Béznar: a locked gate

We had an ambitious plan this morning: to walk west through the numerous villages in the Lecrín Valley that we had cycled through on the TransAndalus heading east in 2010. We had gotten lost in the orange groves on that trip, and we were hoping today that we could find the turn we had missed and see some of the things we remembered. To get as far as possible down into the valley itself, we decided to take the bus to Talará to give us a headstart.

We began with a lovely walk through the seemingly endless orange and lemon groves that fill the Lecrín Valley. The villages in the upper reaches were still in the clouds, but by the time we reached the Rio Torrente, we were in the sunshine. We were struck by how many of the olive trees had been allowed to grow to their full height. We also noticed that some of the orange groves were being replaced by avocado plantations. It was fun to see places we remembered like the orange cooperative that prepares the fruit for transport all over Spain.

The Ruta Transandalus often uses the path of the GR 7 which today we found easy to follow. We weren’t sure how we missed it on our bikes. One reason might be that 2010 was the first trip we used GPS, and there certainly was no Wikiloc app in those days. We had a very primitive black-and-white Garmin that we had trouble following, whereas now it’s possible to see exactly where we are in relation to the trail on a full color screen with a choice of background maps. So easy!

Easy, that is, until we ran into a locked gate. It’s one thing to find a such a gate near your turn-around point on an out-and-back route; you just stop a bit short of your goal and say oh, well. But it’s another thing entirely to reach a locked gate when you are 3/4 of the way through a loop trip or on a one-way route. Even worse if you have a bus to catch!

We ended up having to walk as fast as possible in the wrong direction so that we could then connect with a road that would take us in the right direction. Luckily, we made it back to the bus stop with exactly two minutes to spare!Read more