We needed a few days to get over the Rio Chillar, in fact we may be talking about it for the rest of our lives!!
Another member of the walking group Vicky joined us, bringing our average age down significantly. We threw her in at the deep end by doing a walk on an exceedingly hot day.
The walk was along a track from Nerja Caves, (Which the others visited without me because, I must have been there about 10 times by now!) It’s a 3 mile walk up hill following the Barranco de la Coladilla (above the ravine and river) to the El Pillarillo picnic area.
Clare’s feet where recovering still but, she was happy to get moving again. Vicky was a bit stunned by the heat and brightness I think! In retrospect this was probably the walk we should have done the first time round. I know this walk well having done it before.
The area is part of the national park. It’s arid with pines, grasses and other plants associated with the Mediterranean, rock roses, asphodel, giant fennel and the like. The latter doesn’t smell like fennel at all and it grows enormous.
The walk was in the full heat of the day and gradually heading up hill so, we took it slowly, stopping often in a shady spot under the pines.
There are Austrian, Aleppo and Corsican pines many currently affected by sever water shortage (climate change?). As you get further away from the caves it becomes utterly silent apart from the odd bird calling.
We saw very few people, a group who appeared to have been camping and dropped a bed roll a bit further on, it was too hot to run after them. We left it and then collected it on the way back (finders keepers and great for the beach)!
Vicky and Margaret spotted a couple of swallowtail butterfly’s, which is quite something to see in the wild! They were too fluttery to photograph though.
The walk was not arduous, just hot! Once in the shade of the picnic area we sat at a bench for lunch. Chris had a snooze (Sarah Levy eat your heart out)!
I had a slightly worrying moment when I went to see if there was a tap for water (my book indicated there was) and something slithered on the ground in the pine needles, I couldn’t work out if it was a lizard or a snake it had disappeared so quickly. Apparently there are 5 types of venomous snake in souther Spain!!!
On the way back we found lots of interesting plants. Caster oil plant, rosemary, savory, sage and lavender lining the road.
Then we found this very strange caterpillar behaving like a hermit crab or caddisfly. I can’t identify it but I have seen this sort of thing before before in Australia. I probably pissed it off by moving it from the middle of the road it was crossing, back to the scrub! I was roundly told off by everyone!
As we neared the car, we saw a huge black squirrel. We had seen this before in Malaga city of all places, apparently it’s a red squirrel variety Sciurus vulgaris infuscatus.
We all made it back in one piece for a change. No accidents although Clare did manage to poke Margaret with a pole at least once! Then it was time to cool off with a dip in the blue blue sea!
Next El Torcal….
The Travelling Bee 