Back on the GR11- Eñaut

http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees
http://www.justgiving.com/gesarmor4peakspyrenees
Before I got back on the GR11 I had to find a 'little' short cut that took me up to it. As I walked out of Canillo the mountains leant imposingly over me and the lorries pinioned me against them on the pathless road.  Surely it would be obvious with the trusty white stripe over red marker, wouldn't it?
No, it was a tributary, so to speak, and was known only to, er or rather, not even by the locals.  The beautiful people of Andorra, are so well meaning, and like the French and Spanish when addressed in their Catalan are most helpful.  How was it that I had learnt to filter the misinformation they all gave me, until, like some Rolf Harris painting, I finally understood what it was yet!  I believe it is partly the nervousness generated by speaking English, coupled with the desire to provide an answer at any cost.  So they deliver an answer, confidently, out of the nearest random possibility that springs to mind. Some 'lost in translation' thrown in and we can see that there is no reason to malign these good people.
I found a local that matched this profile to some degree.  The only resource available to me, it seemed, was a petrol station next to a disused cafe.  Five metres of Russian roulette with juggernauts and I skipped into the forecourt and spotted the manager de-greasing his hands over a washbasin in the toilet.
"Por favor" I said and before I could utter another word he sprang into an emotive latin leap of excitement and exclaimed: "Senor! Chile, Chile, es mio! Recuerdo?!"

It was a few years since I'd been in Chile, sorting out my father's affairs after his death there, could this man really know me from there? Was it really such a small world after all?

No, before my eyes burst into pools of reunion, my subconscious directed me to the young Chilean lady that had served me in the Correo.  He'd gone in after me and she'd shared the information with him that I was familiar with her home city of Valparaiso.
I liked the cut of his jib though.  An engaging and comic event. Afterwards he hastily succumbed to the aforesaid syndrome and directed me to a path that would have had me enjoying the capital Pas de la Casa once more,  my subconscious  rescued me again by unwittingly blurting out the name Ordino, which it remembered from looking at a map earlier, (I faintly remember at breakfast looking at the map, amongst coffee cups, croissants, waitresses, etc.) "Ah si senor es alli" he said pointing to a path.

Back to walking then, I seem to put off doing even that which I enjoy.  The task involved facing each gradient with equanimity, I knew that and was up to it.  However it seems in my nature to dramatise the  fresh onslaught as if I were heading into the Somme. One last coffee! One last letter home!

Eñaut (Enyah-oot)

I climbed up past a gaggle of Koreans fussing over some monument or other.  Turned around past a resting farmhouse and up into the seemingly impenetrable undergrowth of a pine forest.  Up and up and again up and up.  The pine cones small and in profusion acted like ball-bearings, another hazard.  At least I had the occasional tree to hang on to going round corners.  Up and up, I wont overdo it as there was worse to come! I covered just over a kilometre in about an hour and a half and had gone through 27 closely knit 20 metre contour lines (540 metres!) To put it into context: half of Snowdon squashed into a steep hillside before elevenses.
At the top of this endless climb I met a young man called Eñaut , a Basque architect.  He was wearing worn through jeans, a beard and a demeanour that spake volumes.  He was doing the full east to west GR11 route, and it was clear that his trial was working its magic. {PETE GET OUT THERE!}
At the Coll d'Ordino we both shifted about among the various hedges, gates and fences looking for a sign that could unleash us again.  Like a pair of hunting dogs trying to pick up a foxes trail.
Eñaut found it and we pelted down the trail, high on the endorphins from the climb.