APAPS 20.4: Aguas Belas Remodelled

You may be wondering if your Blogger is losing the plot by publishing, for the second week running, a cricketing photograph at the top of the blog, but there is an explanation. Mid-way through this Wednesday´s walk, Yves mentioned that he had been greatly impressed by the research I had gone into on the subject of Belgium´s international (men´s ) cricket team, all of whom just happened to have Bangladeshi names. He wondered if I could do similar research into Belgium´s international women´s cricket. Well, I was a bit doubtful if any such thing as Belgian women´s cricket even existed. After all, Ingrid, usually a fount of all knowledge, seems to know nothing about the sport or its possible Flemish origins; but I said that I would do as I was asked. And lo and behold! it does exist. These ladies are more ethnically assorted than the men were, there being 3 Scottish or at least Celtic names among them, only one Asian sub-continental name and the rest a clutch of suitable Germanic names. That, in the photograph, there are 13 in the team might suggest that they could in fact be a rugby league team. Perhaps they don´t know that a cricket team is a called a cricket eleven for a reason. There is at least the evidence of a cricket bat, so we will give them the benefit of the doubt. Umpire´s call probably. I don´t wish to probe further into Yves´ particular interest in these young ladies – you don´t need so many people to play French cricket, do you? - so I will now drop the subject and turn to the walk.

 But just before I do, let me remind you that Paul a Pé added a comment on last week´s blog about another type of cricket as follows:- 

“Myriam of course is more familiar with another game of 'cricket(s)'. Indeed it is rum0ured that her family fortune is based on some judicious and skilful wagering on the game during the Tang Dynasty.” https://youtu.be/ST954vgfvhQ 

 so if you want to spend ten minutes or so studying the Chinese connection between insectology and gambling, click on that link.

The Walk

 When we were almost ready to start from Café Pára e Fica, we learned that for some reason Maria had decided to self-isolate and so had parked herself about a kilometre away from the rest of us. An envoy was despatched to assure her that it was actually quite safe to come out of quarantine and join the rest of us, which she did in time for the Starter photo.

And then we set off along the Aguas Belas track. Attentive readers of the recent Quarantine Diaries will probably remember in Week 4 thereof (08.04.2020) Rod and Antony reported on the large amount of work going on on re-landscaping this valley. And now we could see the results. Scarcely 200 metres from the entrance to the track, there were massive hills of eucalyptus chippings. If you need mulch for your garden, it´s there just for the taking.

Further along, the track had been reshaped and broadened; several undulations, dips and hollows had been smoothed over, and the famous Hazel´s Swimming Pool, where she boldly took a plunge one rainy day in March 2018 with the AWWS, exists no longer.

                                                       Hazel Went Swimming

 Indeed, some of the remodelling of the track has so interfered with the course of the seasonal Aguas Belas river that it will be interesting to see how the river flows when (or if) next it rains. And there is dust, dust everywhere: a very fine dust that showed up very clearly that a deer had been out for its morning constitutional just before we came along. And that fine dust will become an extremely muddy mud when (or if) it next rains. Eventually we left this dusty track and made our way up and over the ridge to the south, pausing fairly frequently during the long ascent to admire the scenery, i.e. catch our breath or to toss the occasional caber.

On the ridge, we had the usual good view of Silves castle, which never quite comes out in photographs as well as one thinks it should. Professor Ferrer explained it thus: the human brain can persuade the human eye to distinguish detail which the camera, which has no brain, cannot.

                                                Terry listens to the Professor

We turned west along the ridge and then decided to avoid the obvious route back to the start, in order to avoid some beehives and instead took a rather precipitous trail down a hillside. We have been up that way in the past but, as it´s very difficult to get the ground staff these days, so it was now very overgrown. Jill took a fall and Jim drew blood, but they both survived.

Maria performed the limbo and also survived.

The steepness of the descent can be judged from the elevation profile in the Track Section. Jim´s “Thank God, that´s over” was rather understated in the circumstances. The Track

The Breakfast

We got back to Pára e Fica with 10 minutes to spare before breakfast´was served. The food was OK, only one egg each this time which was perhaps a bit on the mean side, but there were lashings of bacon and buttered toast, and some truly delectable tomatoes. Terry and Jill did not stay to eat, but Chris, Antje and the newly walking-wounded Hazel did come to join us at the meal. Rod came for coffee, in a pair of chinos mercifully less flamboyant than the previous week. Before the meal, Chris and Antje had been for a short stroll along Aguas Belas and had been lucky enough to see a large red deer, maybe the same one whose tracks we had noted. Chris remarked that this was the event of the week as far as he was concerned - referring to seeing that deer, or having the breakfast, who knows?