A backcountry skill I didn’t know I needed was how to scare away a horse. Last night, amidst the nearly-full moon, some bells wandered over to our tent. Actually only a few of them had bells on, but one decided that the grass nearest our tent was the most delicious at the ungodly hour. It wasn’t the bells that woke me up, but the chomping so close to my head. I tried to scare it by you know, moving. I thought that might do it. Then giving it a “hey” but in kind of a whisper-yell because there was another tent not too far away. The horse stopped chewing and stared at me. Or it stared at the tent, I couldn’t tell. But it didn’t run. At one point Zoë got it to run a little bit away by moving and yelling but then it just came back. Annoyed, I put in my earplugs and tried to go back to sleep, hoping it wouldn’t accidentally step on me. Eventually they moved on.
I didn’t want to get up today, and we didn’t leave until almost 8am. It seems nice, until you realize it means hiking more in the heat of the day. We had a climb to start that left us much more tired than we expected. I think we finished it in probably under an hour and we wondered why we felt so tired, given we ended so early yesterday.
On the way down, we found a nice pool in a river for a swim break. There was even shade afforded by a tree. We sat there for a while, expecting the shade to disappear and not wanting the full 12 hours of sun exposure to start. It’s quite pleasant sitting in the shade, by a water feature. I think I’d like to do more of that, if possible.
About an hour later, we came across another shady spot by a bridge and decided to break for lunch. We know enough now that you don’t pass up a shady spot out here lightly. While we were eating lunch, Zoë’s stomach started giving her issues and she had to go to the bathroom, multiple times. She didn’t really want to keep walking, and we talked about just staying there, but decided against it.
We walked down to a dirt road, which was easy walking, and into a cluster of buildings that was not quite big enough to be a town. This would be our low point for the day, and from there we’d climb back up 3,500ft or so. Yay.
We started our climb with a hot wind in our faces. There was actually quite a bit of shade on this climb and that helped a lot. No water features though, so just our own sweat to cool us off. Not too far away from the cluster of buildings, we had to stop for our first break. Zoë’s stomach was protesting the climb and she was feeling exhausted. After a break we continued, only to be stopped about 10 minutes later. Now it was time to make a decision: climb up the 700 more feet to a campsite, or backtrack, and go downhill to an established campsite off our route. After talking it through, we decided to abandon our original plans and try to get Zoë off trail. A real bathroom when you’re sick is the least we could do.
Not long after we started our descent, Zoë agreed she was in fact sick and this was the right decision. We spent a long time debating because she felt like she was failing the team by asking us to turn around. I didn’t see it that way, but in her shoes I’m sure I’d feel the same way. I’d been sick on so many of our past trips and for so long (a sinus infection in Nepal that went unresolved for a month and lasted our entire time in Indonesia, some other illness in Patagonia, and some weird virus in Hawaii on her birthday), it was mostly just surprising it wasn’t me.
We walked back down and took a break by the river. We had 40 minutes or so from the river to the campground. Thankfully the trail was good, but Zoë wasn’t able to appreciate it. She wanted to be done. I had taken her food bag in my pack from the moment we turned around, hoping to significantly lighten her load, but I still felt bad I couldn’t do more. We made it to the campground and Zoë was able to collapse into a chair and stop walking. We’ll see how things are in the morning and if they’re not better, we’ll make our way to a larger town, first on foot, and then by hitching or taxi until we can get somewhere with a train or a bus. For now, I’m here trying out the dinner in the campground by myself, wondering if there’s more I should or could be doing. Hopefully she’s well enough to walk tomorrow, as I think we’ll need to walk another hour to the next town, before we can get any type of transit. The hitching has been excellent in Spain so far, so I have every confidence that will work, but I just hope she’s well enough to tolerate hitching.