Today was my favourite day so far since we arrived at this location. The day dawned bright, warm and sunny – perfect for a walk up into the mountains (on the trail that we found a few days ago in the rain).
We booted up, packed a drink, an apple and our wet coats and set off (via the bike shop to try to get a chain for Calv’s bike -no luck unfortunately).
It was busy up the mountain today, unlike last Thursday, because it’s a bank holiday over here. It started off quite fresh, but we gradually shed our layers as it warmed up.
There are 2 viewpoints to walk to. The first, del Cruzo, takes you off the main path on a loop (the viewpoint ‘entrance’ is shown in the main photo of this post – sloping steps, my favourite!) We were the only people going this way but it was well worth the effort, even if there is a little more climbing involved than on the main route.
I noticed a goat in the distance. I thought it was real at first but it turned out to be a carving! I then spotted a lizard which Calv managed to get a few pictures of. The view was stunning and the peace is just wonderful – just birdsong and the bees etc. that sound like little microlights flying around!
Once we rejoined the main route there were more people around. What I mean by this is that we would see a couple of groups – families or couples – every few hundred metres 🙂
We walked about another 3/4 mile, passing an abandoned building en-route. We think it might have been some sort of laboratory at some point as it was completely fenced off and had a ditch to be driven through to kill off bugs. Our route was also now lined by groves of olive trees. I do love olive trees – I can’t stand olives though!
We got to the main mirador (viewpoint) to join the dozen or so people already there. Calv disappeared so I took a wild guess that he had continued onto the rough path into the mountains and followed him! It took a while to catch him up, but I managed it eventually. The trick is to just watch where you’re stepping and not look over the side at where you could fall if you lose your footing…..
We ate our snack (a packet of stale skips for me) sitting on a rock looking at the view and then headed back. On our way back we saw 3 dung beetles pushing their dungballs, 1 of them pushing with it’s back legs uphill! I did take a video of this, or rather I thought I did – it turned out I’d taken a video of a rock that the dung beetle occasionally wandering into the picture (I couldn’t see what was on the screen because of the sun!) I wish I’d managed to video it properly because it was an amazing sight to see 🙂 Also the fact that there was dung for the dung beetles to move meant we must have been on a goat track – or maybe even Ibis roam here? We were gutted not to see anything.
As we walked back down the trail (the main trail isn’t a hard walk at all – it rises but not steeply, the worst of the climb is on the drive up), we could see people on the mountain over the way and we’ve resolved to come back and do that walk ourselves on another day – I never thought that I’d be looking forward to a hike up a mountain but I can’t wait to give it a go 🙂 Now that is going to be a climb!
We got back to the campsite and wolfed down a sandwich as we were so hungry. We were then invited along to a bbq, by Jill and Roger, to say goodbye to Steve & Denise as they’re leaving tomorrow.
So we’ve had another lovely afternoon with the neighbours (I didn’t eat any bbq having just had lunch), although, for me anyway, minus the alcohol!
These photos are all from my phone. I’ll put some more up soon on a dedicated gallery posting for today as Calv has taken some wonderful pictures.
I think we might finally make it down to lay on the beach tomorrow – will keep you posted 🙂
turnrightoutofportsmouth 
I’m with you, when it comes to olives.
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