Travel with Kevin and Ruth: The cave was a little difficult to find!

Searching on google maps for things to do in the area, I found a listing for a hike to a cave. If we're going for a hike, it's always nice to have a destination... usually either a cave, or a waterfall, or a viewpoint.

This cave looked like it might be really interesting, but some of the reviews mentioned that it wasn't easy to find. And that turned out to be true!

We were a bit lazy leaving the aire at Benalup-Casas Viejas. And then when we were ready to go, two other rigs beat us to the dump and fill station, and one of them took forever to do what they had to do. I lack patience when it comes to waiting for people at an RV dump station!

Anyhow, it was after 11:00am by the time we finally got out of there.

Scenery along the way.

Things are very green in this area.

And windy... lots and lots of wind generators.

We found a parking area beside the dam that makes the Guadalcacín Reservoir. Had some lunch, and then set off on the hike. The first part of the route was a bit difficult, but once we got to the top of the ridge there was an old farm track we could follow most of the way. It was only about 5 kms (3 miles) roundtrip in total.

Nice views of the reservoir.

Ruth, enjoying the view off the opposite side.

Another nice view.

I had the GPS coordinates of the cave, but the trail to actually get there was a bit difficult to find. Eventually we came to a fence, and had to find a place where someone had cut through the fence enough to be able to squeeze through!

There it is!

Ruth at the entrance to the Cueva del Higueral.

Inside, looking out.

Looking up.

Inside, there was another opening that led to a larger cavern...

And there was sunlight coming in from a hole in the roof.

Looking up.

We saw a couple of bats.

There was also some "ancient" cave graffiti... one was dated 1976! I joke, but I had read that there really is some ancient cave drawings, but they are so faint that you would not be able to find them unless you knew where you were looking.

View from the cave entrance.

Walking back from the cave, we found the proper entrance path that we could have used to begin with. It's not a commercial cave, and there are no signs or anything, but pervious visitors had marked the path with stone cairns.

From that path, we had a view in the other direction looking towards our next destination, the town of Arcos de la Frontera.