Órgiva: Las Barreras

Las Barreras is a little hamlet to the NW of Orgiva that we didn’t have time to explore the last time we were here. It actually falls inside the Orgiva municipal limits, and has eleven elements from the ADR fichas to be found within it. This was Marie‘s first time to be out on a ficha detective walk, trying to match the number and photo of an element with the description. Back home while getting ready for this trip, once I finished translating a ficha, I emailed it to Marie, and she formatted each of the 500 or so pages we prepared. So she has invested a significant amount of time in this project.

It was absolutely delightful to see her face light up when we got to Las Barreras and opened up the first photo and map. She looked around and immediately spotted number 056, the Alfarería Cacherche, a pottery workshop with a long history and a kiln in working order. The morning proceded in similar vein. In all, we were able to find eight of the eleven elements, and Marie was so delighted at each find that Ned and I experienced our own first-day enthusiasm all over again.

This put the day’s frustrations in perspective: accidentally leaving behind on the bus my beloved Patagonia Houdini jacket whose bright orange three ounces have valiantly protected me from wind, rain, cold, and speeding cars; meeting a locked gate on an essential part of the trail home; Ned getting stung by an angry bee as we walked by its bee box; and finding out that our casa rural has a front row seat for the May Day celebrations that started at full volume at 3 pm and are sure to continue past midnight.Read more