Saturday March 19th Torres to Jodar

A great walk today, 23.5 kilometres in three legs, with just under 1000m of climb.

But first a postscript on last night. We stayed at Hotel Jurinea, had a really nice dinner, and finished with something special. It was the local version of sloe gin but much nicer, made with sweet anis and cherries, 2006 vintage, absolutely delicious. The guy from Carchelejo turned up with the sticks so I now have all my kit again - a good night.

Perfect weather today, actually hot.

The first leg of the walk involved a climb up along a path through a gorge behind Torres and then down a winding track to the little town of Albanchez (the local pronunciation sounds nothing like the word), clinging to the hillside under a huge rocky with an old moorish castle on top. The views from top of gorge were amazing with a bit of mist at the bottom of valley mingled with smoke from little fires of olive tree cuttings. Saw a couple of deer climbing in the rocks above us. Stopped at Albanchez for a coffee.



Over the gorge from Torres


Albanchez



The second leg involved a long contour walk around to Bedmar. Although the walk was mainly through olive trees this didn't seem to matter today. We came across a large group of Spanish walkers who amazingly wanted us to show them the way, we did our best, but who knows if they got back.




Stopped at Bedmar for lunch, it was getting really hot now so some shade was a good thing. Christine is very particular about lunch and doesn't approve of my chocolate and banana/dried apricot diet - in fairness to Christine the stewed beans and rabbit, all washed down with lots of olive oil, was very nice.



Lunch at Bedmar

According to the Cicerone guide the third leg takes you up steepest scramble of the whole of the Andalucian GR7. The trouble with the climb was that you could see it and it did look long and steep. In the end it wasn't too bad, a lot of the walk was in the shade of the huge cliff on the eastern side and we got to the top in good time. The effect of the walk was slightly sploit by the rotting car half way up which someone had managed to push off the viewing point from the top; suspect it will be an expensive item to move.



Over the ridge to Jodar

The walk down to Jodar was also very pleasant. The sun had now lost its full strength and the walk felt like an early evening stroll. Rather than follow the zig-zags of the trail we straightened the route out by going straight down through the olive groves - would have been too muddy to have done that a couple of days ago.

First impressions of Jodar are not good - looks a bit rundown and out of sorts. Staying at the Hotel Cuidad de Jodar which happily has good Wi-Fi but is on the wrong side of town for a mega 35 kilometre walk tomorrow.


Location:Torres to Jedar

5 comments:

  1. That drink sounds delicious! Mum, any chance of you bring some back for us to try?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi john and christin. As i follow your walk iam now on a three day walking you are to enter Cazorla a nice place i promise.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Sounds great John. Had dinner with Dave & Di on Friday and Dave is hoping to join you sometime. Keep going!!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Thanks, Christine, for keeping John healthy! We want his comments on Budapest. Menno

    ReplyDelete
  5. I found the GR7 path down to Albanchez blocked by a fence; a temporarily looking fence - but not a gate. It was quite at the beginning of the descent, so I just went back to the tarmac and was rewarded with excellent view and few additional kilometers. The fence is a very unpleasant surprise for anyone running the route in the southern direction...
    cheers
    michael

    ReplyDelete