Yesterday I went hiking in the Cahorros Mountains, very near the Sierra Nevadas. I went with a group from El Centro de Lenguas Modernas, which is the language school that I’m attending. There was a group of about ten students from all over the world, and a leader, Paco. We took a half hour bus ride from Granada to this little farm town (I wish I could remember the name!) located in the nest of the surrounding mountains. There is a river that runs through the town, dividing the highway from the pueblo.
When we arrived, we began walking up a paved road, as both cars and horses passed us. Then we cut away from the modern path, and onto a dirt trail that wound through little gardens and farms. The terrain in this part of Spain is somewhat similar to that of Southern California, perhaps a little less deserty. The land is dry and hosts shrubs and other dry trees and plants. Once in the mountains, we walked across our first, warm-up suspension bridge. It took us across the river to a fairly well groomed trail. Paco decided to lead us off the trail through an unfriendly bush with very aggressive thorns to a secret water source. It was “escondido” (hidden) behind this fortress of a plant, but the fight was worth it, as we filled our water bottles with clean water from a tube hanging off the side of the mountain.
We headed back to the trail, crossing a few more warm-up suspension bridges before the true test: the suspension bridge that was possibly as long as seventy yards (judging from my knowledge of a football field) and probably sixty feet high, traversing an angry river and neighboring a waterfall. Only four people at a time could cross, because it was so long. Once you reached the middle, every step was a like a step on a stiff trampoline, and the spray from the waterfall was the cherry on top of the experience.
The rest of the trail (after the bridge) was a two-foot-wide path sandwiched between a rock face and a relatively fast moving river that would be very hard to swim against if you fell in. At times the rock face jutted out so that there were only inches of path, and we had to shuffle side-ways holding the convenient handles that were stuck in the rock as we leaned backwards over the river.
The challenge of this hike was so exciting, and I kept thinking to myself “Wow, this was SO worth getting up at seven on a Saturday morning”. We ate lunch on a hillside where the sun was perfect, and we could see the entire canyon.
As we went back through the town, ideas were ping-ponging off each other in my head. “I wish I could just live off the land. I could live on a farm for a while, grow olives and raise chickens and cows and sheep. Oh, this house right here would be perfect. A small cozy farmhouse set in the shadow of the Cohorros Mountains.”
Sorry it's sideways! This is the long suspension bridge.
You can see the farms and the town
This was the view from where we ate our lunch!