I had to be up and at the bus by 0900. On the way out to Grazelema, we stopped at a bus station to take pictures of one of the white towns we were passing. They are called white towns because, according to our guide, the women of the village white wash the outside of their homes while they gossip.
Jennifer and I ended up falling asleep for a majority of the remainder of the 2 hour bus ride to Grazelema. We woke when we started going around this really curvy road. It was a little nerve-racking, but we made it ok. We stopped at the camp sites in the park. Our bus driver had a little difficulty getting up the mountain from the camp site. We probably sat there for 15 minutes and he tried about 15 times before the bus got up the hill.
We made it to where we were to begin our hike. SAS provided us with boxed lunches, which contained the strangest assortment of food – but more on that later. I shoved my lunch in my backpack and away we went.
The first part of the hike was the worst. For the first 45 minutes we were going straight up this mountain. We were climbing over rocks and falling over the loose ones. There were sticker bushes everywhere. I came back with the ankles all scratched up thanks to lovely sticker bushes. The other difficult part of the hike was that the trail was no more then a foot wide. If you take one wrong step your done. It was slightly terrifying, but the views were amazing. At the beginning all we really could see was some desert looking land, but we came up over a ridge and saw a forest of fir trees. These trees were anywhere from 30-500 years old. This species of Fir trees have been around since the last glacial period. That was pretty neat.
We hiked about 2 hours, with some breaks in there for picture taking, before we stopped for lunch.
The box lunches from SAS were crazy. They included
-       A salami/bologna and cheese sandwich
-       2 pieces of chicken. This is the more awkward thing to eat. It was basically 2 chicken legs and we are trying to eat this in the middle of the woods after we have been hiking. Not exactly the most appealing.
-       A hard boiled egg
-       A slice of a banana nut bread
-       An orange Capri sun
-       An apple
-       2 oreos

It was pretty interesting to try to eat this while flies are attacking you. We were stopped for about 30 minutes for lunch and then we headed back down the way we came. We couldn’t take the path in the loop because the forest part of it was closed. It is the dry season in Spain and the forest area was closed due to wild fires. You are not allowed to bring glass into the park because the glass acts as way for brush to catch fire. Our guide told us that they have fires everyday. When we looked out into the park you can see the fire lines that they had created in order to help control the fires when the happen. Another interesting fact about Grazelema is that the park is known for its hang gliding. They had the World Championship Hang Gliding competition. We didn’t see any hang gliders because it was really windy and it would have been dangerous for them. The one thing about the hike that I didn’t like was that I was so concentrated on where I was walking because I really didn’t feel like falling over a cliff, that I really didn’t get the chance to really take in my surroundings.
The bus on the way back was dead. Everyone was asleep except Jennifer and me. We had a nice conversation on the way back and got to know each other. On the way back to Cadiz, we spent about 30 minutes in the city of Grazelema. The first thing Jennifer and I did was grab some ice cream. We really didn’t have much time to do anything else. We just walked around and looked in a couple little shops. The bus driver drove passed at us on the way to the meeting point and I guess he recognized me and Jennifer and waved and honked the horn and drove right past us. I thought that was pretty funny.
We got back to Cadiz around dinnertime. The first thing I did was jump in the shower. Rosario and I went up to dinner before heading out to Cadiz. Rosario, Olivia, Kate, Jennifer and I took a taxi back down to the beach area. We walked along the vendors and chatted with a few. Most of them are Argentinean and they are much more friendly then the Spaniards. One couple we met tried to help me with my Spanish, but it didn’t really go all that great and I needed Rosario’s help. They had heard of LA, but the only thing that they knew about Tennessee was Jack Daniels. They were really sweet.
We ended up meeting Olivia and Kate, who had left us to get Sangria, at a little restaurant. We also tried the ham, which apparently Spain is known for. It was really greasy and cut really thin, but it was really good. We sat and chatted and people watched, but we eventually decided we should get back to the ship because it was about 2am. We caught a cab and headed back to the ship.