Hiking in Spain

My parents' house in Spain is located in the village of Sayalonga on the Costa del Sol, tucked between rolling hills and looking out onto the Mediterranean. It's a great area for hiking and my mum spends a lot of her time finding new hiking trails in this part of Spain. When last spring, she'd picked a lovely hike from a gentleman named Tony Allen with the evocative name of 'A Walk through the Land of Milk and Honey'.

 With a name like that, I was expecting some sort of heaven on earth, a Walhalla with trees and it came pretty close.

The walk leads along the bed of the Rio de la Miel, which means the river of honey. The river is sheltered by the peaks of the Cerro de los Gigantes and Mother Nature has blessed this valley with a micro climate and lots of water which makes it a highly fertile spot. And this shows. We walked passed olive and avocado trees, orange and mandarin groves. We came across almonds and pomegranates eagerly waiting to be picked. My mum's back pack was getting heavier and heavier with fruits we'd picked along the way.

Amongst the trees and groves the landscape was dotted with all kinds of colourful flowers, attracting fluttering butterflies and buzzing bees. The only other beings we met along the way, was a lonesome goat herder and his goats and dogs. I assume this is where the Tony Allen got the milk part for his walk from.

We stopped to eat our packed lunch and sat on a rock overlooking the valley and soaking up the peacefulness of our surroundings. We picked some mandarins and oranges from a nearby tree for dessert and stuffed some in our backpacks before setting off again, completing the loop back to where we had parked the car.

Nibbling on our fruits and holding on to our bunches of freshly picked flowers, we all agreed that Tony Allen couldn't have named this hike in Spain any better.

For more of Tony's walks, check out his website at: http://www.soltalk.com/FrontPage.htm