El Chorro

The Gorge

The Desfiladero de los Gaitanes is the limestone slot the Guadalhorce cut between the municipalities of Álora, Antequera and Ardales: more than 3 km long, walls up to 300 m, and under 10 m wide at the narrowest point. The Junta declared it a Paraje Natural on 28 July 1989, and it carries the European ZEC and ZEPA designations under code ES6170003, which is why the rules on drones, noise and pets inside it are conservation rules and not tourist-management ones. The Junta's own pages give its area two ways, 2,179.96 ha on the ficha and 2,016 ha on the landing page.

We print both because the operator does. Griffon vultures, golden eagles, peregrines and ibex are the species the Junta lists, and the griffon colony is the one you will see from the Haza del Río trail without trying.

The Dams and the Village

The first big work was the Conde de Guadalhorce dam upstream in Ardales, inaugurated by Alfonso XIII on 21 May 1921. The king walked the maintenance path through the gorge to reach it and gave the Caminito its name. Guadalteba followed in 1971 and Guadalhorce in 1973, and the three reservoirs together are the lakes people mean when they say El Chorro lakes, though all three are in Ardales rather than in the village.

Below the gorge the Tajo de la Encantada dam and its pumped-storage plant sit directly above the houses. The walkway's exit path comes down past it. The village itself is a barriada of Álora: a station, a handful of bars around it, the helmet-return point for the walkway, and the shuttle stop 300 m from it.

The station is El Chorro-Caminito del Rey, on the line from Málaga María Zambrano through Álora to Bobadilla. Two kinds of train call: the Media Distancia services numbered 389xx that continue to Seville, and the Proximidad services numbered 131xx that extend the C-2 Cercanías beyond its Álora terminus. The ordinary C-2 does not reach El Chorro, which is the mistake that strands people at Álora.

Renfe's Proximidad page counts five trains out from Málaga and six back on a weekday. The times below are from the only timetable document Renfe publishes for the line, a PDF valid from 20 March 2023. Renfe prints no fare anywhere outside its booking engine, so none is stated here.

By Car, and the Álora Local Bus

By car from Málaga the gorge is 59.1 km and about 50 minutes on the A-357 and the MA-5403, and the sensible place to leave the car for the walkway is the Ardales reception centre at $2.33 (€2) a day, not the village, because the walk ends here and the shuttle runs you back north. The Ayuntamiento de Álora publishes a local bus between Álora and El Chorro via Los Llanos and Bermejo, weekdays from the Álora Piscina stop at 07:25, 08:53, 10:55, 12:35 and 17:05, reaching El Chorro 25 to 35 minutes later, with the last back at 17:30 and a Sunday service from the Álora Renfe station at 08:45 and 10:20. The PDF carries no fare and is dated 3 December 2018, so treat it as a rumour until the Ayuntamiento confirms it.

Álora itself is the C-2 terminus, and a Cercanías single of up to five zones is $4.19 (€3.60) per the getting around page.

The trail that starts in the village is the Sendero Haza del Río, in the municipality of Álora: linear, 4,361 m, 1 hour 15 minutes, difficulty low, starting at Barriada El Chorro. The Junta lists views of Bobastro, the Conde de Guadalhorce reservoir and the griffon colony, and it is the walk to do if you have a morning here without a walkway ticket or with a child under eight. It does not enter the boardwalks. Nothing free does.

The second trail, the Sendero Gaitanejo in Ardales, is a 4,340 m circuit of about 2 hours and medium difficulty that starts about 550 m before the tunnel on the MA-9006, passes the Gaitanejo hydro plant and reservoir, and carries the Los Embalses viewpoint as a branch. It is temporarily closed by a Junta notice dated 12 February 2026, for reservoir works, and it was still closed when we read the ficha. Check the Junta's page before planning it. The notice has no end date.

The reservoirs, Conde de Guadalhorce, Guadalteba and Guadalhorce, are the Junta's Los Embalses viewpoint page: otters, kingfishers and marsh harriers are the species it lists. What it does not list, and what the Ayuntamiento de Ardales page refused to serve when we fetched it, is any rule on swimming, kayaks, beaches or camping, so this site prints none. Overnighting a campervan inside the Paraje Natural is prohibited under Decreto 222/2013.

El Chorro is the best-known sport-climbing area in Andalusia, and the rules are not folklore. They are a Junta resolution of 11 July 2018, published in BOJA 136 on 16 July 2018. It names twelve free-access zones inside the Desfiladero de los Gaitanes, among them Los Cotos, the Makinódromo and Placas de Atrás, where no permit is needed, and eight more in El Torcal. Opening new routes or climbing outside the listed zones needs authorisation from the Junta.

Three prohibitions matter. Climbing above the vertical of the Caminito walkway is banned, so is the Petit Desfiladero, and so are the east walls, which would mean crossing the river or the railway to reach them. And the El Corral sector is closed every year from 1 March to 30 September for nesting, which removes it from the whole spring and summer. The Junta's climbing page itself is generic. The BOJA text is where the sector names are, and the hiking page collects the other walking and climbing rules around Málaga.

The thing every first-timer gets wrong is direction. The Caminito del Rey is walked one way, north to south, and El Chorro is the south. Arriving here by train you cannot start walking. You take the shuttle 8 km north by road to the access near the El Kiosko restaurant in Ardales, walk the route, and come out 2.1 km above the station you left from. The shuttle is $2.91 (€2.50) per person for unlimited rides that day, cash on board or added to the online ticket. From the south stop the first bus is 08:30 and then every 30 minutes until 16:30, and the ride is 15 to 20 minutes. Its overall hours are printed two ways by the operator, 07:40 to 20:00 and 07:40 to 19:00, so the 16:30 last northbound bus is the number to plan around.

Off the 08:24 train you reach the village at 09:02, catch the 09:30 shuttle, and are at the north access by 09:50. The operator asks for 30 minutes at the control cabin before your slot plus a 20-minute track from the access, so the first reachable slot is about 10:40. Book from there. Three to four hours later you hand the helmet back in the village and the 15:12 train is the one most walkers catch. The 20:18 is the last of the day. The whole grid of official prices and coach tours is on the tickets page.

The Two Tours That Start Their Day Differently

Most coach days from Málaga run the walkway late morning. The early-slot coach takes the first entries of the day and promises the bus back in Málaga before 14:30, with money back if the route closes for weather. Its bus waits five minutes at the meeting point and no more.

The afternoon tour does the opposite, timing the walk so that the operator says more than 80 percent of the route is in shade, with one 50 cl bottle included and a request that you carry another litre. It excludes anyone with a fear of heights and says it is not obliged to refund a heat cancellation. From June to September those are the two answers to the same problem.

The bars around the station serve the walkers who come off the path from midday, and the Ayuntamiento de Álora publishes no list of them and no prices, so this site names none. There is nothing on the walkway itself between the control cabin and the village, which the operator states outright, and the north access has the El Kiosko restaurant that the shuttle uses as its landmark. If you are on the 08:24 train the practical move is food from Málaga in the daypack, at least 1.5 litres of water with it.

The where to eat page is for the evening back in the city. The one coach day that includes a meal is the Álora village and tapas tour, which eats in Álora before the afternoon walk.

As the end of the walkway, it is the third day of the three-day itinerary. As a place in its own right it is a half day for anyone with an under-8, a climber, or a walker who wants the gorge without the ticket: the 08:24 train, the Haza del Río trail, a drink by the station and the 15:12 back. It pairs with nothing else by public transport, because nothing else reaches it. Antequera and El Torcal are the neighbours by car.

The rest of the ring is on the day trips hub and the whole Málaga city guide starts from the homepage.