Marbella 4 Day Walking Day 2 - The Verde Route

Today was the second day of this year's Marbella 4 Day Walking. I am doing the 20km routes, along with my walking friend Jane...

...and probably over 1000 others. Yesterday's walks across the 3 distances had a total of 2307 registered walkers. This was the description:

"Marbella is famous for its big villa’s, and you will get a glimpse of some of them on this route. The neighbourhoods are spacious and green. In contrast, you will see some ‘wilder’ nature on other parts of the route. You can recover your strength in the recreational area with the Indian cabins and livestock after some steep climbs.

You will return through the city centre to the Plaza del Mar, with just enough adrenaline in your body for the fourth walking day."

As you can see, they have swapped this from being the Day 3 walk to the Day 2 walk.

This was our 20km route:

These are the overall stats:

And this the elevation profile...

A total of 5 ups and downs (with a few other bumps), which I found hard in the sun. Here are a few photos:

We had some live music at the start today.

As the first few 20km walkers left, the queue for the start went down the street.

We had a walk through the old town to start.

We passed among rows of houses, with views of the hills beyond.

The first checkpoint came quite early.

Here we had a choice of an alternative route along a narrow stony path. I took it.

From the path I got good views of the Monte Paraiso com munity and golf club.

We passed this yesterday, but today we went the other way, up the hill.

We climbed up into the hills.

This bougainvillea is very colourful.

 

Our second off-road stretch took us along some of the Pinar de Nagüeles botanical path through Aleppo pine trees and other Mediterranean plants.

At checkpoint 2 I got a call from Joyce, during which Jane caught me up.

SWe walked together along the last bit of off-road path. It was (mostly) downhill now.

We went through another bit of green space - the Parque Nagüeles, where we found Indian cabins... 

 

...and food and refreshments for sale, but we didn't stop to eat, although I stopped for 5 minutes to catch my breath while Jane carried on.

Down to the front once more.

I met up with Kim, who walked the last 1.2 mile with me. The beer at the end was most welcome.

The afternoon party was now getting into full swing...

...as Joyce arrived back.

The dancing continued, but not for me.

Tonight we had an al fresco bring-your-own meal on the roof of the Princesa Playa Hotel, where most of the others were staying.

It was hard walking today and we have a big climb tomorrow. Jane and I were both wondering if we would be able to manage it or whether to have a rest day doing only the 10km route. We'll see how we feel in the morning.

You can see more details of my route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos and some videos here on Flickr.