We have just been on a visit to El Caminito del Rey (The King's little pathway) which was originally build between 1901 and 1905 to enable workers to cross from the the hydroelectric power plants at Chorro and Gaitanejo falls. In 1921 King Alfonso XIII crossed the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce. The walkway ia about one metre in width and rises over 100 metres above the river below. Over the years the pathway deteriorated and was finally closed in 2000 after a number of people died in accidents in 1999 and 2000. The pathway has been restored over the last few years and was opened to the public in March 2015. Entrance is free at the moment but you have to book for specific times. There is also a railway line that runs through the gorge which was build to connect Malaga with Cordoba and was finished in 1866 and still runs today.
We started the 8 kilometre walk at the northern entrance at Ardales near to the dam. Parking is available for free near to a restaurant called 'El Kiosko'.
From here there is a 2.7 kilometre walk to the information point where you confirm your booking and pick up your hard hat for the journey which takes around 50 minutes. You are supposed to arrive 15 minutes before you start your journey so that everyone can be check in and issued with a hard hat so that you can start on time. At the moment they are only allowing 50 people at each allocated time slot. Finally started (only 10 minutes late). When we started we thought it was going to be a bit crowded but we were soon on our own as everyone was stopping in different places to take photos of the marvellous scenery in the Gaitanes Gorge also known as Garganta del Chorro. The walk was spectacular and took us around 2 hours and we arrived at the end at El Chorro just in time to catch the bus back to the parking area where we had started.
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| Hard hat area |
Labels: spain
