MacsTravel Blog

Although we had decided to set up a base in each place we stayed in Spain (Sevilla, Granada, Ronda, Cadiz and Malaga for a minimum of four day at a time we worked in some side trips and day trips along the way. I already wrote about our hill town detours on our way from Ronda to Cadiz. On leaving Cadiz (after navigating the narrow streets out of town) for Malaga on a particularly windy day, we decided to stick to the coast and stop in at Tarifa.

Tarifa

This is the southernmost town in mainland Europe, and a popular spot to take the ferry across to visit Morocco. We arrived wanting to take a short walk on the beach, which Truus had recommended, and hopefully see across the Strait of Gibraltar to Africa.

After a bit of an adventure trying to find a legal parking spot (we settled on, “This might be legal… let’s try!”) we climbed up a short flight of stairs and into gale force winds whipping sand down the beach.

We walked for a bit down the empty boardwalk, known as the Paseo Maritimo as the waves rolled up on the wide sandy beach to our right, and then turned in the wind up the spit connecting the beach to Isla de las Palamos, featuring a small Spanish fort built as a counter to the British Rock of Gibraltar. The spit literally marks the spot where the Mediterranean Sea meats the Atlantic Ocean, as you can see in the picture of a wind blown Robin below!

The fort is still managed by the Ministry of Defence and there is no access but there are some sheltered spots in the lee of the fort where you can sit on the beach and look across to the impossibly close coastline of Africa!

We will certainly plan a side trip to Morocco the next time we visit Spain.

We headed back down the spit, passing fishermen perched dangerously in the rocks futility trying to cast into the high winds.

We headed back up the Paseo Maritimo in the general direction of where we hoped the car might be when Robin spotted a beach side restaurant that, despite all appearances, was open. We popped in and enjoyed a terrific lunch with even better views.

Upon leaving the restaurant we noticed lots of young people dragging surf boards and kayaks down the beach, and off on the distance kite surfers sailing high above the waves. This beach must be quite the scene in the warmer months.

We found our car (a little surprising), easily found our way out of town (very surprising), and took the excellent and reasonably priced Spanish toll roads down the coast to Malaga. Although the plan was to base ourselves in Malaga for the next five days, we did have one day out.

Alora and the Caminito del Rey

We signed up to take a small group trip to the Caminito del Rey which included a side trip to the White Hill Town of Alora. This town and its hill top castle were originally built by the Phoenicians (followed by the usual suspects: the Romans, Visigoths, Moors, Spanish Catholics…) but there are also a number of caves in the area with Paleolithic art, indicated the presence of early humans here over 60,000 years ago.

Artefacts reflecting the influence of all these groups can be seen in the tiny but interesting museum which is located in a striking little chapel.

The chapel is next to the impressive Iglesia de Nuestra Senora de La Encarnacion. It took more than a century to build this church which is characterized by its stately arches and ornately decorated wooden ceiling.

We wandered down through the town, past some striking murals, to a spot where we broke for lunch.

After a decent lunch of tapas we drove up the winding road on the way to walk the famous Caminito del Rey.

This walk originated in the early years of the 20th century as it was originally a series of narrow boards and ledges located 100 metres up against the walls of the gorge between the waterfalls of Gaitanejo and El Chorro, a gorge which is over 700 meters deep in places. It’s original purpose was to support bringing materials and workers into the gorge to build a series of hydroelectric dams. It got its “official name” in 1921 when King Alfonso XIII walked down a small section of the walkway to mark the opening of one of the dams: the the name, Caminito de Rey, or the King’s “little walk”.

This “little walk” actually had the (somewhat exaggerated) reputation as one of the world’s most dangerous walks until a massive retrofit in the mid 2010’s made it much safer. You can see the new and improved rickety path over top of the old rickety path in the next picture.

It’s still high, and for anyone with a fear of heights (count me in) it can certainly feel intimidating at times. It is absolutely spectacular in terms of its geology and the giant Griffin and Egyptian Vultures soaring high overhead make the hiker feel pretty small.

The big finish is a relatively short suspension style bridge that rocks and sways as you cross the canyon at the end of the 7 km route. In years past this would have been hugely challenging for me, but Robin has dragged me onto these types of contraptions on three continents and at this point I think the fear has numbed me to my fate.

We splurged on the small group guided tour: 8 of us plus Ian our tour guide. It certainly made getting around the trail much more efficient and informative. There were some very large groups and I can’t imagine how challenging it was to stay together. Ian is a expatriate Brit who has been leading tours and rock climbing the Caminito del Rey for over 20 years. He had the typical British style of meandering anecdotes and somewhat obscure cultural reference points, both of which we enjoyed although our Swedish, Greek and French Canadian group mates looked a little lost at times.

It was money well spent.