We hiked the Caminito del Rey today and I’ll get a post up soon with pictures of the amazing “trail”. It’s a series of balconies set about 100m above the floor of a couple of slot canyons. In the meantime, I have another fun story of driving a rental car in a foreign country.
According to maps.me (a great solution for using GPS and a map without data or WiFi; you just need to download the map area ahead of time), we had about a 25 minute drive from the trailhead to our B&B in the Valle de Abdalajis (northwest of Málaga). We soon left a town center and were directed onto a dirt road. We came to a fork in the road and went right. After about half a kilometer, it was clear we should have gone left. We turn around and take the left. The map says we have about 4 kilometers to go. A slight rain has started. Cue ominous music.
The road has a few small mud patches that I pretty easily plow through. One of the keys is to have a bit of speed to ensure you don’t get stuck. And they’re small – not even the length of the car. You can see fresh tire treads, so you know somebody’s made it through recently. It’s rained a lot here in the last two weeks, and we presently come to a small creek overflowing across the road. But it’s only a step wide and we go through with no trouble.
Did I mention that we rented one of those tiny Fiat’s? Yeah, not a great car for off reading.
We’re down to about 2 kilometers to go when we come to a larger mud patch. It’s four or five car lengths, but has plenty of recent tracks. I take it on. Mistake. We completely bog down a bit short of the half way mark. The main problem is the car’s clearance. Once the underside of the car stopped clearing the mud we were stuck. I get out and find some pretty large rocks and do my best to wedge them under the front tires. This doesn’t work. After a few adjustments it’s clear we can’t get the car out. Leena doesn’t drive a manual, so I can’t be outside pushing.
Leena sets off to walk the last 2k to the B&B to call a tow truck. I wait in the car. I got the good end of the deal. Leena calls the B&B host (Greg) and describes the house she sees at the top of the hill. It matches the description of his house, so Leena heads up the (very muddy) hill. But it’s not the right house, and nobody is home. She calls him, but it’s hard to describe where you are when you’re on a dirt road with a lone house. But she can see the town, and Greg realizes we’re completely on the wrong side of the valley. He sets out to find Leena. Leena hikes through to a paved road and calls Greg with the name of the dirt road (thankfully there’s a handmade sign). She waits on the side of the road in the rain. Greg pulls up, parks, and they hike back to the car.
I see them come over the rise about two hours after Leena left, and I’m thinking, huh, that’s not a tow truck. Greg thinks we can get it out. He thinks nothing of wading into the ankle-deep mud to lean on the hood while I give it another try. We try forward, backwards, etc. It’s not even rocking really in its rut.
Greg asks if he can give a try, and that makes sense. I’m younger and quite a bit bigger. I lean into as best I can. It’s pretty hard to get footing in slick mud. Greg’s a wizard with the gears. We get it rocking just a bit and I sink deep enough to get some footholds and really lean into it. There’s hope. After about five minutes, it finally moves out of its rut and back a few feet, but it bogs down again. I’m thinking if we can pull that off a couple of more times we’ll be out of the deep stuff and get it out.
Greg has other ideas. He later tells me that he’s never been up this road before, but he’s determined to get the car out FORWARD so we can drive through to the main road where his car is parked and on to the B&B. Having hiked it, he knows this is the worst patch and that we can make it through the rest. So he slams it back forward, down into the rut, up the other side, and damn if he doesn’t float that thing all the way through, spinning the tires like a madman the whole time. It’s out!
Greg just went to the top of the list of greatest hosts ever. We’re at the B&B now. His wife made us some coffee (remember, while I sat in a car that could warm me up any time, Leena trudged around in the rain and mud and 10 degree (C) weather for two hours). Greg even suggested I could clean the car up tomorrow with a hose. No need to return a car with a belly full of mud and have questions to answer.
All of this on Halloween no less!
UPDATE: We asked for a restaurant recommendation, but they warned that the river is getting very high and were worried that we could get caught in town on the wrong side of the river. So they’ve invited us to join them for their dinner of Andalusian stew. These are the nicest people ever.
I said ha ha! 😜