GR7 in Spain Day 2: Yegen to Bérchules

GR7 in Spain Day 2: Yegen to Bérchules

OR

alternatively this day could be titled:

Make Love to the Water

We headed out early on Day 2, our first REAL walking day on the GR7. We would cover over 10 miles with some more significant elevation drops and gains on our way to the next village on our itinerary: Bérchules.

We headed downhill out of Yegen into the morning sunshine.

It was a beautiful spring day, exactly the kind I dream about when I am training throughout the winter in the cold rain.

Much of our trail was made up of old donkey tracks that had been paved over, so we pounded the pavement for miles.

Whenever the tracks turned to gravel, my knees and ankles were grateful for a little more give in the ground, even if the dusty trails kicked up bits of rock into our shoes.

The trail markings on the GR7 are generally very good, but occasionally we had trouble spotting them. Sometimes the sun had faded the paint on the marker,  and the whole post blended into the mountainside. You had to get closer to spot it.

Soon the sun rose high enough in the sky to reach us on the trail and we warmed up fast, shedding layers and drinking more water.

After descending a while, we started to climb to Mecina Bombaron, a village that we had planned to stop in if there was an open cafe as it was the only one we would pass through on this day. Originally I had planned for us to sleep in Cadiar, but there hadn’t been a place to stay that was open for the season and would hold all six of us, so we were pushing on to Bércheles, skirting around Cadiar altogether, opting to avoid an extra 1000 ft drop down and back up again.

It was already a steady uphill climb to the next village without dropping down to Cadiar, but the cool mountain air made for such a pleasant morning of walking.

I wanted us to log several miles before the sun got too high, but a theme of this trail is that if you find an open cafe, you should go ahead and stop, even if you aren’t too hungry or tired yet, because there might not be another one for a long time.

So we took full advantage of the open bar in Mecina Bombaron and stopped for second breakfast. (Our first breakfast had been instant coffee, yogurt cups and fruit from the tiny supermarket in Yegen.)

Fresh squeezed orange juice in Spain is one of my most favorite treats, so I ordered up a round of jugo de naranja and cafe con leche.

We also had the ubiquitous toast with tomato puree, olive oil, ham and cheese before moving along through the village.

Mecina Bombaron carried on the “book” theme from Yegen, another nod to the famous author that lived and wrote there.

As we left the village, we stopped at a fountain to refill our water bottles.

An older gentleman was drinking from the fountain and told us that the water from this particular fountain was the very best in all of the Alpujarras.

Then he put his whole head under the fountain, turning it from side to side and just letting the water run down his face.

He gestured to us to follow his example.

I wasn’t quite hot enough yet to be dunking my head in the cold fountain, but he was insistent.

You can’t only drink it, you must MAKE LOVE to the water!

Clearly we were not convinced, so he continued,

If you do not play, you will miss your life!

I was trying to decide if I was going to volunteer when Zoe removed her her hat and stuck her head in the water.

The old man was so delighted and we all cheered for her.

Most of us had just met Zoe, but we all fell in love with her when she stuck her head in that fountain.

We were all laughing as we left the village to rejoin the GR7, and just like that, Make love to the water! became both a catchphrase and theme of our whole trip.

We would come back to it again and again.

I love a good swim on a hot day, especially after a hike, but now I will forever phrase the glory of a post-hike dip as making love to the water.

The day began to properly heat up as we carried on, so were glad we had all re-filled bottles at the fountain.

By the time we decided to stop for lunch, everyone would probably have been happy to find a little water to dunk our heads into, but we were up high and there was none to be found.

We did find the perfect picnic spot though, high on the trail and across the valley from our destination.

Bérchules seemed close enough to reach out and touch, but in reality it was further away than we imagined.

We ate our packed lunches on sunny rocks looking over the valley and just soaking up the beautiful day.

After lunch, we carried on down a road that seemed like it was heading away from Berchules in the opposite direction, but then Kelsy spotted a gate that had some faint markings for the GR7 on it.

We opened it up and took the small track behind it down into the valley.

The valley had a fairly steep drop off to our left so we couldn’t quite see how we were going to cross it, but the trail revealed itself as we carried on.

As trails often do.

Walking a new trail requires a bit of faith. Sometimes you have to move forward without being able to see what’s ahead.

You have to believe that the way will emerge as you carry on. There will be a way. You just don’t know what it looks like yet.

Then you come around a rock and you see the trail start to cut switchbacks back and forth across what seemed like an impossible ravine edge.

From below, we looked back up at the layers of rock we had come down and the trail seemed to have disappeared behind us.

A small river cut through the bottom of the ravine. We walked across the bridge over the river and onto the trail on the other side before I realized that we should absolutely not pass up an opportunity to make love to the water!

Y’all! We should go back and make love to that water! And so we did.

Because we don’t want to miss our lives by not playing.

And also icy cold water on tired feet is SUCH a balm!

Then we dried off, put our boots back on and climbed the hill to the village.

By now it was getting on in the afternoon and we were craving our post-hike drinks and snacks.

We hoped that everything wasn’t closed for siesta yet!

Fortunately there was an open bar in town, so we made our way inside and collapsed at a long table. The bar had some cheese puffs for sale on the wall. So we grabbed a bag and dumped it out on the table.

I think we finished them all before our drinks even came.

Clearly, we needed to pack more lunch tomorrow. We also ordered an extra large sandwich that looked like a giant doughnut. You cut it into pieces to have several small sandwiches. So clever.

After our bar stop, we found the hotel where we were staying, but they were having a plumbing problem. The water had been turned off in the entire hotel, which also included the restaurant where we were hoping to have dinner.

But our sweet hosts, a mother and daughter from the Netherlands, had prepared some other apartments they own for us. They usually rent them out by the week but they offered them to us in place of the hotel rooms.

They turned out to be so beautiful with balconies overlooking the Alpujarras and little fridges stocked with drinks.

We all said we would LOVE to come back and stay in them for longer.

We spread out over the balconies and soaked up the last of the sunshine.

We laughed about the day and looked at the map for the next day’s hike while our hosts cooked us the most beautiful dinner.

A Moroccan dish cooked in a clay tagine with beans and veggies.

They also brought us breakfast for the next morning and generous sack lunches for the next day.

We felt so spoiled and as I went to sleep I said a little prayer that our sweet hosts would be able to get the hotel plumbing fixed before the Easter Holidays. Apparently it’s really hard to get work done in these remote villages and our hosts were on the cusp of the busier season, so they really needed a plumber to come.

Because obviously you need working toilets, sinks and showers in a hotel. I was so grateful that we had not had to forgo showers!

After a hike, a shower feels so good. You just want to stay in there forever. It’s like making love to the water.

This is the second in a series of posts about a week of hiking the GR7 in Spain in the Alpujarras. Many of the photos were taken by my fellow hikers: Kristie, Eve, Zoe, Alexis and Kelsy! I’m super thankful to them for trusting me to lead them on this adventure. 

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