PR-A 276 Fuente de los Morales

Our constant refrain to each other this morning was, “Look at that sunshine!” After downpours and strong winds last night that made doors and shutters crash, it looks like the weather has briefly taken a turn for the better. There is more rain forecast for the coming days, but after that, there are ten days in a row of sunshine.

We are using long distance trails (GR’s) to get from village to village, and local trails (PR’s) to explore the areas around the villages. Today’s PR took us to an ermita and a fuente - or to be accurate, to within 100 m of a fuente. We could see our goal, but the water in the river was running too fast for us to cross and reach the fuente itself. No matter, because the walk there and back was full of flowers, birdsong, pine trees, orchards, and acequias (irrigation channels). The explanatory signposts along the way were some of the best we have ever seen on any trail. We are hoping this will prove true of trails in the Sierra de Las Nieves in general. There was a lot of information that was new to us, including that this is one of the few areas on earth where rocks known as peridotites are visible.

The big excitement of the day was coming upon a front-end loader that was clearing up debris blocking a ford in the Alpujata valley. When we passed him on the way up, it looked like a jumbled mess that would take days to clear, but by the time we came back, he was making the last few passes necessary to open up the ford.

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