Wandering among the olive groves

We started out today following a Wikiloc track that I think was made by a long-distance runner (www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/travesia-casarabo…). I know they have a lot of mountain races in this part of Andalucia. Participants often run throughout a day and night on mountain tracks. The woman who made this route ran 53 km with more than 2000 m of elevation gain in 10 hours. We only planned to do the part leading northeast out of Yunquera. However, when we got to a spot where her track went cross-country without any sign of a trail, we decided we would work our way back and explore every lane that we saw on the way. This gave us a chance to see some wonderfully quirky olive groves, including one where the trees were set between such large boulders that we could hardly believe anyone would choose to plant a tree there.

Given that all the long distance views were obscured by haze today, we could see how incredibly lucky we were to have done the La Blanquilla route two days ago when the sky was sunny and clear. Today was just perfect for close-up views of the olive groves, though.

The weather forecast says we are due for what they call Calima rain. This occurs when rain brings down red sand that is in the air having blown across the Mediterranean from Africa. It’s also called a mud rain. We aren’t seeing any of the typical orange atmosphere though - just the usual grey rain clouds.

www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-wanderin…Read more