Wednesday 27 October
Today we walked el Caminito del Rey. We'd managed to buy ourselves tickets by monitoring when the tickets were released and sitting in the internet queue for an hour. Totally well worth it!
This path, The King's Little Path, is a walkway down the Gaitanes gorge, pinned to the steep walls. It was built to provide access to the Hydroelectric Power station that was built in the early 20th Century. Although it is safe, and you are equipped with helmets and entry is timed and ticketed, it's not for those who fear heights.
The walk starts at the northern end, through a tunnel, and then a walk by the reservoir.
At the gated entrance you are kitted up with helmet and sent off in small groups. The actual elevated gorge element is only 2.9 km but it's not done at a pace, mainly because you cannot overtake on the narrow sections and, quite frankly, the views are so amazing that you want to linger to take it all in.
It's not long that you start to see the remains of the previous walkways. This walkway is a 100 years old and has been variously built, repaired and abandoned by generations of engineers. After a series of fatal accidents in 1999 and 2000 the walkway was closed and totally overhauled, re-opening in 2005.
After a kilometre or so walk in, the walkways commence. At times the gorge is only 10 m wide and the walls soar up to 300 m high.
Some are less precarious than others.
But I certainly wouldn't have crossed this one. It was the lack of a handrail that spooked me.
As you can imagine, the views were wonderful - both on enclosed gorge sections and areas where it opened up.
This gorge also hosts the railway from Málaga to Córdoba, which was built in the 1840s, and the tunnels occasionally popped into view.
On many occasions you could see the former walkway, and it's dilapidated state.
Towards the south end there is huge cascade of water spewing out of the rocks. It made beautiful rainbows.
The path crossed over via a suspension bridge, and you could see, hear and feel the spray as you wobbled across.
The elevated walkway continued a few more hundred metres, encountering a railway bridge and vertiginous views.
Once off the walkway at the south entrance, it was helmets off, and a €1,85 bus back to the start. All very well organised and maintained.
Once back at the car we drove to Málaga, dropped the hire car and made our way to an uninspiring, but central, city hotel for our last night in Spain. We wandered into the city centre and treated ourselves to a paella which seemed a very fitting last meal.
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