the trail LESS TRAVELLED
“They say that adventure is just bad planning. But I believe that adventures start as soon as you step off the paper and into reality”
“SEÑORITA, NO ES LA ROUTA.” Ten years on from my GCSE Spanish, the message was still clear. The concrete track I was walking down would not take me to the mountains. The tanned man watering his vegetables looked up in surprise at the boot-clad tourist marching towards his back garden. Oops. I back-tracked and escaped, using by far the most useful phrase of the trip: “Lo siento, soy inglesa.”
Defying all expectations, I was at the foot of Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountains. Alone, with eight days of food in my 60-litre rucksack, I was ready to spend a week walking and camping at altitude, in a place I’d never been before. The closest I’d ever got was gazing at the distant snowy peaks on a school trip to Granada, while studiously avoiding speaking Spanish. Now I was going to explore the mountains in full. I had a unique, self-designed route and a strict schedule. If only I could get out of town and into the national park…
DÉJÀ VU
As I walked down the slope of Cerro Pelado, my first 3000m peak, I was struck by
