Woken up by the clucking cock a doodle doos this morning, which is a nice way to wake up, but it was so cold as the sun hadn’t reached down into the gorge yet.
Drove down the zig-zags looking for the unusual rock formations called ‘Monkey’s Fingers’. Zoomed past them once as Google Maps said they were further down the road. Probs better to trust our eyes 👀!
We’d intended to have a walk around them as there are trails but we couldn’t find a suitable path down. Once the ‘guides’ homed in on us, we abandoned the whole idea.
Headed towards the Valley of the Roses next, the driver having to negotiate a big chaotic town first, in order to get us on the route.
The whole area is filled with shops selling everything that can possibly be made from rose oil and there are giant factories ready to process the petals from the alleged 4200km of rose hedges in the area.
April/May is meant to be the best time to see the blooms but today, we couldn’t find a single rose bush anywhere, just a very dusty plain leading back into the mountains. 🙄
Not sure if it’s to do with the six year drought or the recent heavy rains but I have to wonder how they’re making all the soaps and moisturisers if there is no key ingredient.
The driver is tired now and he’s had enough, so we head for the nearest recommended campsite, which is just on a hill behind the towns.
Should’ve been easy, but the shortest route took us through villages (more children of the damned) and farm tracks.
Then, we saw it, standing like a castle on top of a hill – just one more very steep gravel path to climb and we made it!
Feet up in the sun, order couscous- cous we now really do have an empty fridge!
