It's 6 AM and the alarm clock goes off on Friday morning. Eira and I are ready to fly south to Málaga. A weekend filled in nature and beautiful white towns awaits in la gran senda de Málaga. After passing security control, we do a bit free flow yoga practice to loosen up. We have a long weekend ahead and a little bit of movement is always good!
So much yoga that... we almost lost the plane! At the gate we meet Sara, Miriam, Meritxell and Alexia, adventure buddies for the weekend. The flight was very short and comfy. Upon arrival, Jesús and Raquel, the organizers, are there to greet us (super warm and nice!) and we're off to pick up Marian and Ana who are coming from Madrid.
Once we are all there, with the radio on, we drive to Ronda,a beautiful town, which is very famous for its bridge. Lunch is amazing (portions are huge in Southern Spain, be careful haha!) and to aid digestion we took a short walk around around. I wish we could've stayed a little longer. When to go? They have a very nice festival called "Ronda Romántica" where they recreate the Ronda of the Romantic era. Another very good time is fall, since the leaves change color and you can see the "copper forrest".
After falling in love with Ronda, we went to do the most thrilling activity of the weekend: bungee jumping. It’s something that I had never thought about doing, but… why not? In the video you can see how little hesitant I was to jump xD. It is a very “freeing” experience and you definitely need to have your shit together. I truly recommend it and I want to do it again from a greater height.
Post-adrenaline rush, we drove to Benarrabá, town where we stayed for the weekend. Dinner and a good night sleep was much needed after such an exciting day!
On Saturday, canyoning was planned, but Eira and I skipped it because we were feeling like we were getting sick and didn’t want to risk it. From what the other girls mentioned: it was amazing but chilly! I tried it for the first time earlier this summer, and it is very fun. So, in the meantime we visited Júzcar, a blue town (also called surf town) where all the houses are painted… blue (you guessed it).
Once we got together with everyone else, we went for lunch close to the train station of Benaoján and then for a walk in nature for 2.5 hours until Jimera de Líbar. The hike was 8 km long and it was adequate for all ages. We also learned a bit of history: from the muslims, to the French, and to the civil war in Spain. We also learned about the plants of the area and that the carob seeds set the weight value of a “carat”, super interesting!
Sunday was super active too: we started off with a 1.5 hours via ferrata in the town of Benaularía. I was very keen on trying this out, and loved it! I’ve started to climb this summer and that helped a lot in the movements (blessed muscle memory!). The views were G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S: we could see Gibraltar and African mountains.
Back in town we had a nice tour where they told us about the area:
All these town are part of the Genal’s valley and there are many different types of rock that makes the valley have such variety of vegetation. There are some hints of ancient roman civilization and a great influence of the muslims which gave name to all these towns: “ber” means “friends of” or “tribe of”.
The weekend finished off with a super healthy lunch in Benarrabá. After such great company and amazing experiences, I was so sad to pack my things and travel back home.
Andalucía, you’ll always have my heart.
