Hi all 😊
With this post I’m joining in at the Wednesday Walk challenge and Make me Smile challenge. That are hosted by @tattoodjay and @elizacheng every week on Wednesday.
Today I want to share with you my Walk with the Iznajar walking group to ”El Torcal de Antequera, Antequera Málaga province, Spain
A National Park. We walked it 8 May 2015.
Photos are taken with my Canon eos 550D and 18-135mm lens.
I guide you through my photos and follow the time stamps. I show you the ROCK FORMATIONS, (figures in the rock), THE VIEWS, THE NATURE AROUND US AND THE PLANTS AND WILDLIFE WE ENCOUNTERED on our walk.
Location: 
But first a little bit of information about this Unique Place.
This information you can find Here in English! (and Spanish)
THE FORMATION OF THE LANDSCAPE
The Natural Park of El Torcal is characterized by the impressive karstic landscape made of limestone.
Its formation is due to a process that has lasted several hundred million years. For this we must go back about 200 million years, when much of Europe and the Middle East were submerged under the sea of Tethys, begins a process of carbonated sedimentation, caused by the accumulation and deposit of skeletons and shells of marine animals at the bottom of the sea that will last about 175 million years. These sediments have been accumulating and compacting at different levels, forming the horizontal strata of thicknesses of thousands of meters.
Towards the middle Miocene, as a consequence of the thrust between the Iberian plates to the north of the Tethys Sea and the African to the south, the accumulated sediments are compressed, deformed and fractured until emerging in a slow and continuous process that still remains. Once the relief emerged, the prolonged action of meteorological agents such as water, ice and wind on the limestone, modeled the spectacular karst landscape of El Torcal de Antequera.
The presence of Man in El Torcal dates back to Prehistory, specifically the Middle Neolithic, finding archaeological sites in the Cueva del Toro.
Let’s start now our walk. Enjoy 😉
(it’s worth viewing till the end, I know there are lots of photographs, but we also saw a lot)
There are 4 entrance free routes you can take, In my photographs the ruta Verde, easiest one and the ruta Amarilla, the longer and medium difficulty route. We did the longer one 😉
Here we walk into the Park, you see part of our walking group. I follow as usual behind, because I take lots of photographs from all the details around me. Don’t worry I won’t show you all, but a nice selection.
Here you see clearly the rock formations, they are impressive. To think that they are sooooo old and were before under the Sea. Keep in mind we are very high up at this point.
The highest point in El Torcal is Camorro de las Siete Mesas (1336 m) in the Torcal Alto.
Some people even see figures in the rocks… do you?
We walked past this in the path, is it a fossil? Or just another rock formation, it was big… say 3 of my feet long. 🦶
Flowers everywhere as it was May and spring started.
Old trees with the amazing backdrop.
The top of the rocks… towering high above you as you walk by. An eagle… perhaps 🤔
Look what we found up here, I didn’t expect to find cows 🐮 they were following our group and I could take a few photographs.
Close up of the layers of rocks. This is large… so no close up needed.
We walk further and see all around us these magnificent rocks.
And more flowering bushes 🌸
Some cute succulents on the rocks and sandy paths.
In the distance we see everywhere rocks. The park is about 17 square kilometres large. So lots to see.
Even some trees high up, grabbing hold of the rocks and the cracks in between.
More flowers as we walk further.
Views towards the right.
Views on the left as we walk further on the path.
We encounter more and more flowers… what a luck 🌸
Our walking group going steady 😎
I’m just amazed at the beauty of the area. The rocks and nature…
More flowers and even wild orchids we encounter now.
View in the distance…
Lots of details and textures on and in the rocks. The moss that is growing… the different colours.
But, what do I see now…
Let’s zoom in a bit.
A mother and its young on top of the rock. 🐐
So cute ☺️
This next area is rather green, grass and bushes all around us.
Little purple flowers next to some moss on a rock.
We walk further.
So much to see…
More flowers.
Different rock formations.
Little buttercups and all kind of colours…
Tree branches with thick moss/leeches on.
The group is walking on.
Details in the layers.
Do we see figures sitting…? what do you think?
Do we see faces in the rocks?
Is that the FAMOUS INDIAN? Do you see it?
Let’s zoom in:
Yes, I see the Indian 😎the eyes, nose and mouth. Sitting on the edge…
More layered rocks.
The brown metal things (I use things if I don’t know the English word😉) are to protect the newly planted baby trees from the goats and cows. You can see they stood against them.
Sharing some more flowers with you all.
Wild orchids.
Tree roots on the rocks.
Here you see some broken layers…
We are reaching the end of our route. A little bit further we have a view point around us towards the coast and inland towards the beautiful city of Antequera.
A little further…
We are getting a glimpse of the view… layers of mountains in the background and the haziness.
WOW what a view we have up here!
Beautiful. You see the different colours from the farm lands below.
A little map from what you can see at this viewpoint.
As we walk towards the end of the route this is the view next to us, there is also a visitors centre and a restaurant with old antiques.
Let me show you…
Inside the restaurant we find:
A lot 🤓
Some details:
On the outside wall…
As you can see all antiques are farming tools and memorabilia.
And with this last photo of a cute detail from the restaurant, I finish our walk and end my #WednesdayWalk and #Makemesmile… post.
Hope you enjoyed my photographs of this beautiful walk in this part of the world 🤩
Thank you for looking and reading 😊 and if you liked my post, an upvote or re-blog is always welcome 🙏🏻
Any questions or comments, let me know. Always happy to help.
Have a great Wednesday all 😎
Grtz Jackie
Unless stated otherwise: All art and photos used in my posts are taken, created and owned by me. If you wish to use any of my photographs, please contact me first. As I have used some commercially myself. We don’t want that you or somebody else gets into trouble 😉 So please don’t use them without my consent.