On Saturday a bunch of us went on a long walk that took us to the top of a mountain called La Concha. All told, we covered about 17km over pretty unforgiving terrain, often in single file. I suppose you should work on your fitness before such an undertaking but I thought it best to prepare by sitting on the sofa with my father in law and watching Bear Grylls on the telly!
Bear Grylls tells us that drinking urine is a convenient substitute for coffee when out in the wilderness and there is nowhere to plug in a kettle (and of course it has no caffeine!) and that eating rabbit droppings is just a simple question of mind over matter: just pop them in your mouth and imagine they´re maltesers!
As it happens our adventure went pretty smoothly and we didn´t even need to resort to any of these extreme survival measures. Instead we had a chance to enjoy stunning views of the Mediterranean and he ridge leading to La Concha offers a bird´s eye view of Concepción Reservoir inland of Marbella where I have spend many a happy hour paddling around in my float tube. It was possible to see in the far distance the snow-topped mountains of the Sierra Nevada and Mulhacen, Spain´s highest peak, and to the south the northern coastline of Morocco.
What a day! We ended up with few bruises and scratches and, unfortunately, some stitches for my friend Heike who had a nasty cut on her leg but, all in all, it was a very successful adventure. Considering that none of us even had to resort to eating slugs, or spending the night in the hollowed-out carcass of a camel, we can breathe collective sighs of relief.
It could have been worse. Ask Bear Grylls if you don´t believe me!
Here I am with on the top of La Concha with Chloe Quinlan who is one of our sixth form and a driving force behind our fund-raising adventure.
La Concha is the spectacular backdrop to many images of Marbella and Puerto Banús. I took this picture from the deck of my own gin palace. (actually I made that bit up. I pinched the picture from http://www.andalucia.com/marbella/fascinating-facts-3.htm)
Concepción Reservoir
Crunchy and distinctively flavoured: “merde du lapin à la Grylls” Unfortunately I had no image of my own to stick in so I stole this from: http://www.arkive.org/rabbit/oryctolagus-cuniculus/image-A7192.html
fishydreams 
Hello Paul. I hope that all is well with you and your family. I look forward to your next writings. Take care. Cody in Texas
Hi Cody. Many thanks for your message and apologies for my delay in replying. Things are very well here thanks but, between one thing and another I have had little time to look at the blog. How are things in Texas? Are you still fly fishing? I was pleased to hear that you were taking on the challenge of fly fishing. Let me know how you get on. We could always do a little feature here on the blog! All the best, Paul