Hike to Cruz de Pinto

Beautiful  sunrise this morning. At this point, some people are saying “Another sunrise picture?” and you would be correct.  I love sunrises and sunsets. 

Wendy went for her jog thru town this morning while I stayed home and posted the blog.  I am going on a hike at 9:30 and I am pretty sure my legs do not need another 5km.

Loved the clouds with the sunrise this morning

I left the apartment at 9:00 to walk to our meeting point which is the SuperSol closest to our place.  There are 2 SuperSol in town and this one is the closest, about 2/3 of a KM while the other one is probably 3 KM.  I think that is the meeting point for the hikes that I have booked next week but I am happy today as I can easily walk there.  In my emails that my guide sent me, he mentioned that he would have a pink jacket on and 2 others  were coming along.  Well I don’t not know why assumed it was a man, the pink jacket should have been a BIG clue that the guide might be a women. Well pink actually turned out to be purple which I told her for reference next time SHE tells people.  The other 2 people cancelled out since they had already done this hike.  I ended up doing a private hike.  I told the guide that I was ok if she wanted to not go since it was only 1 person now.  I think she was just happy to go for the hike as I was. 

Love this sign

Wish we had these prices at home, this is 5 liters

I would be happy with the full price. This is a 1 liter (3  beer at home)

The hike is about 5 KM each way.  From the Supersol, you follow the Chillar River for about 2 km until you reach the old quarry.  Along the way you pass by an old abandoned sugar factory and wild sugarcane growing along the riverside.  At one point there was a bunch of purple flowers and I told her I love these “pink” flowers.  I am not sure if she got my sense of humour or not. Lots of the flowers are purple here.

First time I saw one of these here

Sugar cane

First part of the walk on flat ground with sugarcane

Mom, I can't find my sneakers anymore, Maybe Nike wants this picture?

He was so happy

Old sugar factory. Used to be big business here in Spain

At this point the fun begins or should I say the heavy breathing and fast pounding heart.  The first ½ of the remaining distance is on paved road going up the mountains.  A good steady incline with very few breaks.  You pass by a few houses and some orchards with the occasional views of Nerja.  My guide’s English is better that my Spanish but like she said “It is not very good”.  We do manage to hold a conversation and talk about a bunch of stuff.  She was originally for Cordoba where we spent last weekend. We proceed at a steady pace without stopping until we reached the end of the paved road for us.  I am ready at this point to take a break before hitting the next step.  

Good paved road for the first up part

The last part of the trail is what you would call rugged.  Lots of small stones covering a narrow 2 feet wide trails going up at a very very steady rate.  “very very”  was not a typo mistake.  It does not take long before we take a break.  We probably stopped 3 more times going up.  I would think my guide was around 35 but the good news for me is that she was nursing a cold, so this probably slowed her down somewhat.  Also I think I understood that I was the first customer this year.  I only saw the poster go up last week in town. No pictue of the path as I was busy breathing hard.

You could say that I was glad when she announces that we were almost at the top now.  A few more steps and I can see the cross on top of the hill.  The story is that a ship was in danger of being shipwreck and the only point the crew could recognize was the top of this mountain. The captain who was called Pinto said “ If we survive I promised to build a cross on top of that mountain”. 

I can see the summit

From the cross that is on top of the mountain, my conclusion is that the crew and captain survived.   The views from the top are AMAZING.  Looking towards town, you can see the whole town with the sea in the background.  You also have a great view of the town of Frigiliana and the hills on the left side of it and the mountains behind.  You also have fantastic views of mountains on the right of Frigiliana.  The guide told me all the names but they were out of my memory bank by the time we started climbing down.  We also have a lunch break here.  I had made some sandwiches since it was advertised that it would take 5 hours to do.  Even if it is only 11AM, I am ready to eat.  We spend about ½ hour at the top admiring the views.

Frigiliana and the surrounding hills and mountains

My guide

Nerja

Frigiliana

The walk down was much easier.  We take another route down from the top. Only one small section for about 100 feet that you needed to be careful with.  After that is the path is gradual and turn into a dirt road which we follow until we get to the point where we had turned off the paved road to go up the hiking trails. The walk from Frigiliana would be much easier as you would start at about ½ way up, compared to sea level and it is shorter.  On the way down we saw 2 wild goats cross in front of us.  The guide says it is very hard to see them.  I guess I am lucky again as I had seen them a couple of weeks ago on the other trip I had done.  The rest of the walk goes fairly fast and we get back to our starting point around 1PM.   Here is their website if anyone is interested in booking with them. I believe they are 2 guides. http://trekkingnerja.blogspot.com.es/

More open areas going down, so more flowers

Wild goats

Closer to Frigiliana coming down

The second section was a good path

Near the SuperSol. Old sugar factory and aqueduct

The little white dot on top of the hill is Cruz de Pinto Altitude 320 meters

Traffic circle near SuperSol

Arrived home at around 1:00 PM and Wendy ask if I want a salad for lunch and I figured I burned enough calories that a little bit of rabbit food won’t hurt me.  We have our lunch on the patio.  The seagulls are being noisy today.  They are parked on the rooftop of the apartment and are squawking at each other nonstop.  Somebody must be trying to invade somebody’s territory or they are fighting for the right to mate. Maybe it the oncoming weather they are mad about, it is supposed to rain the next couple of days. At least someone is using the pool and not finding the water too cold.

This afternoon, Wendy had computer problems.  She lost everything from her desktop.  The support team at home connected to her laptop.  They fixed part of the problem.  I think the rest will get fixed when we return to Canada.     

This afternoon, I saw on the internet that the photo shoot that they were doing last week was a Spanish pop singer named Cherezad.  Can’t be that big of a pop star since there was no body guard but who knows, maybe she is.  The article says they were recording her pop video.  Now I know who she is.

Wendy made a homemade spaghetti sauce for supper and I made a jug of sangria.  We enjoyed half of the jug of sangria while the sauce was simmering.  We then turned off the sauce and headed for a walk downtown to see what the movie was going to be tomorrow night.  It is an Italian movie.  We also picked up the guide that shows the activities for the month of April.  Hard to believe that it is April already.  At home they are having another nasty winter storm with some homes with no power for the last 2 days.  We are thinking of you all

Delicious

Back home, we enjoyed the SPICY spaghetti and the rest of the sangria.  After supper, Wendy did a bit of work to finish stuff she was had been waiting for an answer on.  We then played crib again and for the second night in a row, I was the lucky one with a score of 2 games to 1.  The last game could have gone either way as Wendy ended up in the stink hole and I only needed 2 points to win. It was all to pegging with Wendy’s crib, she wanted me to cut her a Jack but I refused.  I led with a 4 hoping she did not have one.  To make me happy she played a face card and I had an ace for 15 for the win. This is just like golf.  I think this is why Lima took up golfing as she was tired of us getting back to the cottage and replaying all the shots we had done during the round. :-)