I am European by birth, so seeing 50 people on a summit is completely normal to me. Chester, on the other hand, is Canadian, and mountains crowded with people seem strange to him. A few decades ago, he hiked 800 km in the Pyrenees in Spain and was deeply impressed. But March is the wrong season to spend time in the Pyrenees and whence our search of the wild Spain began.
From Gibraltar, we turned west toward Málaga. This part of Spain is called the Costa del Sol—the Coast of the Sun. Unfortunately, the forecast for the foreseeable future looked terrible: rain and wind. But that’s how it goes when you travel. You don’t choose the weather; the weather chooses you. We got the “costa” without the “sol.” On the bright side, a very good friend of mine, Ośka from Poland, was coming to Málaga in a few days, and I was really looking forward to seeing her.
As Chester and I drove along the Costa del Sol, the mountains to the west grew bigger and more tempting. It didn’t take us long to turn north toward the Sierra Bermeja. We soon realized we had stumbled upon the natural park “Paraje Natural Los Reales de Sierra Bermeja.” Wow—did we ever luck out!
Getting to Sierra Bermeja was a bit tricky. We took a wrong exit at a roundabout and ended up on a toll highway for 20 km. Then we drove the same stretch back and finally took the correct turn. Even after that, navigating the road was… interesting. In situations like this, I really appreciate the app Mapy.com (formerly Mapy.cz). It’s brilliant—excellent cartography and reliable offline use.
As we drove up the mountains it became foggy, which made the whole experience even more exciting. The road is narrow and twisty, but fully paved all the way to the summit. We drove to within about 50 meters of the summit. The wind was so strong it was hard to walk, so I was grateful we didn’t have far to go to bag the prominent peak of Reales (1,443 m). Surprisingly at the summit, we met four tough Lithuanians!
We loved the area around Sierra Bermeja. It felt epic, even in the fog. Satellite images showed countless forestry roads—so much to explore. When we tried one, we were soon stopped by a recent landslide blocking the road. They must have had some dramatic weather here recently. Undeterred, we found another route, this one starting in a town of Jubrique (a must to see). Navigating through it turned out to be quite an adventure—the streets were incredibly narrow, with sharp zigzags that took a few attempts to figure out. Somehow, we managed not to get stuck and eventually made it above the town.
There, we found some respite: a good gravel road. But it wasn’t long before a fallen tree blocked our path.
Luckily, there was a narrow and fairly steep bypass, and we managed to get through.
In the end, we bagged four peaks in the area 🙂. There were more, but much of the region turned out to be fenced off. One can only push our luck so far.
The wild Spain is awaiting….
Marta and Chester's Maleficent Adventures 