Pórtugos: to Busquístar

Busquístar was the last village we hoped to get to on this trip, and we made it there today. A wonderful route along an acequia connects Pórtugos to Busquístar, but after I fell twice on the steep path down to it, we started to have second thoughts. We went maybe 20 meters along it, and at that point the decision was made for Marie and me: too narrow a path with too much of a drop-off on the right hand side. So we reluctantly turned around and walked to and from Busquístar on the local road.

Busquístar is an amazing village. It drops farther from its highest point to its lowest point than any other village we have visited on this trip. There’s a geographic reason for this. Busquístar is the last village before the barranco of the Río Trevélez, and just before the village on the east side, the river makes a 90° turn. So the village has a deep barranco on both the east and south sides, and the highest mountains of Spain on the north. From the top to the bottom of those extremes, it’s a long slide downhill.

Luckily, we arrived at the main plaza at the same time as the panaderia van, so Marie had one last chance to stock up on pan integral.

Ned spotted something very unusual in the lavadero: a gallery arranged on the walls that paired famous paintings like the Mona Lisa with photos of village women in similar poses. What a lovely display.

Back in Pórtugos, we had time to check out the balsa in the middle of the village. It’s the first time we have ever seen one directly in a village. Even better, the gate was unlocked, and we could closely inspect the mechanism that opened and closed access from an acequia to the balsa. We think this might be a piquera, like the one inside the locked building by the Alberca Grande in Mecina that we couldn’t see last week. Our last stop was a final check to see how a village roofing project is coming along. The crew has been generous about explaining things all week as we walk by.

Tonight we are busily packing in order to catch the bus to Granada at 6:40 tomorrow morning, and then on to Madrid at half past noon.Read more