Hiking Caminito del Rey near Malaga

In less than an hour from Malaga, there is a village el Chorro hidden in the rocks. Here, the Caminito del Rey, the King's Path, begins. Once known as one of the most extreme hiking trails, the path was built at the beginning of the 20th century for local workers and was later named after King Alfonso XIII, who was brave enough to cross it once for the inauguration of the dam.

The Caminito in Spanish means "a little Camino". The first few kilometers were calm and resembled the Camino de Santiago. The trail was mostly flat and went through the forest. But when we reached the main gate, the true adventure began. Although, after the renovation, the path is now safe, we were asked to put helmets on and to be careful when taking photos.

The trail is pretty narrow, so we had to follow other visitors for a while. On the bright side, it gave us more time to explore the rocks and the landscape. Crossing Guadalhorce river is the most exciting moment, because the wind is moving the bridge.

The whole path is about seven kilometres long, but the part in the rocks, where the helmet is mandatory, is about half of the total distance. Our adventure lasted about two and a half hours from arrival at el Chorro train station. We then took a shuttle bus to start el Caminito. To our surprise, the route eventually brought us back to the train station. So we returned ahead of schedule, and had a cup of tea by the river. But having a time buffer was not a bad idea, considering that trains from el Chorro to Malaga go only a couple of times per day.