Solidarity

One of the organisations that I am connected with is Cudeca, a voluntary palliative care centre (or hospice, as we would say in England) which covers the whole of Málaga Province. In addition to an in-patient unit and a daycare centre, five multidisciplinary teams operate in the community delivering medical, nursing, psychologiacl and social care to patients nearing the end of their lives and to their families. That costs us about €3,000,000 a year, all of which has to be raised in one way or another. As well as belonging to the Nerja Support Group, I take responsibility for assisting any fund rising here in the village. So I was delighted this morning to be part of the welcoming party for a runner and two of his colleagues who is raising funds for Cudeca and a number of other organisations by running the entire circuit of La Gran Senda de Málaga, a long distance footpath which follows the border of the Province to provide a complete (rough) circle of around 630km. Juan Camacho aims to complete his run in eleven days, which is an average of 57km or 36 miles per day. We were his first stop for refreshment on today's stage. He arrived later than planned because the path up the river from Nerja proved too precarious for much running, so they had to walk a large part of the way.