stoy , 5 days ago (edited 5 days ago)

It was fantastic and a bit terrifying.

I am soo happy I went, but unless there is a lovely woman asking me to accompany her, I won’t do it again.

95% of the path is amazing, with some thrilling but not scary views, the last 5% was terrifying, however I never felt unsafe.

Ok, lets start from the beginning.

As you probably know, El Caminito Del Rey is a stunningly beautiful path in a crevase of a mountain side, it leads between two hydro electric powerplants, and was originally built as a maintenance path.

It got famous on the internet as the worlds most dangerous path, when I first saw videos of it, the path was crumbling concrete hanging on the mountain side.

This is no longer the case, since adventurers kept bypassing anything the local government did to prevetn access, they decided on another way forward, rebuilding the path.

The new path is built just above the old one, preventing access to the old path, while granting safe and easy access for unfit tourists (like me) to see the amazing landscape.

The path is modern, made out of tick peices of wood, securely anchored to the mountain side, there is a secure railing with netting along the entiire path.

There is minimal need for planning on walking the path, you need to get a ticket, and I do recommend getting a ticket for the return bus as well, you will be tired after walking the path.

You only really need four things to walk the path.

1. A ticket
2. A bottle of water
3. Decent shoes, I walked in my Brooks Ghost 23, you don’t need hiking boots, but avoid sandals or flipflops.
4. A good camera with a solid strap, if you drop your phone or camera over the edge of the railing, it is gone/destroyed.

Do not bring a big backpack, this is noted on the rules you get when buying a ticket, this is due to the path being very narrow.

You buy tickets for the walk online: www.caminitodelrey.info/en/tickets/buy

We got a guided tour, we had an english guide, but the guy we had was not really worth it.

So you go to the restaurant marked on the map you get when buying the tickets, that is not the entrence to the path, it is the entrence to the entrence to the path, unless your instructions say otherwise, do not wait there, there are big signs, you need to walk about 2km to get to the entrence of El Caminito Del Rey.

So you get to the entrence, this was a bit chaotic when I was there, depspite being there in low season. Speak with the staff, they will help you, scan your ticket and get into your group.

If you have picked a guided tour, you will be issued a small radio reciever and and headphones, the headphones are terrible, if you can, get some better 3.5mm earbuds that fit better.

Regarless of what ticket you have bought, you will be issued a helmet and a disposable hairnet.

Finally, you are entering El Caminito Del Rey!

The path is for the most part located inside the cleft, this is very nice as if you start feeling dizzy of vertigo, you can just not look down, and the feeling goes away.

This is untill the end…

I must again stress, that while it was terrifying, I never felt unsafe.

You will have to walk across a metal grid catwalk suspention bridge, it is supported by thick metal cables, but it does wobble and sway a bit, then you get to a an anchored path hainging on the open side of the mountain, there is nothing to help your vertigo there as the path hangs over a sheer drop of 100+ meters.

I don’t like hights, I get some vertigo, I was clearly uncomfortable and scared, but at that point you can’t really go back, so I just focused on continuing on.

The path is completely safe, highly thrilling and even terrifying, and so so worth it.

I had my Lumix S5 camera with my 24-105mm lens, a great combo, and I just 1150+ photots from my walk, some of the most beutiful nature photos I have taken.