Day 149 : Trekking in the Basque Country

Stayed in the morning to get some trip planning done before heading out for lunch at a place nearby which Thierry calls the "workers lunch", as most of the construction people would come here to have a reasonably priced set lunch.

Today's lunch was Pork Curry 😂, with free flow starters from a buffet counter, ending off with a dessert (I chose Panna cotta), and also includes wine and tea/coffee for €19.90.

We then headed into the countryside to meet with Valerie and her sister-in-law to do some trekking.

The views at every step was just amazing, and continuously changing, lots of green and snow capped mountains in the distance.

Usually at this time of the year, there wouldn't be any more snow on those mountains. But with the recent snow fall we had a few days ago and the cold temperatures these few days, the snow has held up there, making the views while trekking even more amazing

I was told yesterday was apparently the coldest day in April in 20 years!

My friends were laughing at me as I took this picture of hay in the background, contrasted with the snow mountains.

One of them teased me and said "you don't have this in Singapore?" 🤣😅

And then we saw lots of wild horses.
These are special horses found only in this region, and known as Pottok or Pottoka. They are small in stature, almost like a pony.

It is considered an ancient breed of horse, particularly well adapted to the harsh mountain areas it traditionally inhabits.

It's the time of the year when many foals are born, and thus we saw a few baby ones. This mother was just busy eating and ignoring the baby 😅

And then we saw another one just as we were about to exit the walking trail. The whole walk was about 2.5 hours.

We then spent a couple hours inside Valerie's brother (Jean Mark) and sister-in-law (Estelle) house chit chatting across varied topics, before calling it a day and headed back home with a quick stop at the supermarket to pick up dinner.

Dinner tonight was a typical dish from Alsace region of France (country's Eastern border next to Germany) - Choucroute Garnie, literally translated to garnished sauerkraut, and typically served with three different types of sausage and cooked with pork fat and dry white wine.