Day 24: Like the shepherds

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Today we hike/walked the El Caminito del Rey (The King's Little Path). It is a walkway, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro. Originally, this path was a trek of shepherds. Later in 1860, it was a huge engineering project to create a rail system to connect Malaga (near the sea) to the rest of Spain. Finally, in the 1920's, Spain took on the endeavor of damming the river and later creating a hydroelectric plant which now provides over 400,000 people daily. The path was open to the public until 1980 when it had to close because it was deemed too dangerous for people due to an increase in recent deaths. It reopened to the public in 2008 and the trail is now incredibly safe and so great to walk on. It gives you amazing views of the gorge and river. The rock faces are incredible because most of the rock we'd been seeing was layered horizontally, but this was layered vertically. When we got back to the resort, I took a long beach walk and started collecting garbage along the walk. A man passed with two trekking poles and smiled at me. On my return, I had one grocery bag of trash, a barrel, and that barrel full of extras and the man passed again. He called me over and asked me what I was doing. I tried in my best spanish to let him know I loved the sea and to walk so this is what to do. He said something back in spanish and I explained my spanish is like that of a small child. He then said in perfect English, why do you do this. You are so small and make no difference. You should leave it. I said, but I am one and you are one, we can all be one who add up to a difference. He then said Spain might be better off with more of you in the country. The question is what are you doing as one.

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