oh, by the way...we're hiking up a giant rock

Two hours south of Valencia there is a moderately sized touristy city called Calpe.  It is known for the enormous rock that is located in the bay area amongst its perfect beaches, marinas, and tourist activities.  

It's called the Penon de Ifach and it's almost 400m tall.  It's now been turned into a nature park and, for good reason, only a limited number of people are allowed to climb to the summit at one time.  

We were told that the hike would be difficult, and I was still unaware of the fact that we were indeed planning on going all the way to the top of this thing.  The first part wasn't too bad- a long inclined, switchback path.  Then we arrived at the cave.  I couldn't see a thing while walking through it, there were ropes on either side to hold on to because the floor was really jagged and uneven rocks.  When I exited the cave, I saw what looked to be a "path" but really it was just a ledge on the side of this mountain with a couple ropes to hold onto.  I was pretty nervous at this point, but of course kept going.  

It was the craziest hiking I have ever done, but it was all worth it in the end when we got to the summit and saw the amazing panoramic view of Calpe from 400m in the air.  We hung out up there for awhile, trying not to think about the journey back down.  We had a visitor all the way at the top of this mountain- a cat who was very eager to eat some of our food.  Not sure why or how that cat was hanging out at the very top of this rock, but it was definitely well-fed after we left.  

After we made it back down the mountain, it was time to find the parade that takes place in Calpe every year called Moros y Cristianos.  As the name suggests, it is basically a fiesta celebrating the history of the Moors and Christians in Spain.  There's marching bands, floats, and people dressed in elaborate (very expensive) costumes from the Moorish and Christian histories.  There were people dressed as pirates, the Knights Templar, and other different Arabic outfits.  It's hard to explain the costumes they were wearing, and my pictures don't really do them justice.  They were basically the most detailed articles of clothing I had ever seen.  

group picture on top of the world