Bejís-Mas de Noguera

Bejís-Mas de Noguera

We slept well. Bejís is a nice little town with three bars and a shop. We patronised two of the bars last night and another bar and the shop this morning. I bought two bocadillos and an apple. After cafe con leche we set out for mas de noguera, which my friend Jay and I visited in 2015. 

The dust cloud was less oppressive this morning and we could see a clear division between clear sky inland and the gloom to the east. 

The path out of Bejís  descended  to the main road then up the other side, levelling out at a forest road. Everywhere there were the charred remains of pine trees. 

After what seemed a comparatively short time we arrived at the train station for Bejís (further away from the town than the name implies) just missing a train which would have taken us a portion of the way. There seem to have been two separate tracks at one time. One of them has been modernized and the other is now a long and very well set up  cycle track. We couldn’t work out why there had been two lines each with its own embankments and bridges. 

We followed the track on and off for a good way until the path diverged to the left, climbing up to skirt round a group of wind turbines on top of the hill. We could see that one of them was burnt out - according to my brother the result of a gearbox fire. 

Lunch was at another Fuente, under the shade of a maple tree. We spent a lazy hour there, resuming the walk with some reluctance. 

Some time after this we saw that the trees were no longer burnt and that there were more flowers and green undergrowth. We had come out of the fire damaged area around Bejís. It was a real relief to see the greenery and made us realise how depressing the burnt mountainsides were. We arrived at Mas de Noguera at about 17:30 and were shown to our simple room. Dinner is at 21:00 so we’ve a bit to wait.  

Edit: dinner was soup, square potato, sausages and artichokes, followed by homemade yoghurt and honey. Pretty healthy!