GR20 – Day 6. To Manganu

Hey all,

Slept like a log last night – spoke to K before bed then pretty much crashed out. Relatively easy day today, is basically a stage inbetween the psychotic mountains to the north, and the psychotic mountains to the south. A clear morning, then foggy, cold, rain on and off – was in a couple of places where the view is supposed to be good but could not really see much but grey – sat down for snacks a couple of times – someone would emerge from the gloom, say “Bon jour,” the disappear back into the gloom. Fortunately it cleared a bit at this high lake, the highlight of this stage – and I sat down for an entire hour, had lunch, coffee, cigar, listened to some music – was quite beautiful. Then slogged on to the next refuge – there are a lot of people here – all speaking languages that I don't understand – although two of the crusty old Swiss guys that I crossed the river with yesterday appeared later in the day and greeted me with crusty expressions of joy – we have no way of communication however. Set up my camp – it is pretty rough, cause I could not find any trees to hang the hammock from, so am inside the hammock for the mozzie net, on the ground, with the fly of the hammock strung up above me like a little tarp – has been a couple of light showers and it held up – if it pelts down like it did yesterday then I am in real trouble. Also, it is freezing – I hired a blanket from the refuge to serve as a mattress – and went to bed at about 7:00 – was shivering before even with thermals on while waiting for dinner, so wanted to get into the sleeping bag as soon as I could.

I am about to watch a movie on the laptop. Just because I can. By the way, if you are ever stupid enough to lug a laptop all over this trail in order to keep in touch with people, then go with Orange for your net connection – the other option has been useless thus far, although I am hopeful that in two nights time I will be able to use it when the trail stops for the night in a small town.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a pretty hard stage – although also supposed to be a very beautiful one, provided the weather holds up.

Photos. 1. The U shape made by the trees in the centre of the shot – there is a faint white scar in the middle of it – that is the hotel where I had breakfast, about two hours before taking this shot. 2. What the views turned into not long after. 3. The lake. 4. A coffee percolator and a few slices of the Corsican sausage I had for lunch. 5-7. Three shots from the walk after lunch – was really beautiful in a very different way to the last few days. 8. If Conan the Barbarian came trotting over the horizon, his cheeky thief sidekick running along behind him, I would not have been at all surprised.

Cheers, B.