Hornos to La Platera

We have our very own era to admire every time we step out our front door!

Choosing the tiny aldea of La Platera for our last four days of walking turned out to be a very lucky decision. When Pedro, the owner, opened the door to our casa rural, we noticed right away that the table in the living room was a trillo, a sled-shaped board with pieces of blade-shaped rocks embedded in rows to thresh the wheat. Pedro beckoned to us to follow him, and not ten steps from our front door, he gestured with his arm - and there was an era where the threshing took place. Pedro could tell we were really interested in the history of the place, so he stayed for an hour and a half, telling us that there were a “montón” of people living here when he met his wife here 36 years ago. Now there are two year-round residents left. “Una pena,” he said several times.
He showed us how the threshing took place with a donkey pulling the trillo around and around over the wheat spread on the era. The era was located in a breezy spot so that after the threshing, if basketfuls of wheat were thrown in the air, the wind would blow away the chaff, allowing the heavier grains of wheat to fall to the ground. The families of the aldea were self-sufficient, he said, growing or raising all their own food. Now, all the young people want to live elsewhere and have paying jobs to buy their food. In an opinion we haven’t heard before, he said the formation of the park accelerated this trend because even if a young person wants to try to make a living here now, it is very difficult to get permission for land use from the park authorities.

Our walk today took us past the neighboring aldea of Carrascal and by scattered cortijos. We saw olive tree after olive tree with no budding olives and with dying yellow leaves that we assume are showing the effects of heat and drought.

Today’s Wikiloc track:
https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/la-plater…Read more