Day 6: March 19

Today, we’re planning to make another one of my dreams come true — a hike along the Caminito del Rey (the King’s Path).

Caminito del Rey (Wikipedia) is a walking path attached to the cliffs at a height of 50–100 meters above the ground (for comparison, a 16-story building is approximately 48 meters tall) in the El Chorro canyon.

I remember when I first saw a photo of Caminito del Rey, I couldn’t believe it was real and that something could be so beautiful!

I bought the entrance tickets very far in advance, because of course the trail is very popular and only a limited number of people are allowed in.

We had entrance tickets for a specific time, as part of an organized group with a guide.

And what do you think? That’s right, we were late…

I don’t want to blame Spanish organization (because we could have arrived even earlier to have plenty of time to figure out what was what), but…

In short — nothing there is clear.. Finding the entrance to the trail was quite a quest.

When we arrived at the checkpoint, our group had already left. We were told to wait in another line, for those who were late.

While we were standing and waiting, I realized that about 50% of people are late (it was nice to realize that, meaning I’m not the only one…).

I was already ready to just give up on the whole thing and leave. But we did eventually wait until there were free spots in the next group (thanks to those who were late :)) and they let us in.

At that moment, honestly, I was so angry, tired (from searching for the entrance and waiting), hungry (because quite a lot of time had passed since breakfast), that I didn’t even really feel happy about it.