25 years ago I saw a picture of a stunning natural feature in an obscure magazine. I got in my rental car and set off, not really knowing where I was going, driving on a road that became more and more scary . Narrow, no guardrail and parts of the road had just disappeared. I clenched my teeth and carried on. And was it worth it! Around a bend, and there it was. Garganta del Chorro .Incredibly high and narrow with a river at the bottom What really got to me, was the remnants of a wooden "walkway" more than halfway up the side of the ravine, culminating in a spindly "hanging bridge". Later I found out that it was created for king Alfonso XIII to observe the huge dams that were constructed as a water reservoir for the the Malaga Province. Therefore the name "Caminito del Rey". And for years I just came back here again and again. Every time it took my breath away. With the landscape around it, the enchanted forest and the wide, blue dams. Very few people seemed to know about it, mostly daredevil climbers. But as with Picasso, who lived his first 8 years in Malaga, but never came back, the powers that be found out that there was money to be had. So they restored the caminito which had been lethal to try walking on.
And suddenly tour operators demand up to 275.- euros for the "unique experience" of walking through the gorge. I just fear the typical consequences of too many people discovering it, and then the magic disappears. As has happened so sadly often in other places...