Summers of 2006 and 2007, two young people Luis and Vero of 20 and 19 years respectively, decided to cross together this Pyrenean Footpath of Great Route commonly well-known like GR-11 that crosses the Pyrenees from sea to sea during their university vacations.
Two summers!! Yeah, It occupied two summers to them, since this route duration oscillates between a month or month and a half for people who take a rate of normal trip and they did not have as much followed time to realize it. In addition it is not that they were, far from it, mountain experts, but they had many desire to live a experience like which entails to realize this way and what it offers. Simply they wanted to live in that one surroundings in which all those calm and quiet alive beings that surround to you but to not tease you are those that inhabit mountains by the day, and the stars at night are the best company than you can find.
There, Luis and Vero felt good, outside the four walls, without hearing around the crowd walking to giant steps, there they felt very well and for that reason at the moment they decide to return whenever they have occasion.
As far as the GR-11, the trick to realize it is simple; under any circumstance, continue walking. That if, putting head in each step and decision to take, since the life in the mountain can be very good or very hard depending on how it is the planning in.
The first summer, was only a 10 days taking of contact during which Luis and Vero crossed the ways that take from Canfranc to Elizondo, near to the Hondarribia beach in the Basque Country where they went to celebrate it. Many laughter and blisters in the feet that learned to cure with needle and thread, caused that the trip was in its memories like something different and unforgettable. The certain thing is that this part of the way towards the West, is the set out minus… to the altitude and to its resistances, it´s less hard for the traveller, but for that reason is not less precious by its jungles and forests. In fact, the Irati Forest is one of the places they will remain between the best memories than mountain ones took these two.
It is not necessary to forget that the route is not only to raise and to go down but to live in the course, and in order to that this is to which much Luis and Vero learned, although they continue learning whenever they go to the mount because each situation is a different world. For this trip they took a heavy camping stove, with cylinders not especially designed for trekkings, they did not wear technical coats nor bagpacks very prepared, the trekking walking stick was a good looking wood ….not to mention the clothes, whose the unique technicality lodged boots of Decathlon which they did not last too much nor they arrived much more far from which first incursion lasted this. But however, it is even possible that these ten days were funniest than Vero and Luis has happened in the mountain. They discovered another type of company; little colts, donkeys, toads, “sarrios”, marmots, horses, different birds,… and all that one precious vegetation that appears around. It is also necessary to remember the affection and hospitality the people who also shared vacations place or lived in those towns that are of step.
As far as the temperature, in the mountain the climatology is lived on different way, and it does not have why to avoid to say that the dense one, very dense fog, surprised Vero and Luis in but of an occasion arriving them to scare, just a little bit, by the subject of the direction. The rain, that so pretty sees from the window, also is a factor to consider, not to walk under the shower, but by the consequences to have it everything wet by the lack of impermeability of the equipment, by not being able to wash the clothes to end of the day since it is not going to dry itself next and the weight of the wet clothes is not recommendable… Without forgetting that too much sun and heat also can entail bad experiences.
Anyway, as Luis and Vero were enchanted with the experience, to the following summer, retook the way but in this occasion direction This, towards the Cabo de Creus in Catalonia. The fact that its way left from Canfranc, is because the train popularly called “the Canfranero”, is the ideal means of transport to begin this type of adventures. The certain thing is that in spite of its price, the train is the means of transport that they prefer to use Luis and Vero to move during his trips if it is possible and necessary since it has the advantage of the tranquility and the views of the landscape, apart from which usually there are never no problems with the luggage.
This second stage of the way, is harder than the previous one because it crosses all the Aragon and Catalonia Pyrenean which counts on higher and less accessible zones, steps just a little bit more technicians mainly considering the weight to take on the back,… but also count on impressive landscapes, ibones that remember seas in height, dawns that pass literally between clouds that resemble indescribable cotton that slips between the fingers, sarrios, ice in the tops, left huts,… and thousand sensations between which is the one of the wonderful of the mountains that surround to you and the modesty of our size in front of them.
In this occasion, the rucksacks had changed, the wood canes were replaced by others of aluminum and also the trousers new and more were just a little bit adapted, but the people who went underneath those attires were the same but older and a little more experienced. The certain fact is that the 20 days that took to them to cross what they had left of GR-11, were an authentic one happened. This time not only were laughts but also some real frights and falls that although could finish rather badly, did not clear the desire to them to continue walking.
The muds of Aguas Tuertas, the cold in the Anayet Ibones, the fog in Respumoso, the “evil step” in the Hell Peaks pass or the stone quarry of Panticosa are the “evils” with which this one right pair was before arriving at the beautiful Ara River. Of all of this Luis and Vero recovered in San Nicholas de Bujaruelo, where for a pair of days took forces in the camping before going to Ordesa and the imposing Circus of Soaso. Up to here the enchantment of Estanes ibones and Anayet ones, had left them perplex, but shortly after the Añisclo pass and Pineta valley populated with trees did not leave them either indifferent. Shortly after the huts of Biadós, some average in ruins, made them return the glance to times in which that one landscape was alive but of another different way.
The days during the trip go flying, and little by little Luis and Vero advanced knowing much people, knew different ways to make the route, other philosophies, other styles of life… Shared spaces to sleep, comic strips of the way and ways to live with other travellers, mountain, hikers… All of that causes that the way is what is, all an adventure for those who enjoys it.
Catalonia and its crowd pillaged to them especially off guard in San Mauritius and Espot where it was another rather less more intimate of but the very leafy Pyrenean face to them and good natured one, that Luis and Vero did not know completely. A stretch exists that goes by Andorra, crossed Tavascan; place in which a giant bread… In that Andorran section very green mounts can be admired and towns with a quite amiable climate that Luis and Vero were useful to rest, shortly after returned to enter Catalonia with the view put in the sea.
