Sierra de la Plata

when the sun came out it was getting quite hot so we didnt head out to our hike till after we had tapas. we made our own and had them on the deck of the next door unit since no one was there....amazing view as their terrace is above the pool terrace. then we drove to the lighthouse Faro de Camarinal- and walked to Cueva del Moro. it is in the natural park.- Parque Natural del Estrecho- there is a locked gate at the lighthouse end of the path/road but there is a farm along the dirt road. at the other end it is an open gate and then an old paved road 1.3 km up to the cave. there is a look it 300m up the road first with amazing views down to la bolonia and Baelo Claudia. We kept hearing bells as we were walking and sure enough there was the farmer with his herd of goats and 2 dogs as we got closer to the cave. there were also some cows with their calfs...all had horns as they dont remove the horns from the female cows here. we saw and heard lots of birds. a titmouse blue grey and yellow, a yellowish lbj and then a pair of larger blackish blue birds perched way up on a dead tree close to the cave. i think some sort of vulture. there are common vultures, griffin vultures and I think the sign said Egyptian vultures. A web site said there is a colony of griffen vultures here. They flew and a perigrine falcon flew out from the rock ledge and chased them away. i suspect the peregrine may have been protecting a nest. Later we saw another pair of huge hawkish/ eagle type birds. lighter in colour that flew around the rock ledges. there are bonelli's eagle, booted eagle and black kites here in the la plata mountains where the cave is located. the cave is only accessible if you are a rock climber and is blocked by a fence so you cannot enter. there are prehistoric paintings on the walls. discovered in 1995 and dating back 20,000 yrs. upper paleolithic. see this link: https://guiadecadiz.com/es/turismo-cultural-det…

and this link
https://www.prehistoriadelsur.com/2013/12/cueva…

on the way back we ran into the farmer again with all the goats and he was shephardng them into his enclosure. The marine clouds were starting to come down to where we had walked up. apparently we did a 221 m elevation gain. it was very peaceful lots of birdsong and you could hear the waves way up high. a nice time of the day to be out walking. we passed quite a few people, a cyclist and a few cars.Read more