El Camino del Rey January 1

 In the somewhat remote mountain area of Andalucia in southern Spain, there is a famous climbing area called El Chorro composed of huge limestone cliffs and rock outcroppings. It is most famous for  the Camino del Rey, a board walk constructed in 1920.  King Alfonso the XIII first walked along it, hence the name.  For a long time it was the beginning or end of many climbs, but fell into disrepair and was condemned as being too dangerous. Lately, a restoration has begun with what appears to be limited access, but the path is locked and guarded by a guard with an ominous black uniform. They also installed several cameras to watch the walkway. Pretty irresistible. So I packed a rope, climbing shoes, a harness, a helmet and walked as close as I could, hopefully out of sight of the guard, trying to find a weakness in the rock to make it to the contrivance, listed as one of the 17 wonders of Spain.

 Fortunately, I met a young Russian and his Canadian girlfriend who had already been scoping the area for awhile.  We chose a path up the rock cliff, climbed over the protective fence high over the  water (with our helmets and scarves on to disguise our faces) and gained the walkway.  This is the  new walkway, that is build just above the old crumbling rusting version.  It was pretty great and went on for a quite a ways, maybe a kilometer, out the other side of the gorge.

The old  and very scary concrete bridge across the chasm. 

This is dinner in the tiny desayuno place in the village of Ardales a few hours later, not all the dinner, I also had a glass of fresh squeezed orange juice.