January 22 - To Campamento Italiano and up the Valle del Frances

January 27 as I write - It's raining 'gatos y perros' out there, so time for more blog.
"Adventures in Eating." The menu translation for "Calamari con su Tinto" is:  Squid in rings, cooked with onion, garlic, red wine, parsley and squid ink!  Rather unappetizing colour, but I ate it all.  Not bad tasting, but the amount of salt got to me.  Laura and I cook with very little salt, so when they use a lot of salt (from the ink?) it's a bit hard to take.

Back to the blog:

Pack up at Cuernos, 2 hours down the trail, set up at Campamento Italiano (no refugio, can't buy beer) and then head off up the French valley.

Partway along the trail to Italiano.

Regarding packs - People are carrying everything from nothing (credit card or day trip only) to day packs, to full on expedition packs.  Lots of people obviously renting gear.  The crowd on the right side of the photo were on a break and had dropped their gear.

 Partway up the French Valley.

















At the "Mirador" (lookout) Britanico.  See! I was here.

A few more photos from the lookout.  To the southeast it was clear, but it was filling in from the west.

 A crowd arrived not long after, so it was time to bail out.  We all stood on that rock for photos.  A few jumped up & down to be photographed in mid air.  Nobody fell backwards while I was there.









Back at Italiano and you can see some of the tent city.  The cooking shelter is to the right.

There are two types of tenters - those that arrive, set up their tents (me) or those that arrive, drop their gear, head up the French Valley, and set up when they get back.  I got a better tent site.

So that's today.  Italian campground, French valley and British lookout.  Pretty much covers Europe.  Nothing Canadian, eh?

Time for a couple of e-mails and then into town to buy some dried fruit.  The 'Dried Fruit Guy" has amazing mango.

TTFN