Day two of the Jaufenpass brought us over the pass, down the other side, and possibly on the plane home again, shattering what remains of our pride...read on to find out why...

It wasn't the most comfortable night but the hut ensured that we were warm and dry and didn't have to waste time going down, and then back up, the ridge. The next day we set off with our primary concern being to find our next water source. I only realised why J-P wasn't worried about this when a sign informed us that we were, at most, around 1.5 hours from the end of the ridge and a hotel/restaurant. That sorted, the morning passed very pleasantly. When we reached the Sterzinger Jaufenhaus, at the pass, J-P announced that he was going to buy me lunch as an anniversary present, his reasoning being that by buying it then, he would be able to take me by surprise. We had a lovely lunch, only slightly marred by J-P finding a fly in his lasagna. It wasn't a small fly or just a bit of a fly, but a large and completely intact, little monster. The waitress whisked it away and we were left to ponder its fate. After some enormous slices of cake – even J-P was almost defeated – we were presented with the bill. We had prepared to fight our corner as we didn't think we should have to pay for the lasagna, or least not for all of it (even my English side came out to play at that point and prevaricated) but the wind was neatly taken out of our sails when the waitress informed us that the offending item was not on the bill.

After lunch we headed uphill again, hopped through the pass – our highest bit of walking yet, at 2099m...

We noted the sheer number of bikers out in force that day and contemplated the downhill ahead us – our next village was 900m lower than we were and the next town was 600m lower again. Going down is still exhausting on the legs but we were grateful to have enough breath to talk and camped that evening with no major upsets, barring a dog that had growled at us rather menacingly as we had walked past 'its' house. Normally this doesn't upset me but I've never before had the impression that a dog was actually going to attack me and I felt this one had not yet made up its mind. However, all was well.

The next morning, we carried on walking downhill. All was going well until we reached a stretch of road. As I walked in front of J-P, I heard a sudden scream and whipped round to see that he had fallen. All of you who know J-P's weakness can probably guess what had happened – yes, he'd turned his ankle on an uneven bit of road and, not using his trekking poles due to being on a flat road, had fallen straight down. He says he could tell immediately that it was bad and we couldn't help but recall the Epic of the Sprained Ankle of last year which managed to take some 3 months to heal. This was very bad news.

I persuaded J-P to move off the road and onto a nearby path. We sat and waited, hoping somehow that sprain might sort itself out but 30 minutes later, J-P still couldn't walk and it was clear that our plan would have to change. Luckily, he had fallen not far from a hotel and, when I went to them to explain, one of the managers kindly drove over to pick him up. J-P went to bed with the idea that he would rest completely and that the next day we would decided whether we would have to fly home and how we would get to the airport if he couldn't walk at all. I spent the day ferrying ice and painkillers/anti-inflamatories to him and elevating his foot to ridiculous heights. We were both very upset at the thought that we might have to fly back. If the ankle took as long to heal as last time, and it had been a nasty wrench, that could mean the rest of the summer would be spent waiting for him to get better. We've both been enjoying the walking enormously and the two days going over the pass were possibly the best we've had so far. We'd finally sorted our kit out and were happy with everything we had; it seemed cruel that just a week in, we might be forced back again.

That was Thursday. We are still at the hotel today (Saturday) and plan to stay here two more nights. On Friday, J-P's ankle was noticeably better and we wondered whether if we stayed put for a while, whether perhaps, just perhaps, we might be able to get back to walking in a week. We still don't know whether this will happen but J-P's ankle is still improving. The hotel is not too expensive and in any case, we've agreed to a bit of financial jiggery pokery that means this stay won't affect our walking budget. We discovered back at the pass that we had each decided to treat the other to a stay in a hotel for our anniversary. This, and the fact that the weather has turned bad (thick fog and heavy rain) and is forecast to stay for the weekend, means that I have dropped my plan to move J-P to a camp today where he could recuperate and instead we have agreed that we will split the cost of the four nights between us as our anniversary gift to each other, leaving our budget intact and giving J-P's ankle four days of complete bed rest. We don't think we'll be able to start walking again properly on Monday, but if we can make it to a camp and then maybe, in a few days, slowly start moving again, I think we'll both be happy.

So...what's going to happen to destroy this particular set of plans? Could the photo at the top of this post be J-P's last on the trail, of his hastily discarded boot and map?