Sunday March 6th, Ronda to Cuevas del Becerro

Seems like a crime not spend more time in Ronda, particularly after such a big day yesterday, but I'm on a schedule and if the schedule says go you have got to go. Having said that today was a short 22 kilometre walk and, given that it was raining, I didn't leave Ronda until nearly 10.

Apart from being short this walk, I'm afraid, was a poor one. The route is really difficult to find coming out of Ronda. I saw one sign in the advertised place but after that it all went wrong. My own GPS trail was definitely incorrect and in the end I just made it up.

After a sandwich in the rain at Arriate I found the sign which tells you 8 hours to Serrato (near where I'm staying) which would have had me arriving at 8 in evening. I knew it must be wrong. It was then a trudge up the hill, past a series of pig farms, across a railway line and then onto a nice forest trail. This didn't last long and after about 30 minutes your on a road again and this time a busy one. This went on for about 6 kilometres although occasionally the track ran parallel to the road rather than actually on it.





Sorry to moan about this but it's poor. After about three kilometres there was a brand new dry stone being built about 20 metres back from the road, this went on for about 2 kilometres until you got to the gateway for a new golf course. Unfortunately you couldn't get access to strip between the wall and the road because it was fenced of.

So I didn't hang around admiring the view and when I eventually got to leave the road it was only half a hour before I got to my destination. Cuevas del Becerro is just of GR7/E4 (there is not accommodation at Serrato the next place along) and I had booked a room at the Bar Alfredo. Unfortunately the landlord was asleep and I couldn't get into my room. All I could do was roam the streets of Cuevas del Becerro looking lost and fed-up and intimidating the locals.

Then the sun came out and the carnival started. Not sure what it was for, hopefully Juan can let me know, but some of the costumes were very good. Particularly impressed with the pig slaughtering . The pigs (young men in costumes I should stress) arrived in an open trailer behind a Land Rover (generally being bashed about on the way), were roughly manhandled onto a table and then had their throats cut. Blood everywhere and in front of the children. Wouldn't get it at the gymkhana.










Thought the flamenco dancer was excellent and wasn't it nice of Elton John to turn up dressed at Postman Pat, shows he still has the common touch.



The carnival started in a fairly chaotic way outside the small local town hall which also housed the public library. Next door was the Policia Local and opposite the largest bar in town (lots of small bars). Carnival goers meandered from one building to the other.

Following the carnival as it headed towards the Bar Alfredo, I was reminded again how densely packed these Spanish towns are compared to what I'm used to. Trailing the carnival I was running through a gauntlet of houses were elderly woman, mostly at ground floor level, were somehow sitting in their respective windows and sharing with each other comments on the costumes. I got the impression that they thought my effort to look like a ghostbuster was a poor one.

So a bad walk with a happy ending finished of with a nice dinner in the bar watching the football. All the drinkers were men, and apart from two policeman, recovering from high intensity carnival patrol, there was no one under sixty.

By the way the way thanks for all the comments and please keep them coming. If they don't get published straight away it is because I don't have internet connection at the stopping place I stop, don't have it tonight for example. I have tried publishing via my IPhone, but it is very hit and miss, and expensive. Please don't be put off.

Ubrique to Ronda

Today's trip from Ubrique to Ronda was an amazing walk, the best so far. Still the effort made beer in the bar across the road from the hotel taste extra good. The longest day so far, started just before eight and finished just after six, I covered 37 kilometres and climbed 1400 metres.

The walk had everything. It included four pueblo blancos and went from one side to the other of Andalucia's first natural park, the Sierras de Grazelema. Despite looking like it was going to rain, and this particular area is apparently the wettest in Spain, it stayed dry all day.

After leaving my overnight accommodation in the dark, dropping my key of at the police station, I joined locals who were filling their water bottles at a Roman fountain at the edge of the town. Roman water was absolutely the right thing because for the next hour I walked the Cazorla Roman, a largely intact and original roman road, climbing 600 metres up to Benacoaz. Starving by the I got there I had a huge and delicious dried ham sandwich with a cafe leche. The Roman road and the antecedents to the sandwich are shown in the photographs below.





Villaluenga del Rosario, which you get to after steady 4 kilometre road walk, is a picture post card pueblo blanco, and given the size of the car park just beyond the village must be very crowded in the summer. The view shows the village nestled underneath the massive 1395 metre Navazo Alto.


Climbing up out of the village, and heading southeast, you get off the road and onto an 18 kilometres series of trails taking you all the way to Montejaque. This is great walking. The best thing for me were the two huge dry valleys, the first one which you crossed and second one which you walked along, both with wide flat bottoms and with almost vertical cliffs on each side. Easy walking, although something approaching a scramble as you climb a pass to cross the ridge separating the two valleys. The last bit of the walk was classic limestone scenery with 1000 metre cliffs squeezing the valley on either side. To add to the show large numbers of griffon vultures, I counted 20 at one point, were hovering above, watching perhaps the huge flock of sheep just released by the shepherd who seemed to live in a cave at the bottom of the cliff.







Thought I had taken a picture of a griffon vulture, but now I think it might be an eagle, lovely white head.

The limestone scenery came to abrupt end just after Montejaque, the third pueblo blanco on the route, and the next valley, in front of Ronda was particularly deep and wide. Involved a long and painful walk down, crossing the broad gauge line from two days ago, and then up again to Ronda. It had been an amazing walk but I had absolutely nothing left in the tank when I got to my hotel (Hotel Polo) and I got the lift up to my room.

A couple of bits of news.

Met my second walker today, Ron from Colorado, the home of Osprey bags. He was plugged into an IPod, so it's not just me. He is also a serious light weight walker and makes some of his own gear. Like my first walker Juan, he was another nice guy and kindly took picture of me.


The second piece of news is that the missing underpants have turned up. They were in the bottom of rucksack. Given the role they are currently performing I can understand why they wanted to hide, but it's not fair on the other three pairs, so they are now back on active duty.

Also special thanks to Ivan and Sue, both for your kind comments and for your generous sponsorship. It really is encouraging.

Getting to Ronda is perhaps the first milestone. After five days walking averaging over 30 kilometres a day, I'm now out of Cadiz province and into Malaga, a bit knackered but now I have some shorter days to look forward to.

Jimena de la Frontera to Ubrique

Big day today with a lot of changes. Firstly I've completed a long walk that has propelled me right into the mountains; secondly the weather has changed; and, thirdly the town council and its tourist office has provided me with accommodation.

The walk was 37 kilometres, with 900 metres of climb and took me just under 10 hours. Most of the climb was at the beginning with great views back to Jimena de la Frontera, Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. The light was poor and the photo doesn't do it justice. After cork trees and some strange stunted pine trees that generated a canopy that looked like giant broccoli, the countryside opened up. At the top everything was a mass of colour, purple heather I think.

Half way along you enter a long narrow hidden valley, completely different walking, very enclosed, like walking through a tunnel. Then it opened up, and so did the heavens, rain, lightening and hail as well. The temperature dropped and I hadn't put my fleece on and got really cold, a mistake I won't make again. Stayed fairly wet all afternoon so a good and successful test for all the waterproofs.



After about 27 kilometres I was heading down to Ubrique and on a road. Both the Cicerone guide and my GPS trail suggested that I would have to stay on it all the way, but some GR markings took me down a muddy green lane, a short cut, which gave a welcome relief from the hard surface.

Ubrique is a mountain town, larger than I had expected and nestling under huge cliffs. Accommodation has been arranged for me by the local tourist office enabling me to generate 50 euros from my accommodation sponsor towards the BNMT project (generated 50 euros for each of the last two nights as well). Many thanks to everyone who has put this together. The trip in the back of the local police vehicle was particularly interesting. The vehicle didn't have much and the sound proofing, lack of handles on the doors and hard surfaces suggests that it was usually used for a different sort of customer.

I have been given my own tiny flat which I think is like some sort of emergency homeless accommodation. It's a bit basic and turning the hot water on causes all the power to trip (something I got around eventually by using the microwave). Dinner and breakfast is around the corner in the Bar Carriles. Everyone in the bar seemed to be related and they were having a riot. Wish I could speak Spanish.

The whole place by the way is like a maze. The streets are about four feet wide, all the houses are white and I got lost in an instance. A nice old guy escorted me from one end of the town to the other to find the Polizia Estacion but where will he be in the morning when I have to find it again to return the key. Pressure!

One small moan about Nestle chocolate. I bought two large bars of chocolate last night, very strong, was told later that I had bought cooking chocolate.

Insomnia script. The tiny flat is very close to one of the narrow roads, you feel like you are in the road. Young men are flying around on scooters on the wet cobbles, the noise is intense, I guess it's what you do in the absence of a bull run.

Day 4 Castillo de Castillar to Jimena de la Frontera

Just a couple of things I forgot to mention. The first is that the Los Barrios area is stork heaven with huge stork nests sitting on top of virtually every pylon. They look absolutely amazing when they fly reminding you of the relationship between birds and dinosaurs. The second and completely unrelated omission is that the castle at Castillo de Castillar dates back to the Nashrid Moorish dynasty which makes it, I think, the same age as the Alhambra at Granada. Included below is a compulsory picture of storks and a picture of my bedroom last night from the outside - not bad.





So today's walk was 18 kilometres, just under 13 miles, was supposed to take 6 hours, but I did it in 5, so bully for me. Good news is that I arrived at Jimena de la Frontera without anything aching or feeling sore and had plenty of time to rest up for a really long walk tomorrow.

I guess you can break the walk into three parts, the last bit of the cork forest, cattle country and then a flat walk through arable land along the side of a railway line. Virtually all the walk was off-road so with any luck yesterday was just an aberration.

Really liked the cattle country, which is what I was looking at from the road yesterday. Maybe it's the farm boy in me but I do like to see cattle with the sun on their backs in huge rolling green fields. Well this was a particularly green version of the "Ponderosa" and Little Jo and Hoss would have finished the picture. I did take a picture of a bull behind a fence but unfortunately focused on the fence and not the bull - nerves.

For my friends who are trainspotters the walk along the side of the railway line was a bit uneventful, only saw three trains. I got a picture of one of them, not very good, but I know that all they need is a mere shadow and they can work out who made it.

The line by the way was built in 1892 by the French engineer Emil de Balignac and connects Algeciras with Bobadilla. The seven dodgy English built trains where replaced with Spanish thoroughbreds after only 10 years. Despite the current levels of traffic (less than a train a hour) the line will be part of the high speed network by 2015.



The other interesting thing about the walk is that it was very wet underfoot. I guess this proves how lucky I have been with weather. It also confirmed to me where we are here in comparison to the UK in terms of spring. The ash trees are out and have been for at least a week. Ash trees, along with the Oak, are one of the last trees to come out in leaf in the UK, I think around the end of April, beginning of May. That means, according to the ash clock, spring here is a massive eight weeks ahead of the UK.

Jimena is another hill top town although here town spills out down the hill and well beyond the ancient walls. It's a lovely pueblos blancos with lots of bars and restaurants with a significant ex-pat community. The British landlord of a bar gave me directions to the Casa Henrietta where I'm staying for the night, and I'll go for a drink there later.

The Casa Henrietta is another special place. It has a similar style to the very upmarket Riad Christine and I stayed in when in Marrakesh last year and must be based on the same keeping cool principles. Lots of shade with a series of inner balconies around a central courtyard which has now been enclosed with an atrium. The decoration is very Andalucian. The walls are painted with bright colour washes, yellows and red/ochre and strong primary paints are used for the woodwork. All designed for the sun.

My room, pictured below, is I suspect typical and also benefits from an amazing view north towards the mountains. The landlady, Melissa Gonzales, could not be more helpful and speaks great English. She is a painter, used to live in Henrietta Street in Dublin (her English has an Irish accent), paints lots of Henriettas and hence the name Casa Henrietta. If you plan on walking the E4 this is definitely the place to stay in Jimena de la Frontera.

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Breaking news:

1. Had a drink at the Bar Oba and the English landlord said that railway was designed by an Englishman not a Frenchman. I got my information from a sign near the railway. More important, it is wide gauge and the trains using it go through a process of bogie adjustment before going onto the standard gauge network. Worth a whole trip just to see this line!

2. Left a pair of underpants at the last hotel - this rate of attrition could really jeopardise my plan.

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Day 3 Los Barrios to Castillo de Castellar

So when is a footpath not a footpath?

When it's a sodding road.

So firstly the moan, most of the route from Los Barrios to Castillo de Castellar is along roads. There are a few bits where you leave the road but you come back to it very quickly. Frankly this is disappointing for a premier national trail, the GR7 and for the E4, it's just not good enough. Can't moan to much as a bit of it is definitely down to my reliance on a GPS trail I found in Wikilocs . It may be that the person who published it was a cyclist and preferred roads. I definitely missed some of the off road bits mentioned in the GR7 Cicerone guide, but even that acknowledges that most of today's route is road based.

Apart from the bit near the rubbish dump at the beginning, most of the roads were at least empty. Walked along one stretch for a hour and saw two cyclists and one JCB earth mover thing which looked like it was there to repair the roads.

What made walking along the roads particularly annoying was that the countryside was great, with lots of what looked like farm tracks. This is however also serious cattle country and the fences and signs look like they are meant to keep people out as well as cattle in. My brother's a farmer, and I do listen to Archers, but in return for the bucket loads of cash they get from the rest of us, they can at least make sure that people who want to walk can actually get the other side of the fence.

My favourite song by the way is "This land is my land", of course prefer the Woody Guthrie original but Bob Dylan's and Bruce's versions are also bang on.

I guess the really big news of the day is that I met my first walker, Juan Holgado who was walking from Ronda to Tarifa. Juan seemed like a very nice man and spoke good English (studied in English in Exeter in 1968, must have missed everything), but was not impressed when I told I was going to Budapest. I even emphasised the point that it was the Budapest the capital of Hungary, the other side of Austria, but still no reaction.

Juan is a serious walker and yes we actually exchanged website addresses. His is http://www.jaholgado.com/

Some people have unkindly suggested that I will walk from one end of E4 to other without talking to anyone, so talking to Juan was a real break. I have proved the unkind people wrong. It now means I have now got my talking to people bit out of the way and can stay plugged into my IPod for the rest of the journey!

Walking with the right sound track is like watching a film. Today I really did watch two eagles circling over my head while listening to that "tiny hands are frozen" bit in La Boheme - perfect.

Anyway walking along a road is not all bad news. It did mean that I covered the ground very quickly. Leaving just after 8, and stopping for omelette and chips at 12, I got to Castillo de Castellar by 4 in the afternoon.


Castillo de Castellar is the first of many fortified hill top towns I'm scheduled to visit. It is a stunning completely walled town, very small but with lots of little artisan shops and tiny houses for weekly lets. I'm staying in an amazing hotel. It's not mentioned in the Cicerone guide but is essentially a conversion of the castle. The room I'm in (101) is long and thin, three windows facing south, two north and a balcony facing east. Although there are rooms above me it feels like I'm at the top of castle and the views are amazing, down to Gibralter in the south and over to Ronda in the north east. Should be brilliant in the morning with the sunrise. Haven't eaten yet but based on location alone would definitely recommend it to others. To be honest it has really made me miss Christine, she would love it, and it should be shared.

Day 2 Tarifa to Los Barrios

Hannah my daughter commented on yesterday's blog that it was typical of a Hayes not to know it was the Andalucian bank holiday; a bit hard but she has a point. We are a bit forgetful and in particular, often miss the obvious. Had a case of that this morning when I looked at my iPad clock and, because I hadn't changed it from UK time, didn't notice it was an hour late. So despite having persuaded the hotel to do an early breakfast, I didn't actually leave until 10am a bit late for a 35 kilometre walk. In the end I arrived at Los Barrios at 7.15pm, which given that they don't serve dinner until 9, wasn't a problem.

Great walk through a large natural park with a cork forest. Loads of wild life, in particular birds, and there was a large party of birdwatchers along the route. Everything is very green and the weather, which remains sunny, shows everything at its very best. A lot of wind turbines in the first third of the walk - not everyone's cup of tea.

The only moan I have is that the paths, although not metalled, are made to be accessible by vehicles. It wasn't that I saw many, I saw a couple, it's just they they are a bit hard underfoot. The last bit, into Los Barrios, was 6 kilometres along a road proper and my feet were on fire by the time I got to the hotel.

I am knackered tonight but critically have no blisters on my feet. Have another long day tomorrow, with a brilliant hotel at the end of it, and then it's a short day. I'm trying not to think about the whole walk, it's just too scary. I'm going to "take one day at a time".

Tarifa

Well I have arrived and I have done a bit of walking.

Apart from my Lidl experience it has been a good day.

I got to Tarifa in really good time. Straight of the plane, my rucksack was the third item on the conveyor, and then down the road and onto a bus to Tarifa. Absolutely perfect day, clear sky but a breeze which kept it was nice and fresh.

What I didn't know is that today is Andalucia day, a bank holiday, and all the shops are shut. Because I didn't know, I went on a wild goose chase following signs to Lidl. The signs were confusing and when after about a hour I eventually found myself in the Lidl car park I was the only one there. Thought it was something to do with thesiesta but no it turns out every thing is shut.Also shut was the island of Tarifa, connected to the mainland by a causeway, and technically the most southern bit of Spain. Because I couldn't get in so I started my walk at its gates.

Although Tarifa looked like a nice place, apart from the Lidl car park, I'm actually staying about 7 kilometres along the trail at the end of the beach at a small, but on bank holiday Monday, very busy surfing hotel. Tarifa is particularly famous for its wind and kite surfing and today there was a least 100 people flying about, it looked great.

The final thing that struck me is just how close Tarifa is to Africa. Tarifa is the point along the coast where the Mediterranean ends and Atlantic begins but with everything so green at the moment it could be a large Scottish loch rather than a sea crossing. Looking back to Tarifa, across the huge beach, the mountains you see behind the town are in Africa.