Started off in woodland (Raja Ancha) which was lovely and shaded but soon led to being completely open to the sun. Jeez it was fierce. When we parked up it was reading 37 degrees at 10am so gawd only knows what it was after 1 o'clock!
Stunning rocks led to some narrow stairs which we climbed to find a square of stone to sit on and look down at the village of Pizarra below.
More yomping and we came to the Dark Cave.
I had my customary 5 minute lie down at this point. Next came the tough part, following a very narrow trail up, up up to our destination which was the Sagrado Corazón de Jesús "El Santo"
It's a bit like Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio but on a much smaller scale.
It was fantastic to finally reach it - seeing it all the time in the distance was so tantalizing!
We both went right up to the statue, people leave flowers and candles there in memory of their loved ones so we both took a few minutes to sit quietly and think of our lost loved ones. x
We left there and followed the trail to the left which goes down then up more flippin mountain but we wanted to reach the peak of that particular range which we did. Hurrah!
Our plan had been to carry on the trail to the ruins that have been there for hundreds of years but on looking further down the valley we realized that would probably take another hour to get there and then another couple of hours (at least) to walk back round again to pick the trail up according to Wikiloc.
We had a board meeting
and decided to just turn round and follow the trail back down. If we hadn't it would've meant being out in the open sun for approx 8 hours which is just too much in these temps. We will definitely do this trail again but in slightly less heat.
As we were walking back planes were flying quite low overhead on their descent into Malaga airport. The amount of times I've practically hung out the plane window looking at these mountains and now I can add another one to my list.
Oh and...we were standing having a swig of water when a plane's shadow went right over us. It was the strangest feeling!
Absolutely fantastic yomp - and another one planned for next week.
