Montserrat National Park

Last Thursday was Fiesta Nacional de Espana or Christopher Columbus day marking his arrival in Las Americas aka a public holiday! 

P was back for a few days so that meant trips outside the city. During the summer on the first day of his motorbike camping trip, his route took him through Montserrat National Park. He made a note to go back at some point. I just like to be outdoors, listening to that buzz of nature’s silence so I was game to go. Living in a city, you don’t get much of break from lights and noise.  

Buddha and Wicca

We got there about 30 minutes before sunset (my gym was open. It felt great leaving early and getting back at the usual time I leave. I wanna keep that up). The park’s about a 45-50 min drive/ride from the city. I’ve only ever passed the mountains from the other side near the monastery, but there was no mistaking Montserrat’s mountain peaks along the motorway. The parks entrance’s just off the motorway and is open 24/7. Convenient for us as we always seem to start hikes late afternoon. After asking in the tourist info shop, what time they close (open 24/7) or if there’s a car park barrier at night (nope) we chose the shortest hike vs light, a 45 min round trip to El Refugio. I’ve no idea if we found it, but I would love to go back exploring more trails and the villages located in the park. I think you can camp in the park as heading back we passed a group loaded with rucksacks and headlamps and you can rock climb/abseil as we passed a party with rock climbing ropes as we set off. All doggies met were happy to say hi!

Making out faces on the way up. Mr Miyagi and 2 Monkey Face.

We hiked until the rocks were lit with faint moonlight and so clouds low we were in them. I think we may have found El Refugio however we channeled our inner Indiana Jones climbing up a small gully in the dark. The rocks were warm from the day’s heat which was kinda comforting against the darkness. And against the rock face that looked like a nose with some serious nose hair going on at the top. That gave me a scare when I saw it! Descending back down, voices we heard at the top caught up. 2 hikers with headlamps who were kind enough to ask if we were okay without a touch, implying we can hike back with them if we wanted. After saying thank you, no thank you, we have a torch/flashlight both decided we’ve got infrared vision and speed along the trail ahead. Kinda. Just crazy enough to hike in the dark. When the roots and rocks back got too much, we used the torch (for some reason I keep a small one in my rucksack.). Back on the main path we switched back to carrot infra red vision until me skidding nearly landed smack on my bum. Hehe! The torch remained on after that. Seriously though it’s kinda refreshing using night vision, not relying on torches. It gives my eyes a break yet makes them work. But trust me, if a boar came running out, that torch would stay on!Have you been to Montserrat? Do you like hiking in the mountains?