Camino del Rey

Another sunny day in Spain!

One of the highlights of El Chorro is the Camino del Rey, or the King's walk.  It was built in the early 1900's for the workers in the hydroelectric projects in the gorge.  It is now in disrepair and is a via ferrata, meaning that a harness and slings to clip into a cable for safety are required.  For the most part the pathway is good walking about 100 feet above the river, but there are some exciting places where we had to walk on the girders around holes.  It was a nice way to spend a rainy, stormy day and I didn't whimper too much when I got scared.  Ian loved it!

Accessing the camino was a little hair-raising.

Traversing around a large hole.

Don't look down!

Looking up the valley towards El Chorro.

It held everyone else, should hold me...

Looking up the valley.

Last big hole before solid ground.

Spain

Well, we made it to Spain, the 10+ hours of flying seemed short.  We flew into Barcelona and found our hole-in-the wall hostel, which turned out to be pretty nice and the guy who ran it was very helpful.  We only had 24 hours in Barcelona before we flew to Malaga, so we didn't see much of the city, but it was beautiful, we felt like we were in a movie set with the architecture and the statues.  After flying to Malaga, which is in southern Spain we made our way to El Chorro, which is a small village surrounded by massive limestone cliffs.  We have been climbing everyday that it isn't raining and staying at a nice refugio called to Olive Branch.  The other climbers staying here are nice and it's been easy We will stay here until Dec. 6 when we fly to Athens and then make our way to Kalymnos.

Our room in Barcelona at Mapamundo.

Adding to the stamps in our passports.

The view from our balcony in Barcelona.

A statue in Barcelona.

Having a rest on the train to Alora, just before the conductor came and yelled at me for having my feet on the seat.

Standing in front of the Frontales climbing area.

El Chorro

Evening sun overlooking El Chorro.