Stretches of Spain | Outside Online

You Are Here:

Home >> Travel >> Stretches of Spain

Today's Question
What's the best three- to four-day backpacking route in Utah? answer

What outdoor adventures can I find in Morocco? answer

How can I turn cheap airfare to Las Vegas into a killer outdoor holiday on the cheap? answer

Online Favorites

Special Issues

Photo Galleries

Outside Magazine's 2002 Family Travel Guide

Page:

Stretches of Spain
230 Miles, 28 days, countless castles, and a giant snag—one family's transformative journey by kayak down the Guadalquivir River
By David Cates


	Rio Days: Puente Romano and Rio Guadalquivir in Cordoba, Spain (Kindra Clineff/Index Stock)

FEW MILES DOWNSTREAM FROM ALMODÓVAR del Rio on Spain's Guadalquivir River, I saw what I'd been dreading for days: my wife, Rosalie, and our 17-year-old daughter, Anna, chest deep in fast water, their loaded kayak turned perpendicular to the current and pressed against a tree that had fallen from the bank. They had been paddling ahead, down a narrow channel with steep, wooded banks and around a blind right turn, when they were swept into the snag. Following in the boat I shared with our two younger girls, Margaret, 13, and Mary, seven, I pulled up on a gravel beach and studied the water between us and the troubled kayak. Too muddy to see through. If the water was shallow, I could walk. If it got deep, I'd be swept downstream. I took a step and it was up to my thighs.

Out in the river, Rosalie and Anna spoke evenly to one another, calmly discussing their plan. The current piled up water on their backs and against the sit-on-top fiberglass boat that was strapped with three heavy drybags (which were soon to be wet bags) filled with clothes and camping gear. When I took another step, the warm water rose to my waist while a cold lump formed in my stomach.

Información

To get the goods on making Stretches of Spain part of your next family adventure, click here.

THE GUADALQUIVIR RIVER flows westward for 408 miles, falling through the cedar and pine forests of the Sierra de Cazorla, winding across southern Spain's searing Andalusian plain, and spreading to almost a mile wide before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. We paddled about 230 miles of it, skipping the Class IV and V rapids up high, as well as the long stretches of reservoirs in the middle. The day we caught the snag, or the snag caught us, was day 20 of a 28-day trip from the mountains to the sea. I'd planned this adventure to snap my family out of our domestic patterns—to force us to work together through difficult days and to relax together through easy ones. Our excursion was water-oriented because I'm a part-time river guide and because my wife and daughters love any plan that involves camping and floating; Rosalie chose Spain because we both speak Spanish. She said I'd combined a midlife crisis with a family Outward Bound course, and perhaps she's right. I didn't want a wilderness trip, though. We live in Montana and we've floated wild rivers. Instead, I wanted a flatwater trip through history, so I picked a route that's been a working waterway for thousands of years.

The Greeks called it Tartessos, the Romans dubbed it Baetis, and the Arabs named it Wadi al-Kebir, which eventually morphed into the Spanish name Guadalquivir (gwad-al-key-VEER), or Great River. The Phoenicians shipped metals home on its water. The Romans shipped pottery and olive oil. And up its estuary to the port of Seville went the gold of the Aztecs and Incas. Hercules, Jonas, Caesar, and Cervantes came this way, so why not the Cates family?

Page: