Walk 29 May 2016 Camino del Rey

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This week we had a spectacular day out on the Caminito del Rey. 20 fearless people had signed up for the walk, which was once described as the most dangerous in the world.   Nowadays, after a major update, it’s just scary.
 We had arranged to travel in style, we had hired a luxury VIP  mini coach. It was waiting for us when we arrived at El Zahor, our meeting point. We were all there except Billy who had misread the email. After a telephone call we were able to redirect him and then we were off to Ardales.
We asked the driver  to stop for coffee along the way. This was a great way to travel, no one had any worries about driving, we were all together with no one getting lost along the way. No problems with parking at the start of the walk, we just got off the bus and told him to come back for us at 5pm. I was so impressed I am thinking of getting a chauffeur for the Dacia.
 The only indication as to the start of the walk is a little sign at the entrance to a tunnel you have to walk through. You would have thought that, on a project of this size that they have invested millions of Euros in, they could have run to something bigger than a footpath sign.
 All the tickets for the walk are sold with a timed slot. As we were early we walked down to the river and found some picnic tables and had our lunch.
 Returning to the control point we were issued with our hard hats and hair nets. I personally thought I looked quite dashing with my net on, which implies that there is some hair there in the first place. I won’t comment on what the rest of the group looked like and the pictures are not fit for publication.
 The path goes along the newly constructed walkway suspended high above the river on the vertical rock face. There were a few worried faces at first but soon everyone was walking confidently along it, even stopping for photos and looking down into the gorge. There was really only one point along the route, where the path crosses over to the other side of the gorge, where some of the group wanted to turn around. After some gentle persuasion they gritted their teeth, put a smile on their faces, and made the  crossing.
 At the end of the walk we caught a service bus that took us back to the start point where our VIP coach was waiting for us. We were all thirsty by this time and looking forward to a drink, our chauffeur said he knew a nice bar to take us to. Little did we know it was in Granada. Rumour was that it was his brother’s bar.
Well done to everyone, it was a truly superb walk and a great day out.
We walked 9.2 km and climbed 250 metres.

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