Barranco de Aguirre

As we crossed onto a new path, roughly where the Barranco de Aguirre hiking path was marked, it became quickly and painfully apparent that 'downhill' was not in our near future. Instead, the path once again became paved but wound ever upwards through a series of switchbacks and mountain cuttings. At its highest, we hit about 650m above sea level, which it also turned out was not as high as we would be climbing today. As we passed through the first cutting, we were greeted by the valley up which we had begun our climb, greeted by lofty views over the reservoir to the west, and more upward paths to the east. Clearly, we kept meeting people coming the other way because the were sensible - starting the top and working their way down. The whole series of mountains and valleys were very "Red Dead" - the rocky outcrops on the peaks looked precariously stacked, the huge cacti and succulents coated the hillside and the mountainside shacks looked to be ripe for the start of a quest!Read more