Despite living together for the past 8 months, Elisa, Lyle and I realized that we hadn't taken a trip together. So last Saturday we decided to go for a hike in Monachil.
Monachil is a municipality in the Granada province, but it's just 30 minutes away by bus, and you can take the city bus (Line 183, €1.5 one way). We caught the 9:10 bus from Paseo de los Basillos (the bus leaves every :10), got off at the pueblo, and started to make our way to
Los Cahorros, the valley where we would be hiking.
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| Walking to the restaurant where the hike starts |
We again used the trail instructions from
Trek Sierra Nevada, but the information was a bit unclear. After being unsure as to where we were, we finally found the marker to start the hike!
Walking a bit more, we were again unsure if we were going the right way, so we stopped to ask someone for directions. We headed in the general direction that he pointed out, and a couple of minutes later, we found more signposts confirming we were on the right track.
The view from Los Cahorros Altos; so gorgeous.There were people rock climbing some of those cliffs! So impressive.
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| Los Cahorros |
Less than an hour after starting, we arrived at the
puentes colgantes (hanging bridges).
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| Selfie with the hanging bridge |
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| At the end of the bridge, there were people rock climbing |
After crossing the hanging bridge, you start walking through the gorge alongside the
Monachil River.
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| Río Monachil |
It was pretty fun walk. When you reach the
Cueva de las Palomas (it's not a full cave), there are some parts where you have to sort of hang and hold the metal rings on the walls to get around, and some parts where you have to crawl to pass. I kept my phone in my bag to keep it from falling so I didn't take pictures at this part, so here's a picture from Lyle instead.
After a little over two hours of walking, we stopped by a shady area in the river to rest a bit. We wanted to see if we could swim somewhere, but when we tested the water, it was
freezing cold! So we just rested a bit and dipped our feet in the river.
As mentioned, we were originally trying to follow a trail from
Trek Sierra Nevada, but there were a lot of gaps in the instructions, and we couldn't really find the markers we were supposed to. So we just kept walking and after relaxing in the river, made our way back. We were happy we had an early start because on our way back there were plenty of people doing the hike (including one or two tour groups). We caught the 1:40 bus back to Granada (the last one on Saturdays from Monachil pueblo), then spent the afternoon resting at home. Granada's been a pretty fun province to explore and take day trips from. Next weekend a friend comes to visit me here, and we're doing a day trip to Almuñecar. :)
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