15 February 2015 the lagunna El Padul

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Hi
The weather forecast for Sunday got steadily worse as the week progressed. By Saturday it was predicting rain for most of the day. A change of plan was called for, a walk was needed that was adaptable to the varying conditions. The old standby of walking around the laguna in Padul was used to substitute the planned walk to the watch tower at Conchar. The new walk had the advantage that the route could be modified if the weather did turn wet.
We met at the BP garage in Cozvijar and, to be honest, the conditions did not look good. The clouds were dark and swirling around only a couple of hundred metres above our heads. We set off walking from the garage and we had not gone far when blue sky started to appear, over the watch tower in Conchar. Unfortunately we were by the lagunna and it was still overcast.
The walk continued to the visitor centre, it was shut. Now that was a surprise, but with this years luck with finding touristy things open on a Sunday, it was not entirely unexpected. The path then went alongside the lagunna passing under a Higuera tree, this is a fantastic specimen of a tree, it appears to be all arms and legs and it looks like it could sweep you off your feet at anytime.
Mammoths have been found in the laguna and our next stop was at a viewing platform, sadly  we did not see any this year. I think it was because of the size of our group and the noise they were making, I had shouted for silence but they were all jabbering away, excited at the prospect of seeing one of these rare animals. I have posted a photo of one we saw last year.
Our next stop along the route was the Roman road on the other side of the valley. Mike said he could navigate us across the lagunna on a new track, I was not too confident about his route finding ability as he had already misdirected us twice. I was fully expecting to end up swimming down one of the canals.
At this point I must apologise to Mike, he led us straight across without even a wet foot. Why the Romans choose to build their road amongst all the rocks I can’t imagine, it’s the roughest road you have ever seen. Especially when the motorway is only the other side of the hill.
We arrived back at the cars after a easy, pleasant walk and we did not get wet once.    
We walked 11.6 km and climbed 143 metres.
In the afternoon we went for tapas at Cees and Marjan’s. As it was Valentine's weekend a competition was held to find the most Romantic man. The competition was tough, with all the men desperate to win, some even promising to take their beloved away to a desert island. There can only be one winner and this year it was Cees, so goodness knows what he did to bribe the judges.  So my fellow men, if you need any advice of a romantic nature just have a word with Cees.  
  

Comments

Kees said…
If you are serious about good advice, you are more then welcome ;=)
10:51 pm
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