Cami de Cavalls organisers have done a very impressive job of trail marking. It’s very clear that a lot of effort has gone into making following it as straightforward as possible (or, of course, sometimes left or right). For example, there’s a hugely useful interactive map, which we Jane used to make sure that we knew where we were and where we had to go next. And this comes in handy when the signposts from the Cami’s organisers fall perhaps a little short of perfection.

(To be fair, it’s extremely rare that the route is not very clear; we came across an instance later in the day when the signs ran out and the interactive map was useful, and this was the first time that the route onwards was not pretty much obvious.)

The route leads upwards out of Sant Tomàs

and into nice views and fairly open country.

The first of these pictures shows our first sight of the end of the first of today’s two stages, Son Bou. We passed something that we thought was possibly evidence of a very successful harvest of the main crop round here – stones (you’ll have to read through the blog to understand how witty this is)

and what we decided was a “before and after” advert for the use of the harvest.

There were some more actual cavalls

wasps on the nest

a sow and (we posited) her piglets

as we entered a wetland which, we read, was the second most important after the Albufera area we’d passed through on the first day of our walking.

The photo above shows another view of Son Bou, which we entered shortly after, with our first ever viewing of people actually riding horses on the horses’ trail.

Son Bou itself is another seaside town (bigger than I had realised until I caught sight of it), and is a bit of a mixture of handsome houses

and less classy aspects.

It was the end of the first of today’s two stages, and so we started up the next one, theoretically a short hop to Cala en Porter. Of course, we’re in ravine country here, so the “hop” involves going up

and up

and then – well, bless me! – down

you get the idea, I’m sure. I’m not going to belabour the point. Except maybe I will. Being in ravine country gives rise to some great views

and as we passed the bottom of the ravine – unsurprisingly a seaside cove – we saw evidence of previous mining activity

which, presumably, was to do with what looked like significant mineral content in the rocks hereabouts.

Having got down to this cove, we climbed again and found ourselves in open country

leading to today’s diversion, which was considerably more interesting and impressive than I had expected. Menorca has a very significant megalithic (Talaiotic) heritage, which we’d first come across in our visit a couple of years ago. (I mention the Talaiotic word to help you understand the title of this post, by the way.) The Cami360 booklet mentioned a couple of sites worth a visit near the trail, so off we set to have a look.

The first is a sepulchre site, with a dolmen – one of Menorca’s oldest megalithic structures – a tomb that originally had a long corridor that one had to crawl along to get to the burial space.

and other impressive stone work surrounding it.

Some what further along the track is a site called Torre d’en Galmés. From the view we got across the fields as we approached, I was expecting just, you know, this tower. It’s actually among the most significant Talaiotic sites on the island, and much, much, bigger than I had expected. Indeed, it’s so significant that you have to pay to get in! You can read details on Wikipedia, but here are some photos wot I took:

There’s now research which indicates that at least some of the Talaiots – piles of stones whose purpose is actually unknown – might have something to do with early understanding of astronomy;

a collapsed Taula (“table”) which is in a space which had religious significance at the time;

a burial cave;

and olive oil mill/press;

and a hypostyle chamber (sadly with the roof no longer completely extant).

It really is a huge site; it knocks into a cocked hat any of the sites that Jane and I had seen on our previous visit to the island. It was quite awe-inspiring, even for me, though I was wilting quite considerably in the heat and humidity of the day.

After this, we walked into Cala en Porter, which was gently downhill (until another fucking sharp uphill section which I really didn’t want to have to deal with)

but which, of course, led to some decent views across the fertile valley at the base of the ravine we were basically going down (except for the bloody up bits).

It was our day for animal life, it would seem: pigs, piglets, horses – and then Jane spotted this little fella:

the first tortoise (Galapagos aside) I can ever recall seeing that wasn’t a pet.

We also had our first sight of Cala en Porter

which looked pretty high, for a cove, and made me wonder how much further uphill we’d have to walk later. Correctly, as it turned out; once we hit the end of the track and got onto tarmac, the trail led up – and then we had to walk slightly further up tp get to our hotel. As I mentioned yesterday, this is a medieval castle first built in 1971.

There had been some doubt as to whether it was a one-star or 5-star hotel. I can now dispel that doubt: one-star, but this is not necessarily disastrous. The proprietor, Rafael, is clearly a rogue, but he seems to be on top of his business. He got us organised and into our rooms (air-conditioned! thank Christ! as I was fair wiped out by this stage) and, very shortly after, equipped with beer and other refreshments. The place is not posh, but it has its own charm. The interior décor is fairly unique – here is the upstairs “sitting room” from which the bedrooms lead off:

The bar/breakfast room, complete with Rafael and Mrs Rafael

and the place is not short of character.

Once the early evening arrived, we had tapas here – very good – and then retired for our usual administrative time – blogging or working out what the morrow would bring,

The diversion to the Talaiotic sites had extended the day’s walking from the expected 10 miles to 14, and added a few extra metres of ascent as well – we climbed 298m, some 45m more than the diverted walk. So we’re now up to a total of 121 miles, with two days’ walking – another 20 miles or thereabouts – to go. I expect them all to be hot and sweaty, but we are fundamentally enjoying ourselves, even during the uphill bits. Do come back tomorrow to see how we got on, won’t you?

Cami de Cavalls Day 12 – Ravine Mad

Leave a Reply

Friday 24 September 2021 – We had an Apartment Morning! Nice Cup Of Tea First Thing!! Toast!!! Marmite!!!! (For Jane, Natural Yogurt! Fruit!!) With such small pleasures is a worthwhile life truly completed.

Then it was time to get going, so we packed our cases and prepared to move out. Jane heard the voice of Maria, one of the Cami360 drivers who had been taking us to and from places, and so we were able to hand over our cases to her so that they could be transported to our next accommodation, at Sant Tomàs, some (officially) 11.56km away. The accommodation was also to be an apartment, which gave us the very real prospect of a Nice Cup Of Tea when we arrived there. For old fogies such as us, this counts as an incentive, and since the trail contained the greatest ascent of the south island stages (241m), we needed all the help we could get.

If you want to see a video summary of the route and some of the photos, it is, as usual, available on Relive.

The trail today was basically through, along, up, down and across various ravines (barrancs, you’ll remember from yesterday, because you were paying attention, weren’t you?). This was clear right from the start as we went through Cala Galdana town.

We passed the town beach

and started up the side of the ravine by the town. This involved steps. Lots of steps.

Once we got to the top of these, we were at the formal end of Cami stage 13 and therefore at the start of, erm, 14. The track was even vaguely reminiscent of something you might find in the Surrey Hills. Generally, from here on in, the going underfoot was largely much nicer than the ceaseless rocky paths we’d had since Cala Morell, some 40 slipping, stumbling and swearing miles ago. Since the day was not scorching hot but very humid, this was welcome. We never actually saw the sun, but it was still sweltering and the easier going was a definite bonus.

We passed Mystery Object #1

and Cala Mitjana, which was actually much more remarkable than Cala Son Vell had been a couple of days ago. The surging waves really pounded in with a deep bass note (which, sadly, the microphone on my phone couldn’t to justice to, hence here’s a still).

On the far side of the cove you can see a Spanish Civil War-era bunker.

Ravine country continued

and we passed Mystery Object #2

which looked like it might have once been a charcoal pit.

The ravinous (!) nature of the scenery was quite spectacular in places.

We crossed the lower field in this picture as we came down one side of a ravine and before going up the side of the next one.

and wondered, as we passed, what exactly was the crop to be grown in this obviously prepared terrain? Stones?

Anyway, the views were great.

We moved from forest into open country for short while

before passing Mystery Object #3

(yes, I can see it’s a hut, but it’s little larger than a dog kennel, so what’s it for?) The views continued to be quite impressive across the ravines as we crossed them.

and then we came upon post number 187 on the route, which signalled a possible diversion. So we left the formal Cami trail and followed a “Variant for Hiking”.

The blue writing on the wall here says “Cova”, by the way. This took us along a track past various signs telling us about the flora to be seen. I was amused by one

as we live near Chobham Common where gorse has revealed its true colours as a (yellow) pernicious, invasive nuisance which takes ruthless culling to keep under any vestige of control. The locals here will learn this in due course, I predict.

The diversionary trail is through another ravine and past some more great views

but the real interest lies a little further along, where a right turn, again (and very badly) indicated “COVA”, takes you to the Cova des Coloms, the Pigeons’ Cave.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Steve Walker (@spwalker2016)

Here are some stills, also.

As you can see, this is quite spectacular.

It’s a karst cave, formed as water dissolves limestone when it percolates through. It’s about 25m high and 110m deep. Research indicates that the prehistoric Talaiotic people on the island used it for burial rituals; you can understand how they might have found this an awe-inspiring place. Delightfully, as its name suggests, pigeons were flying, roosting and cooing all around us.

The diversion to the cave adds about 3.4km to the overall length of the route, but it’s very much a worthwhile digression.

We went back to the Cami track and completed the short distance into Sant Tomàs, passing a nearby beach

until we caught sight of the town itself.

It’s very much a tourist town (like most of the towns we’ve passed on the south coast of the island). We completed the stage

bumping into the lady pictured looking at the sign here. She was staying at the Alfons III in Ciutadella, and, like us, walked from Cala en Bosc to Cala Galdana yesterday, during which time we encountered her a few times. As we walked along today’s route at the start, we met her again, and discovered that she was due to walk a long section today. She shot off into the distance, and so it was rather a surprise to see her at Sant Tomàs, as she still had another 15km to go on the schedule she was walking to. But she’d taken a coastal trail which was flooded (we were warned about this, as was she) and so had to turn back. It was slightly strange to have met her so many times over the last few days. We hope she made it to Cala en Porter OK.

There was one slightly odd moment, soon after we arrived at our accommodation, the Hamilton Court apartments. We needed to buy some water (I don’t like doing this, but the tap water in the apartment really tasted poor) and I noticed that the apartment block has a mini shop. I went in, plonked my bottles of water on the counter and waved my phone at the lady behind the till. Unfortunately, I had come to the first place we’d come across that was cash only – very odd, as literally all other transactions we’ve done here have been contactless via the mobile phone.

The apartment we had? I can’t honestly say I was taken with it. It flattered to deceive. It was huge – larger than the apartment that I lived in for early three years in Sweden – with two bedrooms and two bathrooms, and even its own little garden outside. But there were sufficient drawbacks to make the experience of staying here less than satisfactory: a spectacularly ill-designed main bathroom, large, but with nowhere to put stuff like wash bags; a complete absence of soap or detergent (we had soap with us but this doesn’t help much with the washing up); an uncomfortable bed; and uncomfortable chairs in the lounge. A shame, really; I was glad we had only the one night there.

The rest of the day fell into a familiar pattern:

Cup of tea
Nice Lunch
Siesta
Relax and plan tomorrow (Jane); write this blog (me).

Jane had identified a nearby restaurant, Es Pins, which seemed to offer the sort of lunch we were after and so we went there. It was a lively place – a nice atmosphere, if a bit clattery for my taste, and with an open terrace overlooking the sea. We had a good meal, but made a tactical error in our choice of both starter and main course. My main course was lamb done Menorcan style and it is only because of my religion that I’m not sharing a photo of it with you; it looked like a whole shoulder of lamb. With mangetout. And potatoes. It was delicious. But vast! Jane had sea bass done Menorcan style and that was a generous portion, too – but again delicious.

So we’re basically stuffed to the gills; at the moment, I’m not sure I’ll need feeding at all tomorrow.

Before I talk about tomorrow, let me give you some stats for the day:

According to Garmin, we walked 12.30 miles. Relive says 17km, which seems more in line with the official distance plus the diversion to the cave.
The amount of ascent today was 371m, again more than the official version, as we had to climb a little to get to the cave. Despite the climbing, the going as quite easy so it was a pleasant walk overall.
So we’ve now done 107 Garmin miles overall. I’ll do an analysis after we complete the walking to compare the various versions of the distances we’ve walked. Don’t worry, I’ll squirrel it away in a geeky corner of the blog; you don’t have to read it.

And so to tomorrow. We are due to cover two stages as we walk from here to Cala en Porter, a distance, as I say, of about 15km. Our destination is a hotel as opposed to an apartment, and I discover that it’s a medieval castle built in 1971, which doesn’t have its own website; on Google Maps it’s described as a one-star hotel; another website I found describes it as a 5-star hotel. It has a bar and air conditioning; those at least will be very welcoming, whatever the other surroundings are like. You’ll just have to come back and find out, won’t you?