Sant Feliu de Guixols to Torra de Mar – 17th November
Well the weather Gods gave me a little slap for my hubris and rained on me for most of the morning. However, it was never clear if I should put my coat on or not. Stay cool or get wet. I tried both and in the end stayed cool. A more pressing problem was the toilet situation – I know I keep having the fish, but everything is fish. I needed to get out of town and into the forest – tout de suite. Nothing is open yet and the only public WCs are at the beach and I am not heading thata way.
I’ve reached it in safety but can see nothing but up.Sant Feliu de Guixols at a break in the forest.Jesus! I’ve been going up forever.Been on a little road which leads to this. Always thought that it was a strange name for a legendary spearman.Route of the signs? That seahorse like creature reminds me of that 3rd figure in the Roman statue the other day.Going up that broken rock topped one. Then on to many more.I suppose I could always follow the direct route under the power cables. Will it interfere with the chip in my head, though?I just caught it out of the corner of my eye. I don’t think that it’s a wolf. But it might be.Ah! Trying to start a bring a stone pile. Of course, I did. They’ve got some way to go to get to the size of the Isle of Man ones.It’s the old broken rock surface again. It is bloody slow going.Then it gets worse. I’ve had about 400 metres of this and it is wet and slippery. Christ! I don’t want this on the way down.Back towards the mountains of days ago. The rain is coming in again.The Anaconda God snake that was brought back by the Conquistadors from the new world and which lived in these mountains for centuries protecting the peasants and slightly charming foreign travellers, has been cruelly slain. God damn those gun totting Yankees and their anti-snake ism.Still going up.Finally made it to the summit – well all but a few inches – of the first rocky one. It was a long way round its shoulder to a safe approach. More of those little orange and red fruit trees.Sad. A kids painting brought up in memoriam to create a shrine.The shining sea so far away (if you can tell the difference).The next one and I think the highest of the day at 506 metres.I was wondering why this forest was looked different, it is almost exclusively cork oak. Which as you can see is still being harvested.Yep. A place designated for the public pooping. I wonder if some poor bastard has to come and clear up.Just at the top of that highest one. Now I stay high for a few hours, to get over the rest.A poor flattened frog who should have looked before he leaped. You know what this means? The fact that this track can take wheeled vehicles means that I have gone the wrong way again.A menhir. Up here? Now, as you know, my theory is that an stone age farmer, finding a large stone in the middle of his wheat field, simply raised it on end to minimise the area it took away from the planting, A generation passes and their equivalent of a flower power babe comes along and goes, “Wow! Spiritual Baby.” And a religion was born. There is a dolmen and further menhirs up the other slope – so maybe the path markers of the day.The fruits of the cork cutters work. How much is a cork? And this is only the first part of a process still done by hand on slopes that would frighten a mountain goat.Mountains, mountains. Nothing but mountains.At last, Tossa de Mar. But miles to go.New council area – new signs. Google thinks, jungle hiking network. But we can assume it is forest – n’est ce pas.I’ve been going down for an hour and it doesn’t look any closer.A grave headstone?Ah! A little old church. Don’t like the idea that the path has expanded to go through a graveyard. I mean, people still come here. Some of the votive offerings are fresh. But. Where the F are the people from? Are the houses of the cork cutters hiding in the forest?I think that that is tomorrow’s last hill. This down slope surface is worse than rocks. Tiny granules of granite on top of a stone underlay. Slippery as F.Civilisation and the outskirts of Tossa de Mar. Hurrah!Took a further thirty mins to get to the beach front. Now just got to find the hotel and get my boots off.Apparently, it’s behind the walls in the old town.
Well, in my considered opinion that wasn’t nearly as hard as the day I went to Palamós via St. Tuna. Long climbs and descents even if they have downz and upz between them aren’t nearly as hard as those endless bays with their soul sapping small climbs. And I’m here way before sunset. The forests are for the main part silent. Which is very disturbing. Where are the birds? Either November is just not the time of year for the species that would be here – though, a varied, forest environment with constant leaf coverage, oak masts etc. would seem to me to make an ideal habitat all year round. Or, those damn Spanish who go out every weekend – as their Fathers did before them unto umpteen generations past – with their shotguns and blast apart anything that moves, are to blame. Whichever, very sad. Especially when you compare it to Portugal – The Fisherman’s Trail – and the cacophony of birdsong that greeted me every morning there.
