Touching El Cielo

Just before Christmas I went for a little walk up a hill. Here's what happened.



El Cielo means either sky or Heaven in Spanish and it's also the name of the nearest mountain in Nerja.
Before I started I wasn't too sure whether 'sky' or 'heaven,' applied in this case. I was told that there was a Cross on the top of the mountain.

In hindsight I should of realised The Cross was a giveaway.


From here to the top of that 'hill' and back.

Although we were told that the walk wouldn't be the furthest (13km), it was a the highest up to now. Taking in to account that the World isn't flat it worked out that the total length of the walk was almost increased by 50% (up to 20km) by the height of the mountain.

Although being that high up had it advantages, mainly the views.

Someone, not me, pointing towards Nerja


And this is a close up of Nerja


Its very hill-y in this area of the World

So after walking to what people considered the 'base' of the mountain things started to get hard. We had already done about 7km up quite a bit of a hill but the hardest was about to come.
We skirted around the edge of the mountain. A few people couldn't handle it and turned back at this point, which I was relieved about.
And then just after we thought we had got past the trick-y part we then came to the last section which was the steepest and also on a lot of loose gravel.
I started to think the reason it's call El Cielo is because you spend most of the last section praying to God. And the reason for the Cross could only be to make your prays heard much better.

But as we scrambled up the spirally last section I glimpsed for the first time the Cross. And it was pretty impressive


I see you now

But eventually we made it to the peak and seen the cross in all its glory

Facing Nerja

Immediately on reaching the top I began kissing the ground and being thankful for making it in one piece.
The I sat down and had some sandwiches looking over some great views were I could see the start of the Sierra Nevadas Malaga, Almunecar and even across the Mediterranean at the mountains of Morroco.
(Unfortunately I forgot to upload some really fantastic panaromas I got and lost the photos after reformatting the laptop. But the views were fantastic)

Then everyone got their photo taken at the cross

Proof I was there

And you might be able to tell from that above photo that the cross is mirrored. The cross faces directly towards Nerja and at sunset the sun is reflected off the mirrors and if you have a good eye you can spot the little white dot on top of the mountain.


Nerja reflected in the cross

At one point while we were eating some guy walked off and came back with a snowball, which was pretty impressive. When I went to lok on teh dark side of the mountain and could see a load of snow but it was far too steep of a climb to get to it. So unfortunately I missed on touching snow for the first time in a while.

And then when it was time to pack up and leave we took an easier down hill route at which point my phone decided to die and I lost the stats for 1/3rd of my walk, which was annoying.

And despite being a hard and long walk the views were certainly worth it. But I could never do that tricky walk on my own. Far too scary.



But while we were at the top the last walk of the season was pointed out to me. This mountain is much higher. Over a thousand feet higher. This is now the walk I most looking forward and least looking forward to do.

Navachica. I think? See you soon.

Whats that coming over the hill?

today i wanted to start off writing about my little journey to the chilly island of England

but i have something better to write about

much better

having bought the missus a brand spanking new fancy zoomy dslr camera we decided to 'take that baby for a test drive' and headed down to the beach

we got LOADS of aces photos
i recommend you check out flickr/thepinkjellybaby shortly for some really good photos

but as we walked in to some garden to try and get some 'flowery' macro shots the missus spotted this guy having a rest on a plant


a goddamn praying mantis (with the missus elbow in the background, she was too scared to get close :D ha)
-and check out the bigger pictures for much better detail-

how many levels of awesome is that?

and i am so pleased that the camera not only has a great macro mode but is aces at capturing fantastic colours

but now i'm not sure whether this or the octopus is the best thing i've seen EVER!

[update]
here are some of my favourite photos of the praying mantis




Are you looking at me?


I spy...

A walk in the rio

I heard a few weeks after moving to Spain about a walk where you follow a river, the Rio Chillar, upstream, as far as you want, and continually pass by beautiful waterfalls and pools. Places where crowds of people would stop in the middle of their walk and take a dip, cooling down in refreshing cold and clean water.
I didn't get chance to do that walk although it's top of my list come Spring 2009.

My weekends walk did take me to the Rio Chillar, although it was more of a glimpse at it then a walk down it.


*Although the distance shown comes in at a little under 8.5km this doesn't include the 5km walk I do to and from the bus stop.
Speaking of which, the best thing about all of these walks I am doing is they are a 5 minute bus ride away from my house.


Sun in the trees
It was another lovely day for walking at the weekend.
I was told on my last walk that there is apparently 20 days of rain per year in this area, meaning there is very little chance that you will have a walk and have bad weather.
(Although I understand some bad weather is currently being blown from north Spain and parts of Malaga are on a Rain Warning.


Green hills
Despite all the sun there is lots of green in the hills around here thanks to regular sea mists which help "water" the area daily.


The Group
Despite this walk being classed as a medium difficulty I thought a lot of the walk was a little past the group averages abilities. That always worries me, espeically when you are walking close to the edges of mountains.


Rio Chillar from above
As we walked down the side of the hill towards the Rio Chillar there was a lot of slipping. Due to the large amount loose stones under foot there was someone slipping almost everyone metre or two.

But we finally reached the river.

Start of the Rio Chillar
Although it was just a trickle where we crossed it.

But I did find an example of one of the pools

Small pool
And even on a warm Autumn (it is still autumn right?) day it looked refreshing. But I'm guessing it was freezing.


Wet doggy
Although there is one person who knows how cold the water is. But it doesn't look like he is letting it bother him.


More houses
And we didn't miss out on seeing houses on this walk either. Except this one is a little more upmarket then the caves from last time.


Hard work
After a bit of difficulty getting back up the hill (and scarey at times) from the river we finally started to make it home, alsnog some rather strangley cut roads in the side of the mountain.

And here are some much better panoramas (this time) thanks to Microsofts ICE, which I highly recommend, especially if you want to manually stitch your photos.






Bigger slide show here

I did get quite a bit more from this walk. I now know a few extra walks, I've seen a path near the rio that leads to Frigiliana, which isn't far from where we live (and somewhere where we almost deciding on living).
Plus I found out that people and families are still barbequeing up in the parks even this late in the year. If the weather stays like this I might try and persuade the missus family to go for a barbeque when they visit over Christmas. That'd be a first for everyone.
Plus next month is the walk I've been looking forward to. The one up the big proper mountain.

Fuente del Esparto walk

So on Sunday I had my first walk with the Nerja Walking Club. This time, rather then it just being me walking up a hill this time it was lead by a proper guide towards some decent mountains.
Although we didn't go up any mountains with this being the very first walk of the group.
But it was strange walking about at the end of October in 20+ degree heat and clear skies. Very strange indeed. But starting about now is the best time to go walking around here.

Anyway, here is the route I took along with some info on the trek. All thanks to my N95 and Nokia Sports Tracker.
Also I'd lke to add, something happened to the GPS at one point. I did not travel--or fall--at 50+km/h



But here are a few of my favourite photos.


The beginning


An idea of where I can go


The Fuente del Esparto
The name of the walk comes from this here fountain. It's a natural spring and the water coming out is coming directly from the mountain. And it tastes lovely.


There where quite a few cave homes that we passed.


El Cielo cross
But this is where I can't wait to walk to. This walk is not until middle of December with the walking club and the mountain is called El Cielo, which means The Sky.
The moutain is taller the Ben Nevis, the tallest in the UK.
If you click the bigger picture you might just be able to make out on the second peak from the left a tiny little white dot. That is in fact a cross placed on their. I don't know why....yet. But I can't wait to get up their and see the views. Hopefully the weather won't be too cloudy that day.

But here is some nice panaroma views




And finally the slide show.


I had a great time on this walk and although it was the easy I was able to find out the perfect starting point for dozens of walks in the mountains. And I will definitely be heading up there any clear weekends we have. I'm definitely made up I went.
Plus I'm told that the guy who runs this has adapted some maps to show a longitude and latitude that I would be able to recognise, rather then some Spanish co-ordinates. When I have that map I'll be able to do my own walks

Breaking the law

A few people have told me horror stories about the policia in Spain. How not to cross them as they don't seem to have the same touchy feely approach as the police back home.

But I have found that some don't care about law as much as others...

The only thing missing from this photo is a basket of flowers and football by his side.
Photo 2 including partner in crime.

Lizard Spot: Walk in the Hills Edition

Here is a special edition of Lizard Spot.

During my walks I must of spotted about TEN lizards. There were loads of 'em! And I'm sure I heard a few more walking about in bushes.

Luckily I did get to photograph some of them. But a few didn't turn out as I had hoped.
Firstly the one from my previous post.
This is quite hard to spot, but this was the first lizard I spotted of the day. I had just turned back from walking up the wrong hill and seen this guy run under a tree. I was stuck on top of a rock and any movement I made was going to scare him. I was pretty desperate to get a photo of a lizard so I just took my chance.

If you look carefully you can see his wiggly body in the centre of the photo. If you still can't see him, here is a soft focus of the shot so you get a better idea.

I also spotted this next lizard. The battery on my camera was dying so I was using my phone now. The zoom isn't great and the lizard wasn't staying still very much. This was the only shot I could get of him.

This one is much harder to spot. I forgot he was here when I first checked this photo when at home.
But if you check out this edited photo it will highlight where he is stood. You'll need to pan across to just below and right of the centre to spot the focused part of the photo.

The lizards do get much easier to spot from now on. I promise.

This was the second lizard I spotted on the day. It took a few minutes to get a good position and luckily when he moved he didn't go far at all. So I was able to get some very good photos of this guy.

There is also Photo 2 and Photo 3 of the same lizard.

The last lizard I spotted on my walk was probably the cheekiest. I thought I heard some movement from the bushes, so like always I stood still and checked to my left. I looked all around the shrubs and dirt just behind some massive rock and couldn't spot the lizard. I was almost ready to move away when I spotted this guy sat right on top of the rock with his head held high.

It was almost like he wanted his photo taken. I tried to get a second closer up but he ran.
I wish all lizards where a bit more like him and photo genic.

But at the end of the day I didn't care. On one days hike in the hills my Lizard Spot count had increased 50%.

Hurrah!

I can relax now.

Lizard Spot:13

Walk in the Hills

It's been annoying not being able to take a proper walk in the hills right behind our house ever since the fall.

Hiking has been a favourite hobby ever since my dad got me practising for our walk across England. So when I injured my feet and could hardly walk it was annoying that I couldn't get up the mountains.

Fortunately my feet have been feeling pretty normal the last few weekends and last weekend I took the chance to go for a Walk in the Hills around what I belive is called Cerro Tragalamocha.

You can follow my walk by heading over here
Link to Sportstracker route or using this on Google Earth yourself


I only had a slight idea of where I was going. The smaller set of hills that the new part of Nerja is being built on. I thought I'd take things easy. I mean I didn't want to get lost or injured on my first walk now.

I managed, without realising, to take my walk on the weekly boot sale day. It's a pretty crazy bootsale they have here. Things range from VHS tapes to SEGA Master Systems. I haven't seen one of them since I was a kid.
I'll be heading back there with some cash another day.

After setting off it didn't take long for me to get lost. But I did have on my a GPS enabled phone and a decent explorer map of the area.
My first hurdle come when I realised that my phone only has the regular international coordinates and Spain has it's own local grid reference. This meant that although I could tell you exactly where I was on Earth, I couldn't find that anywhere on the map.
So straight away the map became pretty useless.
My next job is to see if there is a way of converting GPS coordinates in to Spanish Local map grid references?

So I ended up getting lost.
And heading up the wrong hill.
I wanted to be here.


But it worked out in my favour as I spotted plenty of wildlife

This I think is an Egyptian Grasshopper.

Although there wasn't much in scenary.


But I did get some good views of home.

It looks quite big from up here.

So I headed back. But spotted another route around the side of the Hill I wanted to be up.

So I decided to take this route and see where it went?

The dirt track wasn't terribly wide for most of the walk. And there wasn't much too see.


But when I got to the top I got to see where I will be heading next time!

But first I better get the GPS and map problem sorted out.

But I did have a very enjoyable Walk in the Hills. I got 4 hours walk out of it and climb to 470 metres.

But more importantly I spotted some lizards. And I'll have more on them soon.

I promise. There is a lizard there. ;)

But until then, check out some of my other photos.

Link