It was not enough to follow the signs

Last Monday was one of those days that will stay in our memories for a while. It's difficult to be forgotten as there was a significant emotional impact... negative and positive. More positive than negative, as we laughed a lot at our little misfortune adventure.

A little background: We went to stay with a friend of ours from Sunday until Tuesday. It was a short trip, but perfect to change the daily routine and relax from the hectic schedule we had in the earlier weeks. The place she lives is about an hour's drive from us, a place from where you can reach the purest hiking paths in the mountains quickly.

While we were spending the Sunday afternoon at her parent's home, an uncle of that friend also stopped by. His hobby is hiking with a group of other people who do the same. They explore the nearby areas and check the lands of those owners who can't go there often. If there is a little work to be done, like picking the olives or almonds, they used to do it, especially when he was younger. He was the right person to ask where we could spend our Monday, close to water (river or lake).

He suggested one place with a little river. Cool, we loved the idea as we could refresh ourselves in the water, however, it was far away. In the end, we ditched that option and decided to go hiking in a place close to Petrel - the village where they live. That is why our choice was Xorret de Catí Natural Space.

We slept well, had breakfast, packed some fruits and a little bottle of water for each of us. Our friend navigated us to find the starting point of our hiking adventure, which was located on the road between the villages of Petrel and Castalla. It is an abandoned hotel, a place which was famous in its time but in the end, it closed.

The building of the hotel is still there, and the infrastructure around it is well preserved. It doesn't mean that it is frequently visited, especially in summer with the heat. We were the only ones who parked there. Just one bike passed there and two ladies. The rest was just wilderness.

Still there, in the parking lot of the abandoned hotel, we checked the map and the hiking routes we could choose from. The easiest one was the green route, just 1 km long. The blue path was 5 kilometres long and would last for 1 hour and 30 minutes to finish it. It seemed too short for us.

The red one, "El Calafate" is what we have decided to take. It was 9 kilometres long and it was supposed we would finish it in two hours and 30 minutes. It seemed splendid. The only danger was to get confused and walk the black route, called "La Rabosa" which was 17 kilometres long. The time it takes is four hours and 30 minutes. That would not be a good idea to do, with these temperatures, in July. So, the red was the perfect one!!

Under no circumstances could we deviate to the black route. My friend couldn't stand it, for reasons of her delicate health. And we are not in shape to walk 17 kilometers, in the middle of summer.

We started our adventurous hiking experience, so confident. My husband and friend were guiding and I was the photographer lady. Click here and there, and then I always had to hurry up to reach them. The path was so wide in the beginning, like an avenue in nature. ;)

I remember picking this yellow flower in this place. It had a scent that reminded me of some moments from my childhood, when we walked in one pine tree forest, in the Adriatic Sea.

I looked back sometimes and the abandoned hotel area was left behind. From here we could see just that mountain that was slowly getting smaller.

We went slightly uphill and downhill, following the main path that made a few curves into left and right. Or right... and left? Who knows anymore? 😂

My friend, who was born in this area but later went to study, work and live in other places of Spain was our guide. Though she didn't walk here for many, many years... and she tends to mix up what is left and right... 😅

The views of the valleys and mountains were beautiful, we enjoyed every single moment and walked with courage in this wild nature. We didn't use navigation, as there was no network coverage at all. Sometimes we used the photo of the image you also saw at the beginning of my post and always looked for the signs by the path. A red line? - we were fine. At least we thought that.

This was one of the cool moments when a hunting blind appeared in front of us. There was no way we could miss the opportunity to go up there and see the landscape.

When you are inside the hunting blind, you can watch the landscape through three windows, like this one. It looks like a painting on the wall.

Let's stick our heads and hands through one of the windows to get a better view.

Greetings from there 👋

Did the wooden hunting blind get drunk or did my weight influence it to be crooked like this?

The crucial moment in our excursion happened when we took this narrow side path instead of continuing with the wide one. It was marked with the red line so we were sure that it was the right one. I still don't understand how we could... how we could get lost with so many signs on the trees and rocks. Here, we still didn't know that we were not anymore on our chosen path.

It all seemed fine and the views were superb. Lovely mountains in various blue/grey shades, right?
I also made a short video from this spot however, I knew I had to continue and not stop too many times.

The next stage of our hike was much more difficult. We went down for a long, long time on paths like this, which in the end didn't even look like paths anymore... The roots of the trees helped us not to fall, but there were moments when I was unsure where I should step.

Interestingly, I was still finding marks on the trees that assured us we were going on the good route, on the red one which had to last for two and a half hours... the strange thing was that we already walked for two hours. 😁

A little bridge? It was crossed, so we avoided going in that direction.

A black little line on this sign? 😳 Did we... did we deviate at the hardest route? Nah, it can't be, we still believed we were fine.

A bit exhausted we stopped by one complex that we saw by the path. I searched for a water source and a place where to rest. This was the place where we realized for the first time seriously that we were not on the red path we wanted to take.

The guides trying to get network coverage and see where we were... I was still playing the role of photographer lady. 😂

Btw, we joked for the last hour before arriving at this place that if we got lost what would we do? My friend remembered a movie when a plane crashed in the mountains and those who survived had to... you know, they had to find some food and... Uh, I can't even tell that now.

Then we imagined helicopters and rescue teams who would save us, all without realizing we were lost. In the end, when my husband and friend said we were indeed on the wrong path it became serious. We had no enough water. It was already midday.

I felt a slight panic overcome me.

It was time to talk to someone and get back some peace...

Think what would be the best to do now... Go back on the same path we arrived here? Impossible - we would not remember the exact paths and we were descending for a very long time. It would mean hiking uphill all that stage, and it would kill us.

Trying to find the red route? That would be good, but we were on the black route and we had no clue when we missed the real path.

Call someone to come to pick us up here? Would be good but none of us had network coverage.

There was one sign that said "Evacuation route". Throughout this whole situation, we didn't stop joking and laughing, so it was a melting pot of mixed emotions. In moments of seriousness, we made the decision to go to the main road which leads to the Petrel-Castalla road. If we could reach it, then maybe someone would pass there, a bicycle or a car who could pick us up or one of us and take us to the village or our parked car. Also, we hoped to get to an area where we would have a phone or data connection and call my friend's father, to come to pick us up. Our water supply ran out, and walking for an additional few hours in that heat would be really challenging.

We simply don't know how it happened (I think that the one I talked to in that little chapel heard me and sent help as there is no other explanation) but approaching the main road we saw a grey SUV, a Toyota. Two children and their father who has land nearby were heading there. 😱

We waved vigorously but at the same time, we couldn't believe it was for real to see someone there. Apart from the biker and two ladies that we saw where the abandoned hotel was, a few hours earlier, we hadn't met anyone.

He understood from the first moment what was our issue. He asked did we got lost hahaha. He was so kind to take us to our parked car (the parking lot of the hotel) and while he was driving he said that we were not the first people he helped out in the same way. We felt so relieved... I didn't know how to thank him enough that he appeared there by miracle at the moment we needed help.

The funniest thing is that he asked us where we came from... My friend, embarrassed, admitted that she was from the village and that it was a shame to get lost in "home" territory. But our "saviour" understood that this can happen when you haven't hiked this way in decades and that it's not enough to just follow the signs. You need to know this area well so that you don't get lost in the forest on all those small paths.