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Spain Arroyo de la Toma

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  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    111
    Day 53

    Puerto de los Lobos

    April 23 in Spain ⋅ ☀️ 63 °F

    Everything was beautiful today: the views of Torrecilla from the pass; the weather warm enough for Ned to wear shorts; the fields of flowers we literally waded through; and most of all, the truly magnificent feathers on the turkey we met on the way up to the pass.

    Our route took us into the national park as far as the mountain refuge, La Rejertilla, that we had hoped to stay in on our walk between Yunquera and El Burgo during Semana Santa. That stay never happened because they didn’t answer our phone calls, emails, or WhatsApp messages, but now at least we know what it looks like and what it would take to access it on future trips (easy from El Burgo and difficult from Yunquera).

    We ate our snack of no-salt-added, oven-roasted almonds at the recreation area called La Fuensanta. It is named for the cortijo that used to be there, complete with its own chapel and oil mill. Now you can wander the grounds and imagine what it must have been like to live in this isolated spot.

    Just as we were almost back to El Burgo, we spotted a large ring of keys lying in the middle of the dirt track. There were at least 20 keys on it and clearly someone would be really missing them! A long back-and-forth conversation ensued where we debated what would be the best thing to do. Should we leave them there? Whoever lost them might be back soon, looking for them. But maybe someone unscrupulous would pick them up. Should we take them to the police station? That’s where we would look if we lost our keys, hoping that someone would have turned them in, but is that where someone in Spain would look? Finally, we decided to take them with us and turn them in at the police station. But when we got into El Burgo, there was no police station listed on Google maps. Ned had the good idea of going to the Ayuntamiento and asking there. A very competent-looking woman listened to our story, smiled, and said she would immediately put a notice on the announcement portion of their website, which everyone in the village reads. She assured us that the owner would be reunited with his keys soon. We hope so!

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

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2112
    Day 51

    El Burgo

    April 21 in Spain ⋅ ⛅ 68 °F

    El Burgo, where we are now, was actually our inspiration for planning an extended exploration of this area. We’ve been here twice before: the first time coming over the mountain pass at Lifa, riding our mountain bikes on the Ruta TransAndalus from Ronda to El Burgo in 2009; and the second time arriving via the Roman bridge from Carratraca on our 2013 Coast-to-Coast walk from Nerja to Tarifa. Both times, we loved the remoteness of the surrounding mountains, so we were delighted when a few years later, the area was declared a national park, the Sierra de Las Nieves.

    We had plenty of time to explore the town today. There is a beautiful new walk that has been established along the Río Turón using the path of an old acequia that powered a mill at the bottom of the village. When I say old, I mean really old. In fact, it is referenced in paperwork of 1491 as being part of the spoils when the Muslims of El Burgo were defeated by the Christian forces of the Reconquest. Unfortunately, we could see only part of the walkway today because the part that overhangs the river was closed off for repairs.

    That gave us more time to focus on the Roman bridge at the far end of town. Two men were working on repairs there, and we had a nice conversation about what the upkeep on an old bridge like that entails.

    Interestingly, when first building the bridge, the Romans made use of cofferdams (cylinders inside which workers were protected from the river water). Inside the cofferdams, the workers built the pillars that would support the arch of the bridge. (This same technique was still being used more than a thousand years later to build the Brooklyn Bridge.)

    This bridge connected the area with the Vía Augusta and can still be used to cross the Turón River to reach Malaga. In fact, we will cross it just as the Roman Army, patricians, plebeians, and slaves did thousands of years ago to reach the rest of Baetica (Andalusia).

    As I write this, I can hear the church bells ringing 8 pm in the tower at the end of our block. This church was built to accommodate the elderly who found it hard to climb to the church at the top of town. We are wondering if the bells will be ringing every hour through the night.

    www.wikiloc.com/walking-trails/el-burgo-pueblo-…    Read more

  • Europawandel
    1
    1
    Day 43

    Ausflug nach Ronda

    April 14 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 11 °C

    Nach fast einer Woche Spanisch lernen in Arcos machen wir unseren ersten Ausflug. Es geht nach Ronda, einer spektakulär auf beiden Seiten eines Canyons gelegenen und durch eine unwahrscheinliche Brücke verbundenen kleinen Stadt.

    Wir laufen einen gemütlichen Tag lang durch alte Gassen, sehen uns die Brücke und den Canyon aus sämtlichen möglichen Perspektiven an, essen sehr touristisch inklusive ziemlich schlechtem Eis und üben unser Spanisch. Und abends geht es zurück nach Arcos, wo die Semana Santa, die heilige Osterwoche, angebrochen ist und wir eine Prozession nach der anderen erleben - aber davon später mehr.    Read more

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  • 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
    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

  • TravelerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    12
    Day 33

    Carril cortado

    April 3 in Spain ⋅ ☁️ 61 °F

    Just as we left the village on a Sendero Local, the SL-A 238, Sendero Virgen de las Nieves, we saw a sign indicating that the route was closed at some point ahead. We hoped that meant closed for vehicles but passable for walkers, and as it turned out, that was the case. We worked our way up the lush green Río de los Horcajos valley, passing so many interesting things in the first kilometers that we could hardly make any progress.

    Tolox is located between two rivers. The villagers made use of the water power available, and in the 1900s there were 14 mills that operated along the rivers: 7 olive oil mills and 7 flour mills. We saw the remains of two of these, quite an exciting find, with their aqueducts and arched openings to let the water in and allow the excess to flow out. In addition, the valley presented us with medieval bridges, dry stone walls for terracing, orchards and grapevines, and balsas to collect water for use in the huertas (vegetable gardens).

    When we came upon the actual spot where the lane was cut, it was quite clear that it was going to be a long time before the vehicles trapped on the far side of the collapsed roadway were going to be able to make their way into town. This was certainly damage from the 21 days of March storms. We could also see that at other points, the roadway had been underwater at some recent time. There were huge clumps of accumulated sand, rocks, and reeds strewn around.

    It made us wonder how the romería is going to get up to the shrine next month. Each May, the villagers carry a statue of the Virgen de las Nieves from the village up to the shrine itself. There are lots of picnic tables and a refreshment kiosk to accommodate the gathering. This year, I think the supplies will have to come up the old-fashioned way, by horse or mule.

    www.wikiloc.com/hiking-trails/tolox-sendero-vir…    Read more

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