All Work and no Play...

I've decided that part of my dissatisfaction with my job is directly related to the lack of "fun" I've been having (up until recently, that is). So my Holy Week vacation was just what I needed. And contrary to what you might think would be a normal reaction to my return to work, I've been happier and feeling very on top of things.

To make things even better, this morning Angelines and I visited El Chorro. We've gone many times before, but haven't gone on many day trips since I've had so much work these past months. Tuesdays I don't work in the morning and usually we go swimming at an indoor pool in a nearby town, but today we decided to make a morning excursion to this reservoir: El Chorro.

In Spain and especially in Andalucia (for it's desert climate) there are a lot of reservoirs to store water. Many of them were built under Franco. In fact, the word for reservoir in Spanish is pantano and Franco has been called "el padre pantando" for all the dams that were built under his regime.

This one was actually built (at least the first dam) under the reign of King Alfonso XIII at the beginning of the last century. This first picture is of that original dam. The king visited in 1921 to lay the final stone and was so impressed by the engineering (it was the first dam built to generate hydro-power in Spain) that he named the engineer Count of the Guadalhorce (that's the river)!

Here you can see...even the dams they built back in the day were prettier than the stuff done today! I mean, it's actually nice to look at.

Here's Angelines on our hike. There's a trail that follows the river from the dam to the town of El Chorro. It's called the Camino del Rey (The King's Path) for Alfonso XIII. We didn't do the whole walk. Aside from it being too long, there is a portion that's been closed because it is a boardwalk built along the side of the cliffs that are the river gorge and since its construction many planks have fallen into the river. Apparently they are repairing it, however, for rural tourism.

This is the actual reservoir at a record high this spring from all the rain we've had. When many of these dams were built they flooded old towns that were situated along the river. Just two years ago the water was so low that you could see the church steeple of the under-water ghost town! Now it's higher than it's been in fifty years.

And here I am, happy as a clam. Someday this spring I'd like to go back to run on these trails. Angelines was going crazy because she couldn't understand that I wanted to climb and run all over the place. She's decided I'm a cabra montesa (mountain goat)...it's true, what can I say??