Looks A Little Precarious...

Saturday we decided to go hiking in the Sierra Nevada Mountains. It sounded like a good idea at the time, but it ended up being an adventure that I did not expect.

First of all, the day got off to a "rocky" (haha) start when Lindsay and I got to the Post Office at 10:30am to meet up with everyone. We were running late, as usual. Angie was there, but Anna, Melissa, and Karina were not. Angie knew they had gone out the night before, but wanted to come. She called them numerous times, and we waited until about 10:50. Then I sent Anna a text saying we were leaving and if they wanted to meet up with us to catch a bus.

We knew many people who had gone hiking in Monachil before, and we knew what intersection to get the bus at. However, intersections have 4 corners, and this one had more because there was a bridge. So we headed over to a bus map. We found Monachil, had no clue where we were, and had no clue how to get from where we were to Monachil. So we asked the bus driver of the next bus who pulled up. He told us to go across the streeet, so we did. There was no bus stop. We kept walking and then found one. After asking numerous people and bus drivers, we finally found the right bus stop. Allison, Angie's roommate, had told Angie that the bus comes about every half hour. It was 11:30am, so we decided to wait until 12, and if it didn't come by then to leave. The bus finally came a little after 12, and it took about 25 minutes to get to Monachil. We found a supermarket that Allison had told Angie about and we were able to buy fruit and water very cheap. Then the lady who sold us oranges and apples gave us directions to "Los Cahorros." She said we should follow the river.

Psh, this was going to be so easy. The river had 2 sidewalks on each side, similar to the Riverwalk in Downtown Naperville. We walked straight to a map and found the Cahorros (no idea what that means) right by the river on the map. So we kept walking, but then realized that the sidewalk ended and the street went up in a zig zag. We followed the street. It was similar to the streets that my family and I took on our way to Muir Woods in San Francisco, or the ones we took to our hike in Hawaii. AKA very curvy and on the side of a mountain. Hard to drive up, even harder to walk up. But we did see a horse. :) Okay, I thought it was a horse, but Angie thought it was a donkey. We didn't get very high up until we decided that this street was not only exhausting to hike up but also not what we wanted. We hiked back down, past the horse/donkey, past the map, and crossed the bridge to the other side of the river.

Okay, so this was obviously right. We walked along the street, but we had seen pictures of people's adventures in Monachil, and we didn't see any streets. We knew we needed some type of a trail. So while walking, Angie spotted a "trail." This was not a trail. It was grass on the side of mountain, and it was pretty much vertical. But it looked like there might be something up there, so we climbed straight up. Remember, we had backpacks too. We got up and realized that this so-called trail actually led to a cell phone tower. Fantastic. Not only were we exhausted already, but we were also hot. It was probably in the 60's and sunny. So not complaining. I took off my North Face so I was just wearing my capri yoga pants and my ADPi t-shirt. We took a break up wherever we were and took pictures. It was really pretty.

this is so not a trail

Well because we think things through so well, we had not given thought as to how we would get down. Instead of walking all the way over to the side, we figured we could basically find a way straight down. There were trees and bushes and plants and branches and rocks and mud. Angie went first and found a way down. Lindsay followed, sliding down. I took pictures to document what we were going through. We finally got down after jumping over a stone wall and ended up inside someone's private property. We heard someone and tried to make a break for it before he saw us, but the only way out was a gate that was locked and had a chain on it. Either that or we could jump over a 10 foot stone wall onto the street. Oh no. The farmer guy came up to us. I was running through possible alibis in my head. We're lost...We don't know what we're doing...We don't speak Spanish... But I could not come up with anything convincing. Thankfully it wasn't necessary. The guy smiled and asked us in Spanish if we needed to get out. Lindsay understood- I was still running through escape routes in my head- and he undid the gate for us and we were safe. I was able to say Gracias like 4 times, and then we were on the road again.

We walked up this street and then there was a point where we could follow it up, or we could take a side route into grass. We opted for the grass. Not smart. The grass turned into mud and grass, then into a field, and again we were on someone else's property. Thankfully no one was around. We did find the river, but there was absolutely no way to actually follow it unless you can swim upstream. We took some pictures and then decided to head back to the sign and check the map. On the way back, I fell into this bush and scratched up my leg. Lindsay found bumps on her hand and leg. We were getting frustrated. We just wanted to be where everyone else was!! We considered the possibility that there were 2 Monachils or that the bus had taken us to the wrong destination.

Back at the map, we found again where “Los Cahorros” was. We also saw that there was no path along the river. I was able to figure out, with my amazing map-reading skills I acquired in Italy, to find a road that would lead us to a path that would lead us to another path that would bring us to the Cahorros. I was so excited!! But then we realized that the road was the same one we had just been on. But it made sense- the road went up and we were supposed to be hiking in the mountains. So we headed back up, and put our heads down when we passed our friend the farmer whose property we trespassed on.

We followed the road up to this path that we knew we were supposed to take because there was a map. There was this mountain with tons of rocks on the sides and Angie wanted to stop for a photo break. We climbed a little bit up on the rocks and took pictures, but then Angie kept going. I followed her and we almost made it to the top. As she looked for a way above the rocks, I realized two things. 1) What goes up must come down… and 2) I might be a little bit scared of heights. We climbed a little higher, basically to the top, and then took more pictures. We climbed down safely, thank God. Then we found Lindsay and continued walking down the trail.

We got to the area that was the halfway point. On the map there were pictures of picnic tables, and it looked like a pretty important area because there were tons of arrows by it. So I figured it would be a big open area with lots of people and tables. Nope. There was a tiny building and random rock stairs that went, where else, up. So not exactly what I was expecting for a popular lunch spot. We took the stairs and followed a trail. This was what we wanted.

We climbed through trees and rocks and made it to a bridge. We knew there was a bridge in Monachil that was like in those movies- long and unstable and capable of dropping you at any minute but you always get to the other side anyways. So we got to this bridge, and I know it wasn’t as long or creepy as the one in other people’s photos, but it was still pretty cool. It reminded me of that scene in Horton Hears A Who where he has to cross the bridge. PS if you haven’t seen that movie, go rent it. Seriously, it’s awesome.

just a straight plummet to certain death...

After the bridge, we got to this grassy area. We saw a sign that said “Cahorros Altos” with an arrow pointing up. Altos means tall, so we decided to climb up. This was, again, very steep. It was like 3pm and we were ready for lunch. We got to the top and there was like a plateau of rocks. We had our picnic lunch of sandwiches and fruit there. Then we took a lot of pictures. We were basically in the middle of the mountains.

Then we decided to head back. We heard that the last bus came at 5:45, and we wanted to be there at 5:30. So we got there at 4:30. Despite it taking hours to get up, it only took us 20 minutes to walk down. Then we waited about 2 hours for the bus because we had no clue what time it was going to come. Overall it was a fabulous day!! It was so fun and it was good exercise. Plus I got to see more of Spain!!