Ten kilometres by road east of Larrau, you reach the Gorges de Kakouetta (daily mid-March to mid-Nov 8am–nightfall; €3.80) by turning right off the D26 and up onto the D113. About 3km along the latter, the minuscule hamlet of CASERNES offers a food shop opposite the mairie, and an attractive riverside campsite, the Ibarra (tel 05.59.28.73.59; closed Nov–March).Kakouetta gorge is truly dramatic and, outside peak season, not crowded at all. It pays to be well shod – the path is precarious and very slippery in places – and you'll be glad of the handrail. The walls of the gorge are up to 300m high and scarcely more than 5m apart in spots, and jungle-thick with luxuriant vegetation that thrives on the hothouse atmosphere, including a range of ferns that you wouldn't expect to see outside a houseplant nursery. Myriad seepages and waterfalls fill the air with a fine spray, refracting and filtering what sunlight gets in; the path continues for about an hour (2km) with a small cave at the end and just before it a full-blown waterfall spewing out of a hole in the rock. There's a third, scarcely visited gorge, the Gorges d'Ehujarré, a short distance east at Senta, the easternmost of the three hamlets that comprise Ste-Engrâce. It's a straightforward walk up – the route has been used for centuries for moving sheep up to the pastures of Pic Lakhoura – but is about a five-hour round trip.
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