Los Cahorros

Granada is a beautiful city, as I have said many many times and there is so much to do and so many things surrounding the city! Yesterday, we (Tara, Roee, Machi and I) took a bus to Los Cahorros in Monachil, Spain, about a 30 minute bus ride from Granada. Los Cahorros is some sort of mountain range at the foot of the Sierra Nevadas (Atleast that's what people tell me). After the 30 minute bus ride there was about a 30 minute up hill hike just to get to Los Cahorros! I was not expecting that at all! Also, the way to get to Los Cahorros from the bus stop is very interesting, you walk on a big road, then past a bunch of houses, past a little restaurant, you make awkward turns and are really going straight up hill and then you finally get to Los Cahorros! Which is such an amazing place! Once we actually arrived at Los Cahorros, the hiking wasn't that bad at all. Nothing that we don't have at Atwood...haha. There is a river, a couple bridges, some trees, some plants, basically the same as Atwood and by that I mean, it really was nothing like Atwood. The river is in a deep winding valley, there are no prarie plants and the biggest bridge has a sign right before it saying "Danger, only 4 people at a time!".

Beginning of our journey!

When we started the hike we were on top of a huge mountain. The day was perfect for hiking! It was sort of hot when we first began but once we headed down into the valley closer towards the river, the temperature dropped quite a bit. It was very refreshing. We started off in Los Cahorros Altos, meaning, we decided to go up. We went up a little bit and then saw the trail that started leading down into the valley. The trail is not really marked but guarded by janky fences that seem to fall into the river every so often. It is really easy to get off the trail because there are so many places that have been worn down by people wandering near the river bed. When we first started, we stayed on the trail.

Paul and Meir

We ran into Paul and Meir who were rock climbing. When they had first got to Los Cahorros they decided to wander off the trail to the river bank and they ended up a little off the trail climbing up a really big rock when we ran into them. They suggested for us to follow the river to go the other way, majority rules and we ended up following the river (Thanks guys...haha). We followed some sort of path that looked like some people had been on before, then we ended up crossing slippery rocks in the river and having to walk through a bunch of thorn vines and burrs! All in all it was quite the adventure, we ended up having to climb basically straight up a little ways to get from the river to the trail. We could see the trail from down on the river banks but it was so high up! Aren't I glad that I used to rock climb at CER? While rockclimbing at CER I learned that even little spaces on a surface that don't look like they will help you on your way up, really do help you! I definitely wasn't trying to climb up a rock like my friends did though! I just wanted to get out from the river and onto the real trail! It was pretty awesome though hiking through the river and getting to really climb back up to the trail! It was crazy, nothing I would ever have done before now, or even thought of doing. Most of the time I just like to stay on the trail. A lot safer that way. When we left, (Tara, Machi and I) we left Roee with Meir and Paul, so that they could have fun climbing up mountains and playing in the river, and hitting eachother with sticks, or whatever boys do for fun. We started heading back to the bus stop and our friends called and told us that the last bus had left for Granada, so we began walking to Granada. Oh it's only a 3 hour walk...eeeee. We walked a little ways and pretended to hitch hike. Then saw some hikers driving past that we had seen in Los Cahorros and waved to them. They pulled over and gave us a ride to Granada. We made it home alive! They were named Manolo and Paula, they were both scientests living in a city near Monachil. Paula said she was from Sevilla, I think. Paula works in a lab as a chemist. Manolo is a microbiologist. Woah! They were pretty awesome and we were so happy that we didn't have to walk home from Granada. Thanks Manolo and Paula! Where ever you guys are in the world!

Manolo y Paula!