Tijola: Acequias

This morning, we wanted to explore the banks of the Río Guadalfeo which flows just south of the olive cortijo where we are staying. On the map, it looked like we could walk many kilometers along its banks because the flood plain is quite wide here. We remembered seeing a horse and rider setting off upriver not far from here the day we walked to the Puente de Siete Ojos, so we knew it was possible. The problem was how to get down to the flood plain. After comparing the IGN maps with the other maps sources we have, we thought we found a way down, but curiously, we couldn’t find any Wikiloc tracks that would give us a definitive answer. As it turned out, we worked our way down to within a few hundred meters of the flood plain, but there was a fenced olive plantation between us and the river and the gates were locked. Nevertheless, we had a good walk down there on quite a variety of surfaces. We started out on the single-lane road that connects the hamlets out here with Órgiva. This took us to a dirt track that connected with an acequia. Luckily, it was dry and we could walk right in it. Next came a totally unexpected stretch of dirt trail lined with pine trees where we heard what our phone identified as a Eurasian hoopoe singing. It would have been wonderful to sight the bird because it is so distinctive looking, but no matter how much we peered among the branches, we couldn’t spot it. Just when we thought the river would be around the next bend, we came face-to-face with a very large olive orchard behind a high fence with definitively locked gates.

Although we couldn’t get to the river, we did get a very good look at the amazing abundance of acequias serving every orchard and field around here. These are all acequias de riego, designed for irrigation, not acequias de careo as seen higher up in the Alpujarra. This system of water conservation dates back to the period beginning in the 800s when the Moors ruled this part of the Iberian peninsula. They dug hundreds of kilometers of channels that followed topo lines in the high Sierra. These captured water from snow melt and rivers, carrying it to areas of permeable rock where the water infiltrated and fed underground aquifers only to re-emerge as springs at lower elevations during the dry season. Thus they cared for or “sheparded” the water and gained the name “careo”. When that same water flows through lower channels to irrigate crops as it does around here, the channels are called acequias de riego. We have never seen so many acequias de riego as we have in this area!Læs mere