Los Llanos: to Cortijo de la Angrailla

You couldn’t ask for a better way to climb up into the Sierra Nevada than the dirt track we took today. It’s well graded and climbs at a steady but quite reasonable angle. It must have been difficult to build as it is cut directly into the side of the mountain. It’s a steep drop on the outside edge of the road and a steep rise on the inside edge. We made sure we stuck close to the mountain side! The grade hardly seems to vary from the bottom to the top, so it was just a matter of putting one foot in front of the other and enjoying the tremendous views the whole way up.

About halfway up, we met a mountain biker coming down, and it reminded me of the terror I felt when we came down this track on our bikes eight years ago. I was sure I was going to burn out my brakes and had to keep stopping so the rims on my wheels could cool. And indeed, I did have to replace my brake pads two days later at the fine bike shop in Bubión.

Today we had no such trouble. The biggest event of any kind was the marvelous show put on by two donkeys in a vineyard below the road. When they heard us coming, they struck up a fine conversation (which Ned captured in today’s video) and then the lighter colored one took an enthusiastic dust bath, waving all four legs madly in the air while rolling over on his back three times. We were laughing so hard that, unfortunately, we didn’t capture that part on video.

The sky was blue and the sun was out when we started up, so we had clear views of practically every place we’ve hiked since we arrived 34 days ago, all the way from the Puente de Los Siete Ojos up to the house below Cerro Man where the angry man and his dogs live. But by the time we started down, enough sand was blowing through on the 45 mph winds that it obscured all the villages around us. We did a load of laundry, but we didn’t dare hang the clothes outside to become sand-catchers. Tomorrow is predicted to be even windier with thunderstorms.Read more