Pinsapo de la Escaleretas

This article describes a wonderful walk we took to the Pinsapo de la Escaleretas, in the Ronda area of southern Spain.

Feeling a bit knackered after yesterday’s 10km walk in the hot sun, we decided to take things easier today. Leaving Marbella at about 9:45 am, we drove up the Carretera de Ronda, stopping about 5km after the “Cruz de Hierro” at our favorite venta, La Navasilla, for some breakfast of toasted molletes with oil and tomato, and cafe con leche.

After breakfast, we drove back to the turnoff for Los Quejigales. We’d planned to park at Quejigales, and walk up to the lower peak on the route to the Torrecilla. However, about 5 kms out, we found the passage bar down, effectively shutting off the road. I guess the simply cut the access to the top in summertime.

After considering for a few minutes, we decided to drive down the dirt road to the right (where the Quejigales road was cut), and walk part of trail we’ve done in the past, Pinsapo de la Escaleretas.

About 500m into the trail, we decided to pass by the Pinsapo, as we’ve seen it before, and continue on another kilometer or so, to take in the breathtaking views of the valley below the Torrecilla.

As the trail got more densely covered in bushes with “pinchies,” we decided to head back to the car, and continue down the dirt road around the bottom of the Torrecilla, to a point where we’d seen, looking across the valley, a couple of cars parked. We’d hope to find there an alternative route up the Torrecilla that we could come try in the future.

Turns out, that part of the dirt road becomes very exposed (huge drop-offs!). When we got to the parked cars, it just turned out to be a couple of farmers that, for some odd reason, had chosen that point to build what looked like a small pig stye.

We carefully turned around, and headed back out the dirt road, and out of the Quejigales park.

Since it was about lunchtime, we stopped again at the Navasilla for lunch. Given that we love having breakfast there, we looked forward to see what they served up for lunch. The kids had meatballs, my wife had grilled fish, and I had a steak. It was AWEFUL! We were sooooo disappointed. The fish was salty, my steak seemed frozen and old, and the kids’s meatballs were about as bad.

Oh, well, note for the future: Navasilla for breakfast, and nothing more!

Resources:

• See all the photos in the Flickr photo set.

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