the goonies

so this week we have decided to remain active with our hiking maven, kathryn bacher, always keeping us on the go. yesterday we took another short, cheap bus ride to monachil which is a mountain town right outside granada and did a much smaller scale, much less strenuous hike after class. this time we went with more people which was great cause it was such an easy hike there were no complaints ever. the hike itself was a very defined path for the most part and kathryn had detailed directions for us as well. we wandered off the beaten path, if you will, a few times only to discover scenes straight out of the goonies. we we're climbing through caves with water falls, scaling rocks, and waiting for creatures to pop out. we made it to the top of one of the caves and found a free flowing waterfall which had it been nicer out would have been ideal for swimming.

goonies cave

after that we set out again on the right path where kathryn led us to a bridge with the instructions "no more than 4 persons allowed on bridge at a time." crossing this bridge was not for the cowardly because though it seemed quite secure to both sides it was a wooden plank bridge out of a movie that shook with every step and if you looked over the edge you could only imagine falling 500 yards to death into a rocky gorge. great image right? so for once ever kathryn was scared of this adventure and i walked the plank first (as fast as i possibly could). once we got across we kept going alongside the river through caves/woods/mountains etc. 

walking the plank, it wouldnt be so bad if this thing collapsed

once we had followed the beaten path for what seemed like too long we decided to scale the side of the mountain following adam up to the top of a cliff. this reminded me of our hike at trevenque but instead of the slippery gravel it was actually solid rocks which was nice. it was pretty steep though and we weren't totally sure of a way down. luckily once we got up there we discovered a nice little path up and down. of course, we went up higher. i realized that my fear is not of heights, but of cliffs and edges and especially watching other people teeter on them. the girls walked out to a ledge to take a picture but i was increasingly nervous about kathryn falling off the side that it drove me to the point of tears. it seems like i'm that high maintenance wench but really i'm just concerned someones gonna fall of the side. christ i don't even like it when little kids hang over the balconies at shopping malls, try being 300 yards over the side of a rocky cliff. 

i was smiling for this photo until i looked over the edge. sheer terror

once we had had enough of the cliff adventures we decided to continue on our hike. we hit a patch that was mostly uphill when we thought we were supposed to be going back which was discouraging for a little bit but hiking maven got us where we needed to go. we picked fresh fruit the whole way too, getting to eat grapes and blackberries and figs (which are delicious btw nothing like a fig newton which are gross and what i was expecting). all around lovely afternoon.

fresh fig straight from the tree (ignore small thumb)

today ella and i have packed for oktoberfest and attempted to budget out our spending for the rest of the semester. this sounds psycho but i have a document with all my flight/trip information that i have added the price of the flights, housing, tickets or whatever i spent on the trip and now have gone through and budgeted a certain amount of money i'm allowing myself to spend on every trip (which will hopefully be an overestimate) alas trying to stay on top of things organizationally and financially cause god knows how poor i'll be by the end of this. manana madrid! viernes alemania! Dieses Wochenende werde ich genug Bier für vier große Männer trinken!! (translate.google.com)