Gorge Hiking

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Issy sleeps in again. I don't know how. Someone started jackhammering the road outside our window in what felt like the middle of the night and they're still going. I have breakfast by myself again, the same as I did yesterday. I think the staff at the restaurant are starting to feel sorry for me.

We decide that we'll try to hike down to the bottom of the gorge. Issy says that if we're going to do this she needs to buy some more suitable shoes. We Google "shoe shops" and find one nearby. Just as we get there Issy remembers that she doesn't have any socks with her to try the shoes on with. She spots a pair of shoes she likes and the shop assistant appears with a box in her size. He takes them out of the box, and then out of a plastic bag. Issy asks him if he has a pair of socks that she can use and he tells her that she should use the plastic bag as a sock. She gives him the sort of look that's usually reserved for me, and says to me under her breath that she won't be putting her foot in a plastic bag for anyone. She asks the shop assistant if there's somewhere nearby where she can buy some socks, and he responds by escorting her to another shop a few doors away where she's shown a range of different coloured socks all individually packed in small boxes. Issy says she's never seen socks individually packed in boxes before. We buy the socks and then go back to the other shop to buy the shoes. I didn't realise that buying a pair of shoes could be so complicated.

The gorge is called El Tajo Canyon, and we saw the start of the path to the bottom from the square we had lunch at yesterday. The path is cobbled and wide, and not too steep or slippery. We pass some of the gates that formed part of the city wall in ancient times. We come to a fork, but there are no signs. The cobbled path doesn't look to be going in the right direction, so we take the other path, which isn't cobbled; it's just a dirt track. It quickly gets narrower, steeper and more slippery, although the upside is that the views of the Puente Nuevo are excellent, and we can now see that there's a waterfall at its base. We come to another fork, and again there are no signs. We take the better looking track which this time looks like it's going in roughly the right direction. It doesn't stay better for very long; it's now very steep, narrow and slippery, and we do a lot of scrambling on our hands and knees. Issy doesn't look very happy. The path we were on before was quite busy, but there are now no other people around. We get to the base of a smaller waterfall on the side of the gorge, and the path is now a precipice along the edge of the main waterfall and more suited to rock climbers than either of us. We go back to the previous fork, and take the other path. It's also very narrow, steep and slippery, but it at least seems to be heading towards the bottom. We're now doing more sliding than walking, and Issy is really not happy. She is now variously calling me David, David Sheehan and David Blakiston Sheehan. This is a really bad sign; she only uses all three of my names when I'm in serious trouble. The track ends at a cobbled road and we walk a short distance to the gorge's base. Even the road is steep and slippery. We have drinks at a small guesthouse, and Issy informs me that she'll be staying here for the night.

We decide that we'll go back along the road; although I don't have a lot of say in this decision. We're not sure where the road goes and again there are no signs. When we get about halfway up we decide to risk turning off onto yet another cobbled path. It's a lot wider, flatter and less slippery than the path we came down on. A bit further on we recognise the first fork that we came to on the way down, and it seems that this is the path that we should have been on all along. I tell Issy that we wouldn't have had nearly as much fun if we'd come down this way. Fortunately she's way too tired to hit me; I think this will come later.

Issy says that she's too tired to have lunch, so we go back to the hotel for a long siesta. We wake up just in time to walk along the promenade around the rim of the gorge to watch a spectacular sunset over the nearby hills.

We decide to have dinner at the same restaurant that we went to last night. We don't usually like going to the same place twice, but it was very good and the view of Puente Nuevo from the terrace was spectacular. When we get there we're shown to exactly the same table that we sat at last night. This is just a bit too much of the same, so we decide that we should at least swap seats.

We indulge in some people watching. Actually it's only me who indulges in some people watching; Issy says that I should mind my own business. There's a family of four Russians sitting a few tables from us, comprising a father, two daughters who look like they're in their twenties, and a son who looks like he's about twelve. The father looks exactly like Daniel Craig, and he doesn't look happy. He points heatedly at his offspring one by one and speaks to them all very aggressively. None of them now look very happy either. I wish I could understand Russian. They progressively leave the table leaving Daniel Craig to sit by himself, and then come back one by one and sit down again. Daniel Craig then moves to another table so that he can sit by himself again. Issy says that she thinks that one of the daughters is his wife, but I think she looks way too young. I also ask her what happened to minding your own business. Daniel Craig goes back to the table where the rest of his family is sitting and makes a phone call, this time in English. It seems that they're having some problems with a hotel reservation, and I think this is what's making him unhappy. The phone call seems to go well, and when it finishes he's laughing and happy. His daughters both roll their eyes at him. I think this must be a daughter thing; Emma rolls her eyes at me on an almost daily basis.

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Comments

[COG]

Again, entertaining reading.