El Refugio del Burritos

El Refugio del Burritos

As we were half way to Fuente de Piedra, we carried on to the Donkey Sanctuary to visit our adopted donkey Belén and her friend Erica. Paid our annual subscription of 15 euros. They appeared well although a bit muddy as they have been rolling in the mud due to the recent rains.

El Chorro hike

We joined our new hiking group for our second ramble at El Chorro near the lakes, and set off via a 200 metre tunnel to a winding track, passing a colony of colmenas (bee-hives) , the Leader telling us to be very quiet as we passed, so as not to disturb them. We climbed for nearly an hour with frequent stops (breathers), and finally clambered up the final 300 metres over rough rocks, to be rewarded with stunning views over the El Chorro gorge, and a sheer drop of about 300-400 metres (1,000’). J not very happy as suffers vertigo on such occasions. (wouldn’t anyone!!!! - but I did enjoy looking at the wild autumn crocus’!!)

Spent about 30 minutes admiring the view, and spotting some huge Griffon Vultures (3m wingspan) on an adjacent rock face. As the weather was quite cloudy, they were not very active, but on hot sunny days, up to 60 can be seen soaring high on the thermals above the valley.

You can see an old railway line below where the final scenes in the film Von Ryans Express were shot and the bridge and a wooden walkway - now in a state of disrepair.

Barranco Blanco revisited

We made another attempt to find Barranco Blanco from a different direction, and walked down into the valley along a camino road only passable by 4x4 vehicles. Walked to a lovely lagoon that we had seen from the top, but this turned out to private , with a few luxury villas surrounded by a high wall. A gardener pointed us back arriba, back to a rio (river), which we eventually found, but no waterfall as shown in pictures, so not convinced we had found it.

Kitchen tiling

Period ending Friday 24th October

The weather has been very variable over the last 10 days or so, with several days of rain, although no torrential showers to test the drains. Minor jobs around the house on such days included tiling in the kitchen (see pics).

An earlier job was cementing cracks around the water tank base to prevent a persistent leak in the upper hall, which appears to have been successful.