Pyrenean Assault: Deeper into Spain

Jungle's supplies were low.

"Candanchu": Just hearing it spoken sent shivers down her spine. Their room was in a damp basement in the refuge. The rainstorm thrashed the mountainsides above the abandoned ski-resort. The team had been on another foray into the village to track down urgent supplies for Jungle, but all to no avail. We had retreated to the bat-cave, soaked by yet another titanic storm and availed ourselves of the last of the Pasties, diluted for economy's sake with a little water.

There was nothing for it but to retreat into the ritual humiliation of Binder, with another hand of Crib followed by yet more humiliation at Rummy.

Upstairs, the unseen guardians prepared the dead livestock that until a few moments ago had been pecking and scratching happily in the gravel to the back of the refuge: A dreadful silence following it's last "squawk!"

A bottle of red was ordered and swiftly despatched as Binder slid further and further back in the rankings held in Jungle's little exercise book. Every game and hand was diligently recorded in the expedition's log book. Every glass of wine that slipped effortlessly down his throat was another tick under Jungle's column of victories.

The team was exhausted and triumphantly for Binder, after the second bottle of wine, Jungle was persuaded that supplies might be found deeper into Spain at the little town of Canfranc. A day off from the murderous punishment of the Haute Route!

The next morning the dynamic duo were plunging, nay, hurtling southwards, down a Spanish valley, the lone occupants of a rattley autobus; Jungle convinced that the driver was an imbecile as we should have been heading "north". Everyone knows that this far south the sun would be in the northern half of the sky... Empty bags were taken to be filled to the brim with provisions and more pasties. Binder was grinning happily as civilisation, good food, pretty women and rough Riojas beckoned.