are you walking to madrid?

My big hiking adventure...

Yesterday, Stina and I went to a town called Guejar Sierra that is known for having some of the best hiking in the area. We took a 40 minute bus ride and got dropped off in the town not really knowing what our next move was (we of course opted out of the guided tour). We began walking around the town asking people if they knew where the trail was that we wanted to hike, Vereda de la Estrella. We were pointed in the right direction and began our trek. It ended up being a 5.4 km walk to even get to the hike. The hike was so beautiful though! It was a trail up through the Sierra Nevadas that we thought we could hike in one day but a fellow hiker told us that it took 2 days to complete the entire trail. We decided against camping out in makeshift tents. As we were walking along the trail and I looked over and saw a herd of sheep being moved across the mountain by a herdsman. It was the coolest thing I have ever seen! There were literally hundreds of sheep across the river on the other mountain. When you looked in front of you there were three mountain peaks and the one in the middle was snow-covered. It was absolutely beautiful. 

                         

me stuck in the tree...

We passed this really cool tree and decided that it would be an ideal place to eat lunch. I began to climb the tree only to realize that I am not much of a tree climber (shockingly enough) and it is even harder with a book bag on to fit through a small opening in-between the trunk of a tree. Stina was on the ground cracking up at my attempt to get out onto one of the limbs and photographing my climb. I made it pretty high up on the tree, I was probably 12 feet off the ground but then I got really scared that I wasn't going to be able to make it down so I decided to turn around and we ended up eating on level ground. The hike, with the walk to and from the city, ended up being 15.5 km long, a little over 9 miles. I don't think I have ever walked that far in one day! But it was so much fun and so pretty! Today, I walked over to this park that is about 5 minutes away from my house and read for a couple of hours this afternoon. Today was one of the prettiest days we have had so far, it was so sunny and almost 60 degrees! No big plans this week except more class and I start volunteering on Wednesday morning which I am really excited about!