Oh, hen !

Andalucía, this southernmost region of Spain, is famous for its "pueblos blancos" - the white towns and villages that scatter the mountain sierras. One of those towns is Ojén (pronounced "oh, hen.") It's near the coastal resort of Marbella, which means it's not particularly far from where I live, but for some reason I've never visited it until today. Driving home from a meeting in Marbella (I was taking the route over the mountain range, the Sierra Blanca) I decided to pop into Ojén and see what it was like.

It's not a very large town, and so it didn't take me much more than an hour and a half to walk around its quaint, steep streets. I was given a personal tour of the little "mill museum," seeing how past generations used giant millstones to press their olive oil and huge copper stills to make a famous aniseed brandy that the town is still known for.

I also went to see the neolithic caves, that were used as places of shelter for families and livestock in ancient times. You can still see parts of the stalactites that formed the caves in the past. Ojén has recently restored a couple of them, putting in benches and spotlights so that they can be used as lookout spots with wonderful views over the town and out to the Mediterranean.

Speaking of lookout spots, the mountains behind Ojén, the Sierra Blanca or "white mountain range," have some high peaks and viewpoints with amazing vistas that stretch all the way across the sea to Africa. As I had some time available, I decided to make a detour on my way home and take a walk to the two closest viewpoints. One of them had a view over the town of Ojén and onward over the mountains to the Costa del Sol and the Mediterranean Sea. The other had a view down to Marbella and out over the sea to the mountains of Morocco in the distance.

It was a pleasant walk there, among the mountain peaks. I met a French couple who were also walking up to see the view, and when I arrived at the furthest "mirador," I had a long chat with an elderly English couple who had walked all the way up there to enjoy the view and a rest in the sunshine. All in all, an enjoyable day of exploring, before heading home to Alhaurín again.

We've walked a thousand kilometres

At the beginning of this year (click here to read more) I began counting the kilometres I was covering while walking the dogs. A national campaign here in Spain, called "Yo doy mis pasos - I donate my steps" is seeking to raise a million euros to help research into the causes and possible cures for multiple sclerosis.

Almost six months have gone by, we've been faithfully counting our steps every day, and today we reached a big milestone: we've clocked up and donated one thousand kilometres! (That's about 620 miles, or a hundred miles every month.)

A friend of mine, a fellow arthritis sufferer, asked me why I do it. "You live with daily pain," she said. "Why on earth would you want to walk so much?" 

And it's true that it would probably be easier to see myself as an "invalid" or a victim of circumstances and add walking to the list of things that I'm "no longer able" to do. Things like unplugging the iron after I've used it, or removing the ring pull lid from a can of cat food; pulling the washing machine forwards to vacuum behind it, or wrestling the double duvet into its duvet cover... 

No! There are already too many things that arthritis has made me unable to do, and so I'm not going to add walking to the "no longer able" list. There's nothing heroic about it; I simply see it as "walking in the opposite spirit." If the dogs and I can clock up and donate kilometres to help in the battle against MS, I'm going to take advantage of every opportunity to do that... and it helps to keep me mobile, too.

There's nothing too impressive about a German Shepherd, or a Labrador or English Setter, walking a thousand kilometres. Hugo, Nelson and Buba are fairly big dogs, with long legs. The pack member who has impressed me the most is little Bonnie, who's a cross between a Pekinese and a Chihuahua. Whether we're climbing mountains, crossing rivers or hiking through forests, Bonnie keeps up valiantly on those short little chihuahua legs. (Can you spot her in the photo above?)

I've never been a fan of small dogs. It's just my personal preference that a dog should be bigger than a cat.  And when you've got a cat as big as my Teddi, that kind of raises the bar even more.  Bonnie weighs 2 kilos less than Teddi, but she weighs 2 kilos more than Tobi, so I guess that technically makes her "bigger than a cat." We're so used to seeing chihuahuas being carried around like accessories in women's handbags, but Bonnie's feistiness and stamina have gone a long way to redeeming my opinion of them. She's living proof that you don't need to let your physical limitations (even those short chihuahua legs) stop you from making life an adventure and doing things that others might think you can't or shouldn't do.

Now that we've achieved our first thousand kilometres, our next goal is to complete another thousand before Christmas. Yes, Bonnie and me too.

Striding forwards...

At the start of a new week, I'm feeling encouraged by all the tasks that have been accomplished over the past ten days. At the beginning of last week, I was connecting over the internet with my colleague Andrea, in Hong Kong, as we worked on preparing the camp teachings and activities for our Planting Together outreach teams in West Africa this summer. I've also been working on writing a little quiet time booklet that will help the young people to spend time alone with God during their weeks in Senegal and the first few days back home after their trip. The booklet is almost completed now, and is likely to be finished over the next few days.

Then, in the second half of last week, my colleague Patti arrived from Barcelona; we had planned in five intensive workdays together to re-work the training material for the Spanish language coaching workshop that we hold in Barcelona every February. Here too, we were encouraged by the real progress we could make with the material, and are looking forward to finishing it over the coming few weeks. The course begins at the start of the autumn, not long after we get back from Planting Together, and then the onsite workshop is held at the beginning of next year.

As well as making big strides forward with the training materials, Patti and I also did some physical striding forwards, as we took the dogs for pleasant shady walks in the nearby woods. I was trying out some new trekking poles (walking sticks) that I'd bought with my birthday money, as someone had told me that they could help ease the strain on my arthritic knee joints. 

The mountain range near my home town is called the Sierra de Mijas and there are almost no sources of water in it (all the stream beds are dry) except for two natural springs. Past generations got their own drinking water there, and also built fountains and troughs so that their livestock had a place to drink. It was kind of fun to combine our work discussions with forest walks to the Fuente de Jarapalos and the Fuente de Acebuche, and the dogs seemed to enjoy the exercise too.

Our biggest challenge yet...

I mentioned in my previous post that I'm a big fan of waterfalls and had made a list of nearby falls that it might be possible to visit this summer. The little town of Tolox, only 40 km inland and upland from here is well known for the many falls in the surrounding mountains, the Sierra de las Nieves (the snowy mountains.) 

One of these, the Cascada Charco de la Virgen (photo above left) is only a few kilometres from the town and is a popular spot for family hiking and swimming in summer time. Guessing that it would be quieter midweek than at the weekend, we decided to make a trip there today (and I can work on my curriculum writing project tomorrow, instead.)

Someone suggested that we add on an extra couple of kilometres and climb a little higher to the Salto de la Rejía, which is the highest waterfall in the whole province of Malaga, descending in three stages of 67, 28 and 15 metres. (Photo below left shows the first and second falls.)

I wasn't sure I'd be able to do that sort of ascent; there seemed to be too many challenges making it seem out of reach: my bronchiectasis (lung condition) means that I'm always out of breath when walking uphill, my arthritis means that I get sore feet if I walk too far, and the fibromyalgia means that anything too energetic causes kind of a burning pain in my muscles.  But the 67 metre Rejía falls are only one and a half kilometres further on than the 18 metre Virgen falls, so it seemed worth giving it a try; they were along the same route and I knew I could always turn back if the ascent was too much for me.

The thing about waterfalls is that they're nearly always a little bit off the beaten track, so it's a good opportunity to take the dogs with us and let them get plenty of exercise out in the open air. This time, I took Buba, Bonnie and Nelson with me.... even though Bonnie's physical limitations (those short chihuahua legs) raised similar questions to my own, concerning her ability to last the course.

I needn't have worried: as she's already proved on previous walks, Bonnie rose to the challenge, valiantly hiking nine kilometres, swimming across rivers and climbing to the region's highest waterfall like a champion. She's a real example of not letting our physical limitations tell us that things are impossible for us.

In fact those "only one and a half kilometres further" turned out to be quite a bit more strenuous than the previous ones. There were times when I simply didn't have enough strength to make it up the slope, but Nelson, who's like a mountain goat, was happy to assist me. I would put his lead on him at the steep parts and he would help to pull me up.

We saw some real mountain goats (much to the dogs' interest) and also a fake one, as a statue of the "cabra montes" marks the start of the Sierra de las Nieves nature reserve.

The uphill parts were interspersed with more level stretches, so the walk was attainable, and it was really worth it to get to La Rejía and realise that we'd climbed to the (middle of) the highest waterfall in the province. None of our future waterfall visits will be as demanding as today's experience and we feel rightfully proud of ourselves.

Remembering how the walking first started - click here - it's amazing to look back a couple of years and see how my dog "pack" has grown from one to four, and my ability to walk has grown from ten minutes a day to an hour a day.

From the source to the sea...

I've always been a big fan of the natural beauty of waterfalls - whether it's huge falls like Niagara Falls in Canada and Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, or whether it's just smaller falls like the ones we saw on our trip to Barranco Blanco this month. The first time I went to South Africa in 1993, we clambered our way to at least half a dozen waterfalls, and another half dozen when we had our first Zimbabwe outreach in 1995.

Andalucía, this southernmost part of Spain, has a plentiful supply of waterfalls and so I've made sort of a "bucket list" of ones that are fairly near by and could be visited this summer. Today was our first trip and it was to the Fuente de los 100 Caños (Fountain of a Hundred Pipes), the source of the Guadalhorce River. 

It's not strictly a waterfall in the usual sense of the word, although I guess that at some point the snowmelt bursting out of the mountain probably did cause a small cascade. Back in the 1980s, someone had the idea of creating a monument to mark the spot of the river's source, and so they built a fountain that channelled the natural spring of water through a hundred pipes. (Nowadays there are actually 101 pipes!)

From there, the river begins meandering through farmlands and olive groves as it makes its way down to the sea. I've often walked the last few kilometres of the Guadalhorce, as it reaches the Mediterranean and spills into the sea at our favourite dog beach. So it was kind of fun to walk the first few kilometres of the river's course, listening to the trickling water as we made our way along the shady river bank, close to sun scorched olive groves.

It's close to the little town of Villanueva del Trabuco and as we drove through the town, we noticed it was market day, same as back home in Alhaurín. So we took some time to wander around the market and explore the town a bit.

From there we drove on to the next, even smaller village of Villanueva del Rosario, and went to check out some of the unusual mountain scenery at the Hondonero area, just above the village. We passed near another river's source - the start of a stream called the Chorro, which is one of the tributaries of the Guadalhorce, and then we drove higher to a spot with some unusual mountain formations. It was a very enjoyable day.

A new decade begins...

I've entered a new decade since writing my previous post, and it felt kind of strange to realise that, of all the places I've lived in the world, Spain is the only country where I've celebrated two "new decade" birthdays. (Unless you count Scotland, where I lived when I turned 10 and 20.) My 30th was in Austria and my 40th was in South Africa.

Most of my friends were travelling, so I didn't really do much celebrating on the actual birthday, but various celebrations (a meal, a coffee, an ice cream...) are still planned for the coming month. I also received many messages, cards and even funny videos (like the one above) with birthday greetings, so I didn't feel forgotten.

As well as being the month of my "big" birthday, May also seems to have marked the arrival of summer here in Andalucía, and we've found ways to get outdoors to enjoy the sunshine and the open air. One day, a public holiday, twenty of us from church went to the lake district of Ardales, which has always been a favourite spot of mine, with its stunning views and deep turquoise water. We went for a pleasant hike through the forest, and then had a picnic on an outlook with beautiful views over the lakes. I had taken two of the dogs with me, and I also went down for a walk at the water's edge, so that they could have a swim.

I was actually supposed to be in Sweden during this first week of May - to teach on the PCYM (child and youth ministry school) there. My friend who is leading the school is just one day younger than me, so our big birthdays were on the same weekend, and we'd planned to celebrate there in Sweden.

However, their student numbers were lower than foreseen and so, instead of flying to Sweden for the week, I taught the group every day over the internet. It was an interesting experience to be teaching in Sweden while sitting in Spain in my own living room!

I was teaching on various leadership topics - including how to motivate and mentor teenagers, how to raise up godly leaders for youth ministry, and how to resolve conflicts in ministry team contexts. It actually snowed in Sweden one of the days that we had class, but as I was here in Spain, it meant that I escaped the chill and was able to take advantage of some free hours to get out and enjoy the sunshine. One day we went to Barranco Blanco, a beauty spot that I discovered last summer, where multiple waterfalls along the River Alaminos were the setting for an old shampoo advert that you probably saw on TV in the 1980s. All in all, my birthday week turned out to be both fruitful and fun.

One step at a time...

Last autumn, when we first became a four dog pack, I noticed that little Bonnie was usually bringing up the rear, often many metres behind the others. I used to feel sorry for her, thinking that her short chihuahua legs were making it challenging for her to keep up with the big dogs. 

Then, as the weeks went by, I noticed an interesting pattern. It's as if the little dog has an internal GPS that tells her when we have reached the half-way point of our route. (I could show you on a map where the phenomenon usually happens!) Suddenly, she is out in front, leading the pack as she trots along at an impressive pace on the homeward stretch. She seems to get a new burst of energy once she knows that our destination is in sight.

I guess it's the same for all of us; if our vision or the thing we hope for, is within reach, it's much easier to work towards it with a high level of motivation. There's a lesson there about goal setting. No matter how "out there" our long term dream or goal is, we would do well to break it down into attainable steps along the way. It doesn't matter whether your goal is to be a better parent, to grow closer to God, to lose weight or to learn a new skill. Like Bonnie, our motivation will be higher when we know we don't have much further to go to the next milestone along the way.