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  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    Day 64

    Puerto de los Carreros

    May 4 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 64 °F

    After yesterday’s adventure (narrow ledges, steep drop-offs, too precarious to even think about taking a photo), I wanted the exact opposite for today. That is exactly what we got: wide, smooth concrete or dirt tracks, plenty of space between us and the drop-off, and fantastic views all the way from the Mediterranean and the Rock of Gibraltar to our now-familiar Torrecilla.

    Because it was Sunday, lots of other people were out enjoying the same route - walkers, runners, and lots and lots of mountain bikers. They passed by pedaling valiantly on the uphill leg, and roared by at great speed on the downhill leg. Quite impressive.

    The only snag came at the end of the route. We had turned off on a dirt track and were within a half km of joining up with our outward track when we saw a sign saying “ Peligro. Colmenas” (Danger. Beehives). Well, we thought, we’ve passed a lot of beehives on various tracks in Spain and never had a problem, so let’s not worry about this one. But as we got closer, we saw two men working there, all suited up in protective gear. They waved their arms madly at us, shouting that it was dangerous and telling us to go back to the paved road. We did so reluctantly, retracing our steps and plotting a new route back to Ojén. It worked out fine, but when they passed us in their truck a few minutes later, I wondered if we would have gone through just fine had we arrived at that point after they left.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/ojen-puerto-de-lo…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    21
    Day 63

    The Tunnel, Part 2

    May 3 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 68 °F

    Two years ago when we were walking the Camino del Argar, the route passed through a long tunnel that we had to shimmy into through a silted up entrance. The next day, we learned that the ayuntamiento had warned people not to use the tunnel due the danger of possible collapse. So when I read that today’s route had a tunnel under the A route that snakes through the mountains here, I had my doubts. But it all turned out to be easy - short, with a visible exit 0.2 kilometers away, a clear entrance, and signs of many users.

    The bigger problem was the first kilometer of the track out of the village. It looked easy on the map, but I was soon in over my head (literally) because the trail was quite overgrown and right on the edge of a gorge. It then went along an acequia with a tube cemented into its bed, making for some tricky footing, again with the drop to the arroyo directly beside us. I was thrilled when we finally got to a cemented road. That first kilometer took me an entire hour.

    The rest of the walk was pleasant and easy through the Parque Botánico El Cereza (which is more like a forest park than a botanical garden) and back to the village along a nice wide track.

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

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1
    1
    Day 62

    Adventures with the locksmith

    May 2 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 68 °F

    The minute the wind slammed the door shut behind us as we stepped into the street to see if we had cell service in our new village of Ojén, I had a panicky thought. “Do you have the keys in your pocket?” I asked Ned. He didn’t, nor did I. So there we were in a new village where we knew no one, with our backpacks and all our gear on the other side of a locked door.

    Luckily, we had our phones in our hands, so I immediately WhatsApped the owner, asking if he lived in Ojén, and explaining the situation. He answered right away that he was on a three day trip and currently 150 km away!

    A lot of thoughts ran through our heads at once:
    -What is the Spanish word for a locksmith?
    -Is there a locksmith in the village? (Probably not; we haven’t seen one in any of the other villages.)
    -Where might the nearest locksmith be? (Probably in Marbella. Ugh )
    -Would a locksmith be able to get here before nightfall?
    -If not, where would we sleep?

    We tried to be calm problem solvers. Good, we had cell service, so we were able to look up the word for locksmith. It’s “cerrajero”. Google then told us that, incredibly, there was a cerrajería in Ojén. No phone number, so would it be open? Google Maps showed us the way, and 10 minutes later we were in front of a very unprepossessing building, but there was a man working outside, an excellent sign! We ventured in and explained our problem to the first person we saw. He called the boss, and she immediately took down our address, and sent us back to our house. Within five minutes a man appeared on a motorcycle with a piece of plastic that looked like a giant credit card. He patiently wiggled it in the door for 5 to 10 minutes, and, whoosh, the door swung open and we were reunited with all our gear!

    We’ll be thinking very kind thoughts about Cerrajería Ojén as we go walking tomorrow!    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    11
    Day 61

    Jardín Botánico de Cactus

    May 1 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 70 °F

    Although Casarabonela doesn’t seem like a likely place to have a cactus garden, it actually has the largest collection of cacti and succulents in all of Spain with 11,000 plants. The collection was started by two botanists who lived on the island of Mallorca. In search of a more suitable climate, in 1 995 they moved to Andalucía where it turned out that the slopes of the Sierra Prieta offered the necessary microclimate. We were the only visitors today, so with the attentive resident cat as our guide, we were undisturbed as we pored over the beautiful blooms on many of the cacti.

    On our return, we stumbled across an Arrabal neighborhood we hadn’t seen before, and ended up spending almost an hour poking around the barrio which preserves the layout of the Islamic portion of the town after the Reconquest. We saw 5 of the town’s 35 hornacinas (niches with Christian symbolism) - which we’ve just learned to recognize as the markers between the Christian neighborhoods and the Muslim neighborhoods after the Reconquest. Now, of course, there’s no religious requirement as to the neighborhood where one can reside, but it does appear that a significant number of Muslim families live in this area. We also saw several adarves (lanes with no outlet that give access to the middle of a block) and a tinao (roof over a street that connects buildings), the first time we’ve seen one outside of the Alpujarra region. It was just fascinating to discover these all on our own without a guidebook or signage pointing them out. Casarabonela definitely has had the best preserved historical landscape of any of the villages we’ve stayed in on this trip.

    www.wikiloc.com/walking-trails/casarabonela-jar…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    Day 58

    Power out in all of Spain

    April 28 in Spain ⋅ 🌬 68 °F

    When I started writing this entry 18 hours ago, the original title was “Power out in our village,” but when I walked out to the main plaza to try to get some cell coverage, I overheard snippets of conversation in Spanish saying that the commuter train lines down on the coast by Malaga were out of service. We are used to power outages at home, so this didn’t bother us too much, but we did discuss whether we should head out and stock up on more groceries in case the power outage lasted through tomorrow or even longer. Ned stopped by a hardware store on the way to the grocery store, and the man there told him the power was out in all of Spain, Portugal, parts of southern France, and Andorra!!! That was almost unbelievable news. We spent an hour speculating about what could have caused this; we couldn’t check any news sources because our phones were almost out of power and we felt we needed to save what little we had left for emergencies. When Ned started out again, he barely got up the street before he saw lights on. I quickly wrote up Find Penguins only to have the internet go out before I could hit upload. It will be interesting to find out in the coming days what actually caused the outage.

    Our walk today was along a Roman road that connected to the road we saw in El Burgo last week. We enjoyed every minute of it, oblivious to the power outage back in the village. It was quite windy with gusts up to 44 mph. Maybe the wind was part of the electrical problem…

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/casarabonela-roma…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    3211
    Day 57

    Llano Cristóbal

    April 27 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 61 °F

    Given the name of today’s trail, Llano Cristóbal, I’ve been scanning the countryside to the west of town for the last two days, looking for flat areas. Yesterday, from the fiesta plaza, I saw a good candidate: a big flat area down below the village surrounded by dirt tracks that looked like they would be very pleasant to walk on. To my surprise, when we got to the trailhead this morning, it was way up at the top of the village, and it clearly was anything but flat! It climbed steeply up the side of a rocky arroyo. Clearly a lot of trail maintenance had been done as there were stone walls to direct rainwater off to the sides and large boulders placed in patterns that allowed clambering over them.

    The reward at the top was immense - just like the wonderful day from Yunquera when we climbed up to the tree line on La Blanquilla. Here we were almost at the tree line of the Sierra Prieta. We’ve always been seeing it from the other side and rather far away. Today it was right there in front of us, awesome and majestic.

    This was totally unexpected, so I’m hoping in the next four days that we will be able to explore more of this beautiful territory.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/casarabonela-llan…    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    312
    Day 56

    Día del Pipeo (without the pipeo)

    April 26 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F

    We had a fine time at the fiesta in the main plaza today. There was music and dancing. There were booths selling jewelry and empanadas. There was sunshine and crowds. What there wasn’t was pipeo. We could see a long line of large pottery bowls and women in aprons looking like they were ready to serve, but the bowls were empty.

    We walked around and looked at the Arab quarter, saw two churches that were originally mosques, soaked up the flavor of this very Spanish village (we were the only non-Spaniards in sight), and came back to the plaza an hour later, definitely within the time allotted for the afternoon meal in Spain, but still no pipeo. So we came home and had salad and chicken and decided we’ll taste pipeo some other day!    Read more

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1111
    Day 55

    Casarabonela

    April 25 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 77 °F

    We are now in Casarabonela, the last of the villages located in the central and north east corner of the Sierra de Las Nieves National Park, When we arrived, we spotted a poster saying they are having their annual pipeo festival tomorrow. According to the village website, pipeo is a local dish made from beans, peas, artichokes, bay leaves, olive oil, potatoes, cumin, garlic, almonds, breadcrumbs, and paprika. We saw them setting up tables, so we’re anticipating tomorrow will be a tasty day.

    Our casa rural here is very compact, but newly renovated and sparkling clean. The walls are quite thick, giving us a cool retreat from the hot temperatures outside. The high today is 80° and tomorrow 82°!    Read more

  • The Great Eddi-Tour 2025
    Day 34

    Cabopino

    April 24 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Nach dem Aufstehen haben wir die letzten Sachen in Eddi gepackt, den Kühlschrank eingeräumt und die Fahrräder aufgeladen. Wir haben uns von Manu, Estrella und ihrer Mama verabschiedet und uns für die Gastfreundschaft und das gute Essen bedankt. Von Estrellas Mama haben wir noch Gewürze, Orangen und Zitronen bekommen, von ihrem Papa ein 5 Liter Pack Tempranillo für Sangria oder Tinto de Verano (das ist junger Rotwein mit Zitronenlimo und Eis, sozusagen die schnelle Variante von Sangria). Das waren echt schöne Tage bei und mit Estrella.
    In Albox waren wir Tanken und schnell in der Waschanlage, aber die hat es nicht so richtig gebracht, nur der gröbste Dreck ist runter bei Eddi (inzwischen ist die Frontpartie wieder richtig voll mit zerplatzten Insekten). Dann ging es in knapp 4 Stunden bis zum Campingplatz Cabopino, kurz vor Marbella. Hier bleiben wir eine Woche. Der Platz gefällt uns ganz gut, ist schon gut gebucht (Deutsche, Holländer, Spanier, Engländer, Finnen usw.) und es ist nicht weit bis zum Strand. Nach unserer Orientierungsrunde über den Platz haben wir gekocht, es gab Gemüsesuppe, sehr lecker, Es blieb heute lange warm, wir saßen draußen und haben gekniffelt.    Read more

    See translation
  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2
    12
    Day 54

    Ruta los Meguellines

    April 24 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 75 °F

    Today was our last day for walking in El Burgo. We picked out a route that went up Cerro Espartoso toward the Sierra Cabrilla that lies between here and the villages of Ardales and Casarabonela. Sixteen years ago, we headed off on our mountain bikes on this same route, passing the same fields filled to bursting with yellow “desert gold” flowers and red poppies. They are so abundant that you just can’t help but wade into them, thinking it’s impossible to have such an exuberant display growing in the wild, just sitting out there for everyone to enjoy. (In fact, I enjoyed them so much from my bike in 2009 that I forgot to watch where I was going and ended up crashing and breaking my shoulder, so today I was extra careful to watch my step as I enjoyed the show. I’m glad to report I didn’t have a single slip or even a close call.)

    This new national park route was particularly well sign-posted and the information panels were excellent. At a fuente just outside town, a sign pointed out that the stones around the fountain had been worn into the shape of the jugs the women used to bring to fill for household water. Another panel listed the many uses of the esparto grass that grows on Cerro Espartoso: making everything from baskets to mule harnesses. We also saw things we’ve learned to recognize from before such as tiny twigs from other olive trees grafted onto the stump of a newly-cut olive branch. We even spotted a red-striped oil beetle scurrying away into the grass, the first we’ve seen on this trip.

    We knew the temperature for today was predicted to be in the high 70s, so we should have gotten our usual early start, but various tasks took longer than expected, and it was already hot by the time we started out. Ned made good use of his shorts again today! Luckily a stiff breeze came up and kept us comfortable on the return. I can see, though, for the two weeks we have left, we should get started as soon as it is light.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/el-burgo-ruta-los…    Read more

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