Saturday, May 3

Afraid of heights?


A friend forwarded this link to a video that will have you holding onto your chair with your legs turning to tingling rubber. It is a stroll along a walkway pinned to vertical walls through a canyon in Spain. The walkway was probably enough to terrify anyone who took it when it was brand new over a hundred years ago. Now, without maintenance, it is simply terrifying. The following background accompanied the video:

“El Caminito del Rey (The King’s pathway) is a walkway, now fallen into disrepair, pinned along the steep walls of a narrow gorge in El Chorro, near Malaga, Spain. The name is often shortened to El Camino del Rey.

“History: In 1901 it was obvious that the workers of the Chorro Falls and Gaitanejo Falls needed a walkway to cross between the falls, to provide transport of materials, vigilance and maintenance of the channel. Construction of the walkway lasted four years. It was finished in 1905. In 1921 the king Alfonso XIII had to cross the walkway for the inauguration of the dam Conde del Guadalhorce, and it became known by its present name.

“The walkway has now gone many years without maintenance, and is in a highly deteriorated and dangerous state. It is one meter in width over a 700-meter fall, and over time it has lost its handrail. Some parts of the walkway have completely collapsed and have been replaced by a beam and a metallic wire on the wall. Many people have lost their lives on the walkway in recent years. After four people died in two accidents in 1999 and 2000, the local government closed the entrances. However, adventurous tourists still find their way into the walkway.”

Not this adventurous tourist, you can bet for sure! Click here to see it, and remember: You’ve been warned! Thanks for the tip, Marguerite!

3 comments:

Susan Hurley-Luke said...

Now that was interesting. And scary. Don't know if I could do it.

Anonymous said...

EEEK!

Anonymous said...

S#!% !

That's how Penny felt today when we turned to head down the hill and her mule took off bucking straight down toward the cliff and the rocky gorge.