Day 6: House of Pain

The superhuman efforts displayed by the Raiders over Tourmalet necessitated a second rest day, if only to thaw out our underpants after those frozen descents. The team made an understandably slow start, with Mike and Greg showing no signs of life as Tom and Mark slipped out to hunt down some breakfast from one of the many fine boulangeries in the village. There turned out to be only one: 'Le Maison de Pain', or 'House of Pain' (our translator Tom tells us).



The two hunter-gatherers returned victorious to find the other two raiders unmoved in exactly the same positions. Even the sweet scent of freshly baked croissants wafting through the flat couldn't stir the two slumbering raiders but eventually a barrage of poking and shouting did the trick. The team assembled around the plastic furniture on the balcony and enjoyed a cultured alfresco petit-dejeuner accompanied by a lizard.

It's easy to assume our rest days would involve lavish feasts and luxury pampering to offset the brutal ordeal our bodies are put through on a daily basis. But there are practical matters to attend to on a Raid. For us, the simple satisfaction of a well executed batch of laundry far outweighs the trappings of excess and opulence. Plus all our clothes were starting to really smell.

With toasty, fragrant piles of neatly folded clothes to show for our morning, we set our sights on lunch. Tom led the troops on to the main street, leaving the other team members salivating at his tales of streets upon streets lined with fine and exotic restaurants. As the team strode out expectantly, the street that had been a bustling hive of activity only hours before had transformed into a ghost town, with anything resembling an eatery firmly boarded up, and a solitary tumble weed rolling down the street, for effect.

It was then that we spotted that the 'House of Pain' was about to re-open. We glued our faces to the window, dribbling over the fluffy golden pastries within, until the owner moved us aside to open the door. We sprinted in and immediately bought her entire stock of quiches and cakes, with a can of Kronenbourg each with which to wash down our bounty.

Close to collapse at this point, the starved raiders staggered across a bridge over one of the town's 'nestes' (rivers) and slumped onto a bench overlooking the flowing waters, bathed in dappled sunlight. It was the perfect scene, ruined only by the unnerving spectacle of four crazed men attacking baked goods with a worrying intensity, finishing in a grand finale by draining their Kronenbourgs, slamming the empty cans down and belching in unison. It was a satisfying lunch.

With stomachs full of food and gassy liquids, we took the only sensible course of action: we went for a swim. The combination of the hotel's pool and our waterproof GoPro camera was too tempting to resist, and within minutes of entering the water we were reduced to four giggling children, devising increasingly elaborate ways to film ourselves being idiots. 

Predictably, everyone was sick, and we'd exhausted every possible camera shot anyway so we called time on the pool. Mike and Tom decided we had unfinished business in the now legendary 'House of Pain'. In need of a couple of beers to accompany a blog writing session out on the sun terrace, and with all other shops boarded up, the pair headed back into town to buy up all remaining beer from the unsuspecting bread lady. The two raiders returned as heroes, and we were soon all supping frosty Kronenbourgs from glasses smuggled out of our room, as we watched (and diligently filmed, of course) the sun setting behind the valley's forested mountainside.

With the blog written, and a bank of ominous cloud firmly settling in for the night, we decided the time was right to make our final forray down into the town from our hill fort-like hotel. Again, what could have been a baffling and time-inneficient exercise in choosing a venue was bypassed by the fact that only one place was open. With the House of Pain now shut for the night, we felt uneasy and lost branching out to try another establishment, but it was the only way. Glinting like a far away beacon, the warm interior of a cafe beckoned us from across the river. We crossed a fiercely contested petanque tournament and entered, past a dreadlocked character hanging out on the stairs. 

We emerged into a small cafe that had been roughly repurposed as a restaurant, with the addition of menus and some mood lighting. It was filled with a cast of rich and interesting characters who shared the easy banter of a group that hung out together every night. The casual and welcoming atmosphere was the polar opposite of what we had experienced in Barcus, and lulled Mike into choosing a random dish from the menu. We still have no idea what it was, but Mike seemed to enjoy it.

On the dark walk back to the fortress, a renegade dog who seemed to be taking himself for an evening walk around the town, latched onto us. He was perfectly content to run ahead, wee on something, and then come running back to our side, tongue flapping enthusiastically. We got all the way back to the fortified outer wall of the hotel, and decided we couldn't enter the normal way – through an automatically operated metal garage door – as it risked trapping our canine follower in a pitch black underground carpark. Instead we made evasive manoeuvres, trekking up a side path, and locking the pooch out via a handy gate. He's now either exploring the town, having the time of his life, or scared shitless in a strange place having been totally abandoned. Much like Mike when we leave him in the Doblo every morning.