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What we did on our holiday.....

Saturday 31st May .... Leisurely breakfast, and at about 11.30, set out from Hotel Romantica on a walk to Cala de Boquer - 6 km, 2 hrs, "Easy" according to Rough Guide. (**£$!%^& liars!!) But I am getting ahead of myself... after buying picnic ingredients, we were just walking along when T went splat onto (uneven) pavement. Her knees were bruised & grazed, so we patched them up with Elasto-plast & headed for a Campari-selling bar to recover. By then the rain and clouds had succumbed to bright sun. My backpack held anoraks, jumper, food, 1.5 litres water, and guide book, but not sun protection, so I popped back to get it. Then we set out on our trek, pausing to eat our picnic.

& get licked by an apparently friendly pit bull terrier. Its fatter friend tried to climb over a (low) wall, but got stuck, see-sawing on its ample tummy before its owner helped it to have another, more successful attempt. We crossed the roundabout, and the path started to climb. Teresa's knees were not happy, but she pressed on. As we admired the lovely view of the bay, we had a useful chat with returning walkers ("Go right at the big cairn - the left path is horrible").

The route of the walk is a simple L, in plan, and we'd done the short bit of the L, and after climbing for another 200 -300 metres, the path squeezed between two impressive rocks, each higher than a house. We were more or less on a plateau now, & began goat spotting (our tally was 12ish)

The Rough Guide basically says, "After the 3rd dry stone wall, when path splits, take left fork to reach bay. Small children will find this part of walk awkward" What it should say is, " After the path has gone through a number of dry stone walls, more than three, less than ten, at one of the subsequent forks, take the left one. It may or may not lead to the bay. Oh and there are 83 paths and 82 are only suitable for goats." We met various other walkers, mostly people on their way back. I said "Gruss Gott" to a couple of German guys, but then they replied in lots more German that I didn't understand! I explained that my German is very limited - I know little apart from "Zwei Bier, bitte". Of course, they then spoke in English and told us the bay was very beautiful, and worth the walk.

Among the smattering of returning walkers, one small boy asked Teresa how she had hurt her knees, and showed us his hurt finger...We pressed on, and as the sun gave way to clouds and the wind rose, I did a mental check of what warm/rainproof clothes I had in the back pack, & what food & drink, & damn, no gun to shoot distress flares from.... New readers will recall that T fell over on a uneven pavement, so this boulder strewn track, with added gorse roots to trip the unwary, was a bit of a problem;

Teresa has lost central vision in one eye, so can't judge distances, depths etc. And she was wearing sandals; most other hikers seemed to have sturdier footwear.... However, slowly, carefully, hand in hand (aaahhhh!!!) we made our way down to the shore of the little inlet. Very spectacular cliffs!! Too cold to swim though. I did sums about

and after some chocolate biscuits, apples, bananas, & water, our situation didn't seem quite so bleak. Having taken pictures of Teresa + bay

me + bay

& a local inhabitant

we set off. By dint of exceptional navigation, we chose (mostly) the 83rd path, accessible for bipeds. Uphill, Teresa was much more confident, & and we zipped up onto the plateau in far less time than it had taken us to get down. Apart from an attack by a vicious spiked shrub while I was busy doing what bears do in the woods, the return was thankfully free of incident. I felt mildly guilty for not grabbing walkers passing us on the outward journey, and warning them of the rock strewn, goat infested perils ahead. We reached the bustle of Port Polenca and celebrated our return to civilisation with a beer and coffee. One of our fellow customers was a British teacher - I asked T if I used to look as miserable as he did.....

Later that evening, in the bar I seem to remember observing that maybe, the more whisky you drink the less you feel like going for a run in the morning....