Saturday 3 August 2013 Lavaderos de la Reina

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This week I have been kept busy caring and wearing my nurses uniform as I looked after the Mrs who has now been diagnosed with shingles (Culebrina), can I thank everyone who passed on their good wishes.
With Olwyn starting to feel a bit better and me in urgent need of some respite care I decided to join in on this weekends walk.
We had changed the day to Saturday so that Mike could go on the walk, it’s the fiesta in Cozvijar this weekend and on Sunday they put on a special meal and some fancy wine for all the old gits in the village. He did not want to miss the walk as we have tried to do it three times in the past only to be defeated, after a long walk, by poor weather. He certainly did not want to miss his lunch, where else could he get tipsy, for free, on wine from the bodega del Señorio de Nevada. There was also a problem with Mark, Anne has been away for two weeks and was coming home on Sunday, so he needed time to throw the beer, women and wine bottles out.
We had an early 8am start for the long, off road drive in 3, 4X4 vehicles up into the hills above Gúejar Sierra, our destination was an area called the Lavaderos de la Reina. We are still awaiting a plausible explanation from Conchi as to why the queen would bring her washing all this way when I feel sure there were perfectly adequate facilities available down in Granada. It is possible to get a normal car up to the carpark but I would not want to try it in anything other than either a 4X4 or a hire car, well known for being able to go anywhere.
The walk starts by following a ridge path up the loma de papeles for 5km. We stopped at Peña Partido, a small refugio, for a quick snack before heading off across the lower slopes of Puntal de los Cuartos. Our route down into the valley of the lavaderos was blocked by snow. We had delayed this walk from earlier in the year because we were worried that snow might be a problem, you don’t expect to be confronted by it in August. After a few minutes of careful study a new route was found which would avoid having to cross the steep sided snow fields, it involved a bit more climbing but avoided bum sledging. Rene has gone all the way to Australia looking for somewhere cool and here we are, surrounded by snow, 25 km from home.
Safely down into the glacial valley it was like being in a different world, we had walked 8km across a dry arid land and now we were amongst streams, waterfalls, green grass and cows. It was as if we had been transported 2000 km north to Scotland in a Tardis. We stopped here for lunch besides a babbling brook before reluctantly leaving, to follow the river and waterfalls downhill for a couple of kms. Climbing out of the valley we headed off back towards Peña Partida and the path back to the carpark. Apologies for the cross country ramble at the start of the return path. I had missed the correct route.
This was an fantastic day out, the best walk since the last best walk. What an incredible place we live in, but don’t tell anyone, they will all want to come.
We walked 17.2 km and climbed 764 metres with a maximum altitude of 2683 metres.

The photo was taken at  our lunch spot in the valley of the lavaderos de la Reina  

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