My idea of a perfect holiday is plenty of cycling, swimming and walking; even a conservation holiday (dry stone-walling etc….) sounds great to me. The thought of spending hours sitting around doing nothing or sitting in a car for most of the day isn’t my idea of fun. I like being active. So this morning when Chris asked me what I would like to do today I didn’t hesitate, I said, “If I had my way I would go for a long walk.”
Over breakfast (bran flakes, in my case – still  dieting, even on holiday) we decided on our action plan; our dear friend, Alan, who is older but sprightly, did not feel up to mountain climbing (well, walking up a mountain), hence he opted to stay back at the fort while we younger ones agreed to look for a famous spring up in the mountain, in the Parque Natural above Nerja. It would make a change from the gorge walk which we know quite well from past expeditions.
We set off after breakfast, at about one in the afternoon (well we are on holidays, and we did have a spot of housework to do too); I put on my trusty little pink knapsack (with “COOL ONE” printed on the front, which tickles my fancy because either it’s true or it’s ironic, rather nice either way) filled with drinks, sandwiches, fruit and sunscreen.
A couple of hours later Mary, my lovely sister, asked the time. Geoff, her husband, said “Three o’clock”.
“Is that all?” Mary asked, “It feels like we’ve been walking for much longer.”
“That’s just because it’s all uphill,” I said, “I’m sure we’ll be there soon.”
“How many miles have we been so far?” Mary asked.
“About two,” the men answered within seconds of one another.
“That can’t be right, it feels much more like five miles,” Mary insisted.
Time passed and the dirt track mountain path wound on and on, ever upward. Young chaps with tubes attached to their mouths (we thought it was oxygen!) rode manfully on mountain bikes, passing us easily on the way up.
“What time is it Geoff?” Mary asked again.
“Twenty minutes past three.”
“How long is it since I asked before?”
“Twenty minutes,” said Geoff.
“It can’t be! Are you sure?”
A little further on we came to a signpost informing us that it was only another two kilometres to the recreation ground. Another mountain top loomed above us from behind the trees.
“If it’s up there I’m not going a step further,” Mary looked fed up.
“Neither am I,” I agreed supportively.
“Don’t be ridiculous, that’s another mountain,” Geoff laughed.
Up on the recreation ground we finished our picnic lunch (as you know we were running later than usual today); we also met a Polish girl who was dying of thirst and required our help to search the area for a water tap, which Mary managed to do, and we felt very glad that we had been there to aid the girl – it made our walk so much more meaningful. We didn’t make it to the famous spring – we reckoned that, as there was no water in the river after the dry summer, there probably wasn’t any water in the spring either, and it was another walk….and it was getting late…the sun would be going down soon…
We made it back around six this evening. Alan had been on a long, uphill walk too – he went into Nerja on his own and met some interesting Norwegians who, like he, had stopped to take a breather on the uphill path. Alan suggested we should put on some music to have with our glasses of wine and Chris found an orchestral compilation of classic pop songs. The first song began to play and we all laughed – it was “A long and winding road”, written by the Beatles.