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Spain 2025 - Malaga province

March - May 2025
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Three areas in the province of Malaga, walking from village to village:
1. GR 92 - Senda Litoral - Malaga to La Duquesa (blue pins)
2. Gran Senda de Malaga - Casares to Ojén (red pins)
3. P.N. Sierra de las Nieves - Monda to Alozaina (orange pins) Read more
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  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    12
    Day 46

    Jorox

    Yesterday in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 59 °F

    We walked from Alozaina to Jorox today. This little aldea, population 12, has been settled since Paleolithic times, thanks to the spring that gushes out of the ground just above the aldea and flows down with the strength of a river. It has never gone dry, even during the hottest summers. During Arab times (more than 1000 years ago), a network of acequias was established, directing the river water to the various orchards and olive groves scattered around the steep gorge. In addition, the water powered nine flour and olive oil mills. It must have been an idyllic place to live.

    We saved our walk here for a day with a good weather forecast, knowing that we would want sunshine for exploring the village. It’s a good thing we did have perfect weather because the ascent of the dirt track we walked to get to Jorox was one of the steepest gradients I’ve ever been on. I kept thinking I needed a parachute for safety’s sake. It was too steep to take a photo of it - getting out a camera would have upset my precarious balance! Once there, we revived ourselves by having the house specialty for lunch at Venta Rivita, complete with tables behind us in the cave part of the building.

    On the way back (on a much more reasonable lane), Ned immediately recognized the bird we were hearing as a nightingale. When I asked him how he could possibly know that, he said he’s heard the recorded song of a nightingale hundreds of times in Respighi’s orchestral work, Pines of Rome.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/alozaina-jorox-20…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2
    11
    Day 45

    The second half of the story

    April 15 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 54 °F

    We think today’s walk provided the second half of the story to the question that has been in our minds since our walk from Tolox where we stumbled upon the gauging station and the large canal whose destination at that time was unknown to us. Today’s walk supplied the answer: it appears the canal fed a very long penstock that delivered water from the Aguilera stream to the San Augusto hydroelectric station (no longer functioning) on the Río Grande de Tolox. What a tremendous undertaking that must have been. The date on the building is 1932, so its construction preceded the Spanish Civil War by four years. There were evidently three hydroelectric stations that were part of the same system: the one just below Yunquera that we almost got to, but not quite; the San Augusto station that we saw today; and one in between those two points that we haven’t walked anywhere near, San Pascual.

    Our route took us south from Alozaina, and gave us wonderful views of the surrounding mountains as well as Alozaina and Tolox as we walked downhill to Arroyo de Los Valles. There were five stream crossings which had us wondering ahead of time, but all turned out to be easy to cross. For the return leg, we walked up the valley of the Río Grande de Tolox, past the power station, along a section of single track, and then onto wider dirt and concrete tracks before joining the A366 back to Alozaina.

    Note re the video: We met the shepherd and his dogs shortly after, and he confirmed there were more than 200 sheep in his flock.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/alozaina-central-…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1
    1112
    Day 44

    Settling into Alozaina

    April 14 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 61 °F

    Our location this week is entirely dictated by the fact that it is Semana Santa. Our original plan was to walk from Yunquera to a mountain refuge, La Rejertilla, that offers accommodation and food at a spot halfway between Yunquera and El Burgo. By the time we realized that La Rejertilla was not going to answer any of our emails, WhatsApp messages, or phone calls, almost everything in the area was booked for Easter week. We were lucky to find a spot in the village of Alozaina. This was originally going to be our last village on this trip, but is now our base for this week instead. We will have to figure out how to get from here to El Burgo next week and then on to Casarabonela, probably by the reverse of the bus we used to get here.

    Alozaina seems different from the mountain villages we’ve been in. It’s closer to the coast and is not on the GR243 (although there are plenty of local trails nearby). If you look in one direction, you see palm trees; if you look in the other, you see the Sierra Prieta with La Blanquilla just visible over the top. Alozaina also has a small-sized Día supermarket, so we were able to find several items that have been entirely absent from the tiny shops in the places we’ve been recently. We stocked up on muesli and unsalted almonds!    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    115
    Day 43

    Where are we?

    April 13 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F

    Today was one of those days when lots of little things tipped the scale from “Great, let’s continue on,” to “You know what, I think we should turn around.” There wasn’t any one big reason, but we couldn’t quite make the map and GPX track match up with what we were seeing on the ground; the clouds were steadily moving down the mountainside in front of us; and the wind was picking up. After we got back and I looked closely at the IGN topographical map, I realized that if we had gone a few feet farther, our way forward would have been clear. Well, we’ll just have to come back to Yunquera another time.

    We did get to see the so-called Yunquera “Castle” on the way down. It’s actually a torre vigía from the Arab period with slots in the walls for defensive purposes. It gives a panoramic view of town and the surrounding mountains.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-explorin…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2
    2213
    Day 42

    Meeting Señor Merchán

    April 12 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 59 °F

    What we thought was going to be a routine museum visit today turned out to be anything but. We’ve been saving the museum for a rainy day, and today certainly fit the bill. We found the old family house that has been turned into the museum, walked in the door, saw the usual interesting things, and then came around a corner to a room where paintings were displayed. A familiar sketch caught my eye, and I called Ned over to look. “It’s the sketch that’s on the church!” The man at the information desk heard my enthusiasm. He quickly came over and greeted us with a long string of very rapid Spanish. We soon realized that he was talking about the paintings. And then it dawned on us: he was the artist! We told him how much we had enjoyed seeing the sketch on the wall of the church, and even showed him our little photo of acting out the scene. He then told us about his favorite places to paint in Andalucia, where the light was good, and where he had other paintings in town. We realized we had seen another of his sketches the day we were by the old mill, and he confirmed that yes, that was another one he had done. He was so kind and generous in responding to our questions that it turned a routine visit into one we will remember for a long time.Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1111
    Day 41

    Wandering among the olive groves

    April 11 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F

    We started out today following a Wikiloc track that I think was made by a long-distance runner (www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/travesia-casarabo…). I know they have a lot of mountain races in this part of Andalucia. Participants often run throughout a day and night on mountain tracks. The woman who made this route ran 53 km with more than 2000 m of elevation gain in 10 hours. We only planned to do the part leading northeast out of Yunquera. However, when we got to a spot where her track went cross-country without any sign of a trail, we decided we would work our way back and explore every lane that we saw on the way. This gave us a chance to see some wonderfully quirky olive groves, including one where the trees were set between such large boulders that we could hardly believe anyone would choose to plant a tree there.

    Given that all the long distance views were obscured by haze today, we could see how incredibly lucky we were to have done the La Blanquilla route two days ago when the sky was sunny and clear. Today was just perfect for close-up views of the olive groves, though.

    The weather forecast says we are due for what they call Calima rain. This occurs when rain brings down red sand that is in the air having blown across the Mediterranean from Africa. It’s also called a mud rain. We aren’t seeing any of the typical orange atmosphere though - just the usual grey rain clouds.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-wanderin…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    11
    Day 40

    Pinsapo Pines and Pozos de Nieve

    April 10 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 59 °F

    We wanted to walk some trails high up on the side of Torrecilla in the national park today, but walking up would have taken much of the day, so Francisco, the owner of our apartment, kindly offered to drive us up. We were able to start our hiking from a high elevation, see some of the more remote mountain sites, and walk back to town.

    Before we came on this trip, I thought the national park was named Sierra de las Nieves because it snows a lot here. But this week, I read that this area got its name long ago from the thriving businesses that sprang up in the last century selling ice year round from the many snow wells located along mountain trails here. We saw the remains of one of those wells today. We estimate it was about 20 feet across, and would have been much deeper than what currently is showing. Snow was packed into the wells in layers during the winter and then sold as ice during the summer. The info panel next to the well showed a drawing with a ladder allowing access to the lowest layers, but the well we were at had protruding stones that were clearly meant to be used a steppingstones to get to the bottom.

    Many hectares of pinsapo pines are protected in the park. These rare trees (found only here and in Morocco) survived the last Ice Age, but are endangered now by loss of habitat and viruses that thrive with climate change. We were surrounded by thousands of the trees today, including one curious specimen shaped like a candelabra. It grew like this due to unusual stresses, perhaps from snow or perhaps from animals colliding with it. We were also thrilled to see that we arrived in the area just at the time when the pink pollen cones are being formed (similar to the golden pollen cones we saw in Tolox last week).

    It was very windy today, with gusts to 44 mph in town and even higher in the mountains as you will see at the end of the video. But we were grateful that it did not rain, and we had another day to enjoy the area surrounding the highest town in the province of Malaga.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-puerto-s…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    Day 39

    Best day yet in the mountains!

    April 9 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    We were amazed at how well today’s route turned out. The track began practically in our backyard and led up to near the treeline on Cerro de la Blanquilla. We didn’t know much about the track beforehand and were keeping our fingers crossed that it would be doable by me. Not only did it turn out to be possible, it was glorious! It was wild and remote, and we had 360° views with all the mountains we are familiar with in sight and new ones coming visible around every corner. We even had our first view of El Burgo, the village we will be staying in two weeks from now.

    A highlight of the walk was coming upon an old era. These stone-paved threshing floors were laid out in a circular pattern that was slightly different in each location. They were situated in windy spots to make separating the wheat from the chaff easier. As the bundles of threshed grain were tossed into the air with a wooden fork, the wind carried off the lighter chaff, and the seeds fell to the ground. On a previous trip a miller’s son told us that when he was a child, he and his dad would come around to these remote eras with mules, load up the threshed wheat, take it down to their mill to wash and grind, and deliver the flour back to the mountain location when it was done.

    We can confirm that this era was in a windy location; the wind was so strong that you can’t hear a single word in the video!

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-track-to…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    111
    Day 38

    Three firsts

    April 8 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F

    On today’s walk, we had views from the peak of Torrecilla (1918 m/6292 ft) all the way to the Mediterranean at sea level. It’s the first time we’ve seen the Mediterranean since we started walking in the mountain villages. We think the area we were looking at was near Malaga, about 60 km away.

    Seeing an almond orchard in blossom was another first. We have been too late to see the blooms around the other villages further south, but Yunquera must be high enough that some of the trees here are still blooming.

    We followed the SL-A 246 south from the village toward the Rio Grande. Just as we left the village, we passed under an arched aqueduct that carried water to the Molino Los Patos. This was a flour mill of the rodezno type. Instead of the drive wheel being placed vertically in the river, water was carried via an aqueduct to a height far above a horizontal drive wheel located in a cárcavo (arched opening) at the bottom of the mill. The rodezno wheel was connected to a shaft that drove a grinding wheel on the floor above. An experienced miller could tell if the wheels were too close or too far apart by the smell of the grind. This is the first time we have seen a rodezno mill in the province of Malaga, although we’ve seen the remains of many of them in Huelva and Granada provinces.

    https://www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/yunquera-…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1
    1132112
    Day 37

    Yunquera

    April 7 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 64 °F

    Ever since 2009 when we came over the pass at Lifa station on our mountain bikes and saw the trail marker pointing one way to El Burgo (where we were headed) and the other way to Yunquera, we have wanted to see this spot. Who could resist a village with such a magical name, not to mention that arrow pointing temptingly deeper into the mountains! Now, exactly 16 years and five days later, here we finally are. And it is indeed magical. When we stand at our front door, we are directly at the foot of Cerro de la Blanquilla. It is only 6 km by trail from here to the top of the mountain! (Of course, there’s also the little matter of 776 meters /2545 ft of elevation gain on an unmarked expanse of bare rock…but maybe a bit of it is doable by me.)

    We have a very traditional Spanish apartment right at the edge of town. Francisco, the friendly owner, has been corresponding with me for a couple of weeks, giving me ideas and helping me with logistics. His mother and father ran the restaurant below the apartment for 46 years; his dad was the manager and his mom the cook. Now that they have retired, the restaurant is closed, and I think Francisco is converting the building into apartments. We are very grateful for his enthusiasm and help, and also for the empanadas his mom made us as a gift for lunch.

    Our walk today was around town, but I forgot to turn on Wikiloc. The GR 243 connects Tolox and Yunquera, but we came by taxi for the usual reasons. The middle of the route beyond the point where we walked yesterday is totally along a river that is deep and wide. We have no information about its current status.    Read more

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