Save Me…… from medium mountains and even more medium guidebooks

The first mistake I made was reading the word “Medium” in the guide book. The second mistake was believing it.

As we stood at the foot of a very steep, boulder-strewn path next to a towering rocky outcrop in the middle of the Sierra de Grazalema last weekend, my walking companions turned to me and, in unison, said: “Are you sure it´s medium?”

“That´s what it says,” I replied, turning the page towards them to show the proof. Medium difficulty walk, it said. A bit of gentle climbing in places followed by flowing pastures and wide-open crests, it said.

Four hours later, back at the cabin, totally exhausted, sunburned, with strained ankles, twisted knees, parched mouths and frayed tempers, my walking companions turned to me and told me, again in unison, that my guide book was a load of bollocks.

The four of us – me, the wife and our two friends who are a couple – set out last weekend for a peaceful, relaxing saunter through the picturesque hills and valleys on the edge of the village of Grazalema, about 90 kms south east of Seville.

We had travelled down on the Friday evening after work and picked up the keys to a log cabin we had rented for the weekend at a campsite nestled in the rocky hillside overlooking the settlement, one of Andalucía’s famous White Villages.

That evening we ate well at a bar in a little square in the centre of the village and also bought provisions for the next day. We were happy and excited to be tackling the walk around the 4,294ft high bare rock pinnacle of Penon Grande the next morning, especially as it was only 10kms. Pleasant and relaxing in fantastic scenery.

Well, the last of those three adjectives was accurate. But as we clambered up the steep path the next morning, gasping for breath and stopping to recover every 200 yards, I started to imagine how I would colourfully express my disappointment to the authors of the guidebook which had cost me an arm and a leg to get in the first place.

Look, we´re a bit out of shape anyway. So I wasn´t necessarily expecting to sprint up the hill like a mountain goat. And it was hot, very hot. We had planned to start out quite early, before the sun climbed high in the sky, but as is always the way with relaxing weekends like this, we rolled out of bed about 9am, had a long breakfast and then thought about starting the walk about 11am.

So, ok, maybe those two things weren´t helping us. But our friends, who are lighter and fitter than both of us, were also gasping a bit and clutching random extremities from time to time too.

This wasn´t so much a walk as a scaling of boulders and rocks up a near vertical slope. Ok, I exaggerate a bit.  But not much. The first 40 minutes was hard work and I don´t mind admitting that on two occasions I was all for calling it a day and heading back down. But the wife, despite huffing and puffing herself, pushed me onwards.

Eventually we hit the crest of the first climb and looked down to see a bizarre sight. In amongst the rocks, the trees and the boulders was a perfect little shady meadow, enclosed by dry stone walls and populated by a family of very contented-looking cows. There was no clear road or pathway in or out of the meadow and on all sides there were mountainous peaks. So how had they got there? And why were they there?

I speculated that this was actually some sort of bovine sanctuary, a place where cows that had escaped the industry conveyer belt to Burger King could live out their lives in peace and tranquility. Never one for wispy notions of idyllic surrealism, my wife said I was talking out of my backside.

The shade and the green grass were a welcome relief from the jagged climb we had just endured, but in only a few minutes we were through it and out the other side on an even longer, more jagged climb. Not as steep this time, but much longer. And the route of the path only gave us fleeting shade, making the ascent even more difficult as the sun beat down.

But by this time we were made of sterner stuff and we knew that as long as we continued to put one foot in front of the other we would eventually get to the top of the 4,000ft crest and would be greeted with fantastic panoramic views across the Sierra.

But as if Lady Luck herself was cocking her leg and pissing on our parade, just as we reached the crest, the clouds came down and we could see literally nothing below. By this time though, with wheezing down to a minimum and calf muscles like Popeye´s, we didn´t care as much as we thought we might as we knew the last of the climbing was finally done.

While coming down is easier on the lungs than going up, it´s harder on the knees and the ankles. But we soon completed our circle of the peak and made our way back to Grazalema where we found a little Meson which served surprisingly good food. Surprising, because it was part of a “Menu Del Dia” which often as not is a combination of crap served up to gullible tourists who, captivated by their surroundings, are happy to drink gazpacho with the consistency and taste of dish water. But this place was not like that. I would give them a name-check but I can´t remember their name.

As we sat there at an outside table on a slight slope, eating gazpacho and chicken at an angle, our conversation turned to more spiritual matters, all of us clearly influenced by the rapturous experience we had managed to live through that morning.

We first talked about what we would like heaven to be like. I pointed out that I didn´t actually believe in that kind of thing but that I would suspend disbelief temporarily. Of our friends, she said each day was a little bit of heaven for her, while he said it was more a state of mind than an actual place. I suggested that my wife´s idea of heaven would be a bag shop.

We then talked about what we’d like to achieve in life before we die. The conversation reminded me of a letter I once sent to the Guardian newspaper.

I wrote in response to another letter I saw in the paper that week from a man who said: “I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet finished the crossword. Is this a record?” The next day someone else wrote in saying: “I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet bothered to do the crossword. Is this a record?” So I wrote in too. I said: “You think the first bloke has got problems. I’ve been buying the Guardian for 30 years and have never yet found the crossword. Is this a record?”

They actually printed my letter. I was so happy. And with the memory of that flooding back to me as I sat round a table with my friends tired and aching but happy, I realised that I wasn’t so bothered about that guidebook after all.

But I mean, really. Medium? Medium, my arse.