Our night in the mountains of La Pedriza

La Pedriza, originally uploaded by Sabihabeautiful.

A few weeks ago, Gunther, Ruben and I hired a car and went exploring in La Pedriza, a natural park in the north of Madrid. We arrived late, but had enough time to walk the short 1 1/2 hours up the valley to a good camping spot. Camping is technically illegal, in that you can't put up a tent, but there are alot of people who start waking at the end of the day or in the middle of the night to reach the good rock climbing spots near the top. They stay the night so they can start climbing first thing.

We found a great cave that was filled with candles and a straw covered floor. We had a picnic lunch and spent the afternoon exploring the hills and getting attacked by the bushes and rocks (Ruben and I) or reading quietly on the "throne" rock, enjoying the view (Gunther). We enjoyed the sunset, chatting and joking until Ruben reported that our snug little cave was teaming with spiders after dark.....

Last minute change of plans.... and now its dark, so we scraped together our things, crossed a little river and went back to the spot we saw in the afternoon - a giant rock with an overhang perfect for protecting you against dew. We cut our own straw, laid out our mats and settled in with our head torches for dinner.

So peaceful and mild - what a great night. The stars were amazing with almost no light pollution in the sky. In fact I could hardly sleep - after relaxing and realising that we wouldnt be attacked by wild deer, I couldn't stop watching the bright fires in the sky!! A wonderful experience.

The next morning we woke to the sound of an army of climbers ascending the hill. We were smelly and tired so we stopped at a waterhole and had a little bath in the icy water. We finished the day with a much anticipated beer at the cafe near the car park while we planned our day exploring Segovia.

HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!