Take a Hike!
- Natalie Penry
- Feb 19
- 7 min read
Welcome Welcome Welcome! We are officially through the worst of the "winter weather" here in Menorca, meaning we're solidly sunny and above 60 most days 😊 My condolences to those braving the Midwestern Winters...
Since we are lucky lucky ducks with the weather, my friends & I have been feeling more motivated to spend time outside, getting to know the island via hiking. Prior to NALCAP, I would not have considered myself to be a big hike girly - there's a lot of dirt and bugs and inevitable grumpiness after getting lost - but they know what they're doing here. Hiking culture in Menorca hits different, for several reasons.
Today, lock in for a deeper explanation of what makes Menorca home to one of the most iconic historic hiking paths and a brief recap of a recent hike with some friends!
The Camà de Cavalls
Wrapping around the border of the island, the Camà de Cavalls ("the horse path") is Menorca's most famous hiking path. Every year, countless people walk the path, whether it be one of the 13 "stages" or the 185 kilometers in its entirety (also 3,072m of elevation gain!) It's notoriously difficult to complete in one go, especially since the terrain varies from paved roads to steep gullies, canals, and valleys. Despite the challenge, it remains a popular way to explore the vast examples of Menorca's beauty: beaches, mountains, farms, wetlands.
The path's history takes on a life of its own, almost like a ghost story. There's a lot of legend that accompanies the route, usually tracing back to the island's defense system in the 1300s. Nearly 300 years later, documents surfaced that referenced the border path as the "Camà de Cavallers" or "The Path of Knights." Menorca's history is rich with military history, with its location in the Mediterranean being a highly sought after conquest by many different empires/kingdoms. It makes sense, then, that this path would have been military in nature, allowing for guards to go 'round the coast, or even just watchtower to watchtower, on an established path to help keep the island safe from conquerors or pirates, like Barbarrosa! In the centuries since, the Camà de Cavalls has remained significant for its ease in facilitating communication or giving access to shores/beaches. Public support for the path allows all stages of it to remain open and accessible to all, creating the hiking and biking trail so well-known today.
As I mentioned earlier, the Camà de Cavalls is split into 13 trails, though more seasoned athletes can shrink this to as little as 6 stages (biking ranges from 6-3, trail running from 8-4). In the 13 Stage variation, each section averages 14.23km, or 8.8 miles - doable, but doing it 13 times in a row will definitely wear you down...personally, I haven't made any plans to marathon hike yet, but I'm trying my best to get to different sections of the trail across the weeks I have left!
For the intense among us, you can hike or bike the trail entirely, working with Camà de Cavalls 360 to set up your journey logistics - by my calculations, hiking the entire path with rest stops will take a very short 12 days and a very cheap $1420! Bargain! For the truly intense among us, you can do the Trail Menorca CDC: an all-out race around the Camà de Cavalls, starting and ending in Ciutadella. While I realize that doesn't sound too crazy, I need you to understand that only 1-2 racers finish every year, and you're doing this slightly insane route in under 40 hours. That's over 4.6 kilometers an hour (2.85 mph) in rugged, oftentimes unmarked terrain, assuming you don't sleep for two days straight. Again, doable, but you're gonna be in a world of hurt. Best of luck to this year's competitors, I'm sure I'll be back with updates in May when I see the sole finisher close to lunacy!
Walk Two Moons
As I mentioned earlier, the weather here has been steadily improving from the not-so-severe cold plunge we took a few weeks back. As such, many a Menorcan finds themself out and about on the hiking trails nowadays; my friends and I are no exception. My group of friends decided on a simply lovely brunch and hike on a small subsection on the Camà de Cavalls, aiming to walk from Es Castell to Cala Rafalet - Friends of the Podcast will remember Cala Rafalet from previous posts, one of the gorgeous coves we frequented in the fall!
Brunch was another symbol of the changing seasons - not from Winter to Spring, but from Dead Season to Tourist Season: one of our favorite cafés, Margarita, reopened last Friday after closing in early December! The food was super yummy, of course, with some of the best coffee on the island (I can't really speak to that, but my friends assure me that it's true). After a quick bus ride to Es Castell, it was time for a hike!
While the concept of the hike hadn't been my idea, I had suggested this particular route, and thus, I became the de facto cartographer for this trip...in hindsight, not the best move, since my mentality was "follow the footprint stones, but backwards" and that had us inadvertently following the wrong trail for a hot minute. Luckily, we managed to get back on track with little disruption and officially joined the Camà de Cavalls. When hiking the CDC, the signposts are marked with the Polish flag - not really, of course, but it's a white stripe over a red stripe, often painted onto stones, trees, or signposts. Every now and then, a more detailed map or arrow will appear, but the vast majority of this section of the trail is following little marks and using common sense to heed to the path others have worn down before you.
We passed through some adorable little farms full of sheep - at which Rachel informed us that if we saw a sheep upside down, we needed to intervene in order to save the sheep's life - and came upon some quintessential Menorcan pueblos. These are all less than 5 miles from my apartment, and yet, I'd never have known they to existed, let alone visited them without the CDC. In fact, a recurring theme throughout this hike was really getting to know the land we live on and the hidden gems that vale la pena, so to speak.
Eventually, the path took us off the sidewalks and onto what can only be described as a backyard wall walk: a rocky, mossy path between two 5-ish feet walls, a little corridor of sorts. This was the path that horses and soldiers would've taken to transport news or supplies all those hundreds of years ago, yet untouched by modern conveniences like roads or pavement. While I could kind of see over the walls, more often, my gaze was on the rocky terrain beneath my feet; I'm happy to report that we all avoided sprained ankles, never a given with this group ;)
It's not really a hike until you get good and lost, which happened right on cue about halfway to Cala Rafalet. The detour wasn't terrible, we did get to see some cows, though I'm still puzzled at how easy it was to stumble onto someone's private hunting ground - that's the kind of thing I would expect barbed wire fences around or something...regardless, we made our to the gated portion of the Camà de Cavalls, meaning that every twenty yards or so, a wooden gate awaited us in the classic Menorcan fashion. I failed to get a picture of any of the fifteen million gates we had to pass through (why so many gates???) but I do have this mini-magnet as a visual aid. Enjoy.
Finally, a brief two hours after we started walking, we made it to Cala Rafalet. As I've said before, this is one of my favorite spots in Menorca, a truly lovely inlet. None of us ended up getting in the water since the waves were a little rough, but it was heavenly to sit with the sun on our faces for a while, just reconnecting with the island and with nature again. Days like these really serve as reminders for how amazing this opportunity has been - I consider myself very fortunate to be living my own version of La Vie Boheme, and I try to take advantage of it every day. Four months, four years, four decades from now, I will still be grateful for my time on in Menorca.
Eventually, our afternoon in the sun needed to wind down. Call us cop outs, but most of my friends and I decided to get a ride back instead of reverse hiking five miles back to Es Castell, to then catch a bus to Mahón. Zoë & Sam caught a ride with family; Jack, Liv, Rachel & I opted to call a taxi, since the buses won't return to Cala Rafalet for another month or so. Naturally, we needed one last little hiccup in our day...The town of S'Algar, the closest civilization to Cala Rafalet, is about twenty minutes away from Mahón, so when forty minutes had passed and there was no sign of a cab, we were beginning to think the taxi company had forgotten about us. The very nice British Ex-Pats who live across the street from the bus stop did come to check on us and offer to take us as far as San Luis, so we had the beginnings of a plan...still, it felt like a massively dodged bullet when our chariot finally rounded the corner and took us safely back home.
This was the first intentional exploration I'd done of the Camà de Cavalls, despite being here for over four months. While I think I'm still a ways away from speed-running the 185km in less than two days, it really has spurred an interest in hiking more and seeing more of this magical little island. Really, this is such an incredible resource to have at my fingertips, like the Monon, but on steriods. I'd be remiss if I didn't take advantage of it, and hopefully, as tourist season begins to blossom and grow, I'll be able to get to some different towns and different CDC access points. Once the buses start back up again, I'll be a whole new woman :)
That's all for this week! I've got a very exciting weekend planned (a road to hell with a railroad line 👀) and some mini-adventures coming up in the next couple of weeks. After our slow and sleepy winter, things are picking up here!
Sending strength to those warriors who need to shovel their driveways today...if you listen really closely, you can hear us toasting you from the beaches here ;)
¡Hasta Luego!
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