Why I Fell in Love with the River of Zombies

I’m going to let you in on a little secret. But please don’t tell anybody else, deal?

A couple of weeks ago we packed up our camper and headed off in the direction of the Pyrenees. The SW of France is a particularly beautiful region, as we climbed higher and higher, through the Pyrenees National Park, the views were stunning. Some of the bends were a little hairy for me as the drops were all on my side. I decided that the return journey would be the Barcelona route! We drove towards the Somport tunnel which stands at around 1,1000 metres. On our arrival at the entrance, there was a queue so we assumed a traffic light system was in place. It gave us ten minutes or so to enjoy the beautiful views surrounding us. We started to move and I was surprised how short the tunnel actually was. It was about 8km and with the amount of lorries going through we understood the reason behind the one way system. We exited the tunnel in Spain.

We were surprised to find the scenery so different from when we entered the tunnel. It wasn’t long before we were driving alongside the El Grado reservoir which is truly breath-taking. This needs a separate visit. Noted.

Eventually we arrived at our destination, the Lake Caspe campsite on the shores of the medieval sounding ‘Sea of Aragon’. The pretty bright red geraniums that surrounded the reception office were a nice reminder of home. We picked our pitch and headed straight to the small bar terrace for a cold beer. At the back end of the site is a gateway that leads down, past the swimming pool, to the lake. The water was calm and a couple of the motorboats that you can hire, were arriving back after a day fishing. We had a mooch around the shore, so John could pick his spot for the next morning but he was rather alarmed at how incredibly shallow it seemed everywhere! The reason we picked this place was so that he could fish for carp, which was advertised.

“I’ll try the left side of the harbour, tomorrow, and see how it goes.” He didn’t sound very hopeful.

So, the following morning, I took him a breakfast of a sausage sandwich and cuppa to where he was fishing, only to find him packing up!

“Complete waste of time, the shallow water goes out too far, I’ll move around to the other side and give that a go.”

I left him to it and headed back to camp and what was going to be my Al Fresco office, for the next five days. I sat down at my desk. It was then I admitted to myself that I wasn’t really ‘feeling it’ for this place.