This past weekend, I took a trip with some fellow Fulbright researchers to Málaga, a port city about two and a half hours from Seville by car, to hike the Caminito del Rey, a famous man-made walkway through canyons near the city. Until 2015, the walkway was known as the most dangerous in the world because it hadn’t been restored since the early 1900s when it was made by laborers constructing a waterway to bring water from a mountain reservoir to the city. Now, of course, it is much safer, but we still had to wear helmets for the duration of the hike because of the potential of falling rocks (the downside of this unfortunately is that we all look a bit ridiculous in pictures!). Though it was less of a physically demanding hike than I was anticipating, it was absolutely stunning and unlike anything I had ever seen before. The area is quite arid, so the greenery I usually associate with mountains was absent, and the landscape was dominated by exposed limestone and other sedimentary rocks instead. It was still stunning, but not in the way that I was necessarily expecting.
We did the guided version of the hike so that we could learn a bit more about the history and nature while we hiked, and the guide was incredibly knowledgeable. I was quite excited about this, as I have always been interested in learning about the nature of the places I go.
