One of the reasons that I picked Cordoba as a home base was because I knew I wanted to take a road trip to some special places: the town of Ronda and the hiking trail Caminito del Rey. Early one morning I rented a car and hit the Spanish road.
Ronda
Ronda is most famous for the beautiful bridge that connects the town over a ginormous gulch. Now that I have seen it I can testify, the bridge is quite pretty and quite dramatic. It is also quite full of people taking pictures of it, but I suppose that is to be expected. I was really nervous about the prospect of driving in this little town, so I made sure to park on the outskirts and walk in. Like every other town on this Iberian peninsula, it is very hilly.
My other stop in Ronda was to see the bull fighting ring. I have no interest to see a bullfight, but this ring is famous and was recently featured in a Netflix series so I wanted to check it out. The dirt inside is a distinctive yellow color and looked just like the show. I also enjoyed the museum that took up the bottom level of the circular arena. For example, I learned that they used to do the bullfights on horses.
Caminito del Rey
My next stop of the day was the big event. The Caminito del Rey is a hike through a canyon that is used for hydroelectricity. There is a train track for part of it, but in the old days workers would walk on these sketchy ledges hundreds of feet above the ground. This park has built boardwalks above the ledges and now tourists get walk on these boardwalks that are clinging to the cliffs.
This activity is not for people who are afraid of heights, let’s just get that out of the way. The slats in the wood have gaps so at any point you can look down and see just how far you would fall if the worst happened. For me, the scariest part was walking through a tunnel to get to the start of the tour. I’ll take heights over underground any day of the week.
The hike itself isn’t that strenuous and our group of around 20 walked at a slow enough pace that we could take lots of pictures. Most of the time I was too terrified to pull out my phone for fear of dropping it, but I still managed to fill my phone library with tons of pics. This place was just too epic not to.
Fun facts
- It is named Caminito del Rey for the king. However, when the king showed up to inaugurate the operation, he got nervous of the heights and quickly hopped back on the train.
- There are trees with beautiful pink flowers that are poisonous. Our guide told us that when Napoleon was out conquesting, the frenchies ingested them and died!
- In one part of the canyon locals brought in orange trees. The climate was perfect for them there and the folks could make a decent living in the middle of nowhere.
Back to Cordoba
I was exhausted at the end of the hike, mainly due to the heat and the way the trail is set up. You have to shuttle in, walk for a mile and then start. On the other end, you end your hike and have to walk a mile to where a shuttle will take you back. It was super crowded at the shuttle line and the bus filled up quickly with people pushing and shoving to get on. I negotiated with the bus driver to let me take the flip down seat up by him and was thrilled to get back to my car.
I was anxious about this day, with having to navigate and drive to a couple different places and to figure out the intricate pieces of taking the hike. However, everything worked out great and it was a really memorable day.
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