Isaba

Last night I was reminded of the downsides of camping, when I was woken by water dripping onto my face. S was strangely unsympathetic as I thrashed about trying to find a dry bit of pillow. But luckily the storm passed over before I got too wet, and the rest of the night was peaceful enough.

The morning was grey and cool, and the storm had left it too wet to go walking in the massive beech forest of Iraty. So instead we went on a drive around a few villages. This is Isaba; the landscape around here is quite different from Elizondo, with thickly wooded slopes, and villages few and far between, without the big farms dotted about that you see in more pastoral areas. We saw lots of cheese factories but curiously no sheep at all -- presumably they are in higher pastures somewhere.

Returning to Ochagavia, we decided to have lunch in the cider house (sidreria) we saw yesterday. Cider houses are very traditional in some parts of the Basque country, but not here; there are no apple trees. S asked the waitress why there was a cider house here. "Oh, we just wanted to do something different," she replied. A bit like opening a Chinese restaurant I suppose. The food was traditional and copious enough that we returned to the campsite for a snooze, and some reading in my case; the weather had greatly improved and it was very pleasant sitting in the shade. And then the traditional wander round town before some light tapas and a glass of wine. We spotted an ominous bank of cloud rolling over the Pyrenees from France, so we rearranged the bedding in the hope of avoiding further nocturnal showers.