We left early to drive two hours southeast into Malaga province to a place called Caminito de Rey. This is a canyon where a train runs, but also where there is a hydroelectric dam. The dam and canals were originally built in the early 1900s and to maintain the canals along this vertical canyon, the workers built walkways to allow them to traverse the canyon quickly and safely. In the 1970s the operation was purchased by another company and they dropped the canal design for a more efficient and bigger operation. The pathways, while still being used by local worker families to go to school, the store, and elsewhere, began to fall into disrepair as they were no longer maintained by the company. Sections broke and they would have to jump across holes, railings fell and left them vulnerable. Several people died over a few years in the 1990s and 2000s, so the pathway was closed off. People still tried to come to the pathway and climbers and other outdoors people still entered the canyon. In the last ten years, the governments of Andalucia and Malaga decided to cooperate to build a safe walkway through the canyon, above the original walkway. We looked at the walkway suspended 1000 feet above the river, the suspension bridge, the glass walkway and decided that was for us.
You have to check in and wear a helmet and radio to go on the walkway. We left Seville at 7am with plenty of time to arrive for our 10 am meeting with the guide, but between the parking lot pay machine fiasco and wrong information on where to meet, we didn’t find our way to the correct spot until 11. Luckily we were one of many who had a hard time finding it and they had not problem with letting us in. We ended up in a group with a very nice guide and the hike did not disappoint. She had a lot to tell us about the history of the canyon, the people who lived there, the hydroelectric operation (it produces 80% of Malaga’s power), the flora and fauna. The canyon has its name from a funny incident. The King before Franco came to power said he would visit the canyon and walk the pathway. The workers prepared everything for him and he showed up, walked about 700 meters of the path, and called the train to pick him up at a little bridge between the pathway and the railway on the other side of the canyon. Thus the locals started calling it “Caminito de Rey” which translates to little walk of the king as a barb at his unwillingness to walk the whole path like the locals did every day. The king said he would return the following year to complete the path….he never did. Anyhow, the photos speak for themselves.
The original pathway is below the newly-built pathway.
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