Cañar: Acequia de Barjas

If you love walking mountain trails - the kind where you are up so high that all vestiges of ordinary life are left behind - Cañar is the place for you. It is the highest village in this section of the Alpujarra, and the mountains rise sharply just behind the village. There is no feeling of prelude before you get to the exciting part of the trail. Ten steps beyond the church plaza and you are in the mountain world.

We made an early start because we knew it was going to be a stiff climb up to where we could see the acequias cleared by the MEMOLA project. Although the trail was steep, it was very clearly marked. In fact, I would say the signposts and blazes are not more than a year old. We kept a slow but steady pace upward and within a few hours, reached the area where the acequia could be seen. Much to our surprise, the channel was completely dry. In some ways, though, this was a good thing because we could see the details of how it was laid out. Piles of stones and branches showed where clearing had taken place. It isn’t a very wide or deep acequia, but it carries enough water to irrigate the potato fields around Cañar.

We came to a point where we could see Cerro Man ahead and marveled at knowing from the archaeological remains found there that the Romans built mines in this area. A cortijo sat just below Cerro Man, and we could hear a number of dogs barking wildly. I remembered the warnings I had read on several Wikiloc tracks that the owner of this cortijo had a threatening manner and let his dogs menace walkers who tried to cross in front of his property even though it is a public track alongside the acequia.

The snowcapped peaks directly above Cerro Man were clear when we arrived at that point, but now were quickly disappearing in the clouds. Remembering how rapidly the clouds came down yesterday evening to below the level of Cañar and combining that with the threat of the dogs, we decided this was a good point to turn around. A quick jaunt down the four-wheel drive road got us back to Cañar before the rain hit.

By this time it was midafternoon and we were very hungry, so a meal of albóndigas and croquetas at the local meson sounded good. The lady in charge was rather brusque when we arrived, but once we started asking her questions about the acequias, she became quite informative. She told us that the reason the acequia was dry today was that it wasn’t this branch’s turn to have water. Today, the gates higher up are open to a different area fed by the same acequia, not the area we were walking through. She also told us that this Saturday the MEMOLA project folks will be here in Cańar. About 40 volunteers and community members will be working on the annual spring cleaning of the acequia. Oh, how we wish we could be here to see that! Unfortunately, we are leaving on Friday. Our next casa isn’t too far away from here, so it might be possible to walk back and see some of the excitement.Læs mere