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  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2
    12
    Dag 54

    Ruta los Meguellines

    24 april, Spanje ⋅ ☀️ 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…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2112
    Dag 53

    Puerto de los Lobos

    23 april, Spanje ⋅ ☀️ 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…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2112
    Dag 51

    El Burgo

    21 april, Spanje ⋅ ⛅ 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-…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • Europawandel
    1
    1
    Dag 43

    Ausflug nach Ronda

    14 april, Spanje ⋅ ☁️ 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.    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    115
    Dag 43

    Where are we?

    13 april, Spanje ⋅ ☁️ 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…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    2
    2213
    Dag 42

    Meeting Señor Merchán

    12 april, Spanje ⋅ ☁️ 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.Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    11
    Dag 40

    Pinsapo Pines and Pozos de Nieve

    10 april, Spanje ⋅ ☀️ 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…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    111
    Dag 38

    Three firsts

    8 april, Spanje ⋅ ☀️ 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-…    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerSpain 2025 - Malaga province
    1
    1132112
    Dag 37

    Yunquera

    7 april, Spanje ⋅ ⛅ 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.    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling
  • ReizigerPortugal and Spain
    23
    Dag 7

    Setenil De Las Bogas and Olvera

    3 april, Spanje ⋅ ☁️ 17 °C

    The Andalusian region is nicer than I could have ever imagined. It doesn't even feel real driving through the olive tree orchards and the fields dotted with sheep and goats. After leaving our rental cottage in Ronda, we went to Setenil de Las Bodegas and walked the streets with homes built into the rock overhang. There have been hunter-gatherers living here for 12 thousand years and still today. The streets are cobblestone and zigzag along the natural shape of the rivers edge. We poked our heads into some of the dwellings and the walls were literally just rocks with a facade.

    Next we went to Olvera. The drive was incredible. We came down into the valley and you could see the white houses but right in the middle of the town there's a huge hill with a castle and church towering above everything else. It looks like a storybook.

    Finally we drove across the border into Portugal and are staying the night in Lagos. It's very windy and cold tonight. I wish I packed more warm clothes.    Meer informatie

    Zie vertaling

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