Thursday March 10th Villanueva de Rosario to Villanueva de Tapia

A big 36 kilometre walk today, I chopped a bit of a Villanueva de Trabuca, and then inadvertently added it on again by going wrong at the end. This meant that having left Villanueva de Rosario at just after 9, I didn't get to the wonderful Hotel Rural Paloma until after six.

Having moaned about the extent of the road walking on some of the other stages, today's walk was a master piece in road avoidance and, ironically, it wasn't until I had to make good my mistake that I had to do a serious road stretch.

I have not really worked out the geography but the route seems to be taking me across, and along, a wide valley or plain between the Sierras Gorda in the south and some mountains to north. It's serious agricultural country, mainly olive trees, but also winter wheat. Lots of olive oil factories, as the first picture shows, you can also see that the weather remains grim, not as wet as yesterday, but wet.




Providing your walking amongst the trees on nice paths, which I was today, this is good walking country, even better when the farmer hasn't got around to getting rid of all the wild flowers.




I had said that spring, using the ash tree clock, was at least eight weeks ahead of the UK, now I'm not sure. Maybe it is because I am a bit higher up than when I was but the field of wheat below, and the trees behind, don't look that far ahead of the UK.





As well as fields of olive trees, some lovely evergreen oak woods, the route took me underneath a motorway, via a flooded underpass, and underneath a brand new highspeed rail line. The rail line was so new that the tracks hadn't been laid and it's route was not on the map.









Had my best dog moment so far, a village with about twenty houses, managed to get every dog barking in every house. Went through it, realised I had gone left instead of right, had to walk through it again, the dogs, which had only just recovered from the first session, thought I was doing it on purpose.





So the cock-up. The cock up was that I hadn't worked out where the hotel was and thought that I would walk past it on the way into Villanueva de Tapia, which is what the Cicerone Guide implies. In fact it's about 50 metres of the route but about 3.5 kilometres to the south of the village, which I got to just as the skies opened up. This was a near disaster as I still didn't know where the hotel was and the truth of the matter is that the Spanish, in general and in my experience, speak English as well as I speak Spanish. In the end I was able to make myself understood through the medium of the GPS and getting them to show me the location. It was then a sharpe walk along a busy road, in the rain, back to hotel.

Well the Hotel Rural Paloma has been well worth finding. The first thing they did was make me a pot of tea, give me a large piece of orange cake and sit me in front of the fire, brilliant. The dinner was also excellent, the best I have had so far in Spain. Lots of fresh vegetables: pasta with globe artichokes, lamb stew with carrots, cauliflower and potatoes, and a creme brûlée to finish.

It's not hard find but just remember if your travelling south to north you don't go to Villanueva de Tapia. You will have been walking alongside a railway line through evergreen oak. The route suddenly turns right and after about a kilometre you hit the main road and head towards Villanueva de Tapia. After about 2/300 metres the signs take across the road and the route takes you cross country to the village. Instead of crossing the road you need to stick on the main road and the hotel is on your right after another 50 metres. You can see it from the route, but of course I wasn't looking and expected to walk past it.

Nice short walk tomorrow which is just as well because the weather continues to look bad. Desperate to get some socks washed and dried.

Wednesday 9th of March, Antequera to Villanueva del Rosario

First absolutely wet day, still raining, and the weather forecast is bad for tomorrow. So a pretty miserable day but actually got some perverse pleasure out of it, have finished it nice and early and I'm now resting up.

If I wasn't on a schedule, than Antequera is worth a stop over. The GR7 brings you in through the new part of town and takes you out of the old and, because I couldn't find the way out, I saw a bit more of the old part than I had planned to and it was well worth it.

Antequera is another Andalucian towns is clambering up around a rock, although because of the town's size it's harder to spot the rock at the core. The towers of the Moorish fortress (the Alcazaba) still dominate the skyline along with a number of well preserved Gothic churches. To the north of the fortress, the well preserved remains of Roman baths have been excavated, and Antequera is also home to the site one of the largest bronze age mass tombs in Europe.





I saw more of Antequera than I had planned because I had the wrong track on my GPS. I could see the route on the ground, although it wasn't well signed, but the GPS was showing something different. Most of my tracks are based on Wikilocs, which is really well used in Spain, but occasionally, when I couldn't find a Wikiloc route and I plotted it myself from the map. This was one of those times and my plotting was wrong.

To make matters worse and because it was raining so hard I wasn't even using my GPS as much as I would have liked to. It is an iPod application, the iPod isn't waterproof and I was trying to avoid using it and getting it wet. As it was it started to turn itself of in a really worrying way.

I guess you could say it's my own fault for being too dependent on a GPS but this is the first time I've used it and I'm a total convert. Part of the reason I'm flying along is that for 90 per cent of the time I know exactly where I am.

As it was I was quite pleased when I saw my first GR sign and my route met up with the E4 proper. This was at 11 o'clock and about 2 hours after I had left Antequera. Being on the right route made no difference to the weather and it continued to rain hard. I was actually walking through the El Torcal Natural Park, centred around the peak of El Torcal which reaches 1336 metres. The picture below is included to prove to sceptics that I didn't catch the bus.


As if to taunt me for using GPS, the GR signs suddenly become reliable, took me arrow like towards Villanueva del Cauche, shot me underneath the motorway and on towards Villanueva del Rosario. At one point they teased me by threatening to take me down a slip road onto the motorway only at the last minute revealing another turning. It wasn't the sign's fault that the route wasn't very nice, going underneath the motorway another two times, or that I missed the sign which would have let me cover the last 2 kilometres across country rather than on the side of the road.

Despite everything I finished the walk in good time. Left the hotel in Antequera at 8.45, walked 28 kilometres, and arrived at Hotel las Delicias at about 3. 30.

A particular pleasure the last two nights has been watching the football in the bar with the Spanish. The Barcelona game on Tuesday and the Valencia game last night. I did not see the mighty Spurs continue their European triumph but was getting regular updates from Christine on progress. I must say I get no pleasure out of seeing Arsenal leave the competition and like many Spurs fans was looking for a north London final (although technically Arsenal are from Woolwich). I have many Arsenal friends, know some of them read this blog, and do not want to add to their misery. In truth of course, their real pain came not with defeat by Barcelona, when they were down to 9 men(Fabragas already in the pay of Barcelona), but with the defeat by Birmingham and the failure to reach the season's strategic objective and win the Carling Cup.

By the way I am now starting northern variant of the GR7. It's a bit lower than the southern variant and the weather should be better this time of year. Have know walked 278 kilometres in 9 days. Christine joins me in Rute on Saturday which is 80 kilometres away, I hope it stops raining.

Tuesday March 8th El Chorro to Antequera

Slightly shorter walk today, 30 kilometres, and after yesterday's experience I was away in really good time, out the garden shed by 8.15 after a chilly night.

Basically the walk was in two stages both dominated by the limestone ridge running west to east. You walk onto its southern flank in the first stage and then after the village of Valle de Abadalajis you cross it and walk along its north flank. Climbing up from El Chorro, and then crossing it again later on, combines to give a total of nearly 1200 metres of attitude gained, as well as the 30 kilometre walk.

It was good walk spoilt a bit by some road walking later on, and the light was very poor, particularly in the morning.

The first task was to recover the attitude lost the previous night in the descent to El Chorro. Walking up through pine trees all way within 20 or 30 metres of the great cliffs which make the area a magnet for climbers. Getting to the top took about 90 minutes and once there you could clearly see the walls of the reservoir on top of the cliff on the other side of the gorge.

It was a then a long and very pleasant contour walk until you dropped down into the village of Valle de Ababalajis where I bought some bread, ham, bananas and chocolate - my core day-time diet. Must say that the towns in Andalucia are really impressive. The "public realm" as some of us say in the UK is immaculate - pavements constructed with traditional materials, well maintained and clean. Had my sandwich watching this guy doing his pull-ups on outdoor exercise machines and totally failed to put him off. Trust me he does get of the ground and his dad was doing it as well.









The second photograph is the view back to Valle de Abdalajis. If the towns are not surrounding a rock they typically have their back to a cliff.

It was then another climb over the ridge and a walk across some arable countryside with the ridge, now a less dramatic feature, on the south side. The route then took you along a road and then a really nice cross country section on a well maintained contour path, before finally descending into Antequera.

Antequera is town with a population of 40,000 with a huge of amount of new housing on the west of town. It took a good 30 minutes to find the middle and I'm staying at the first hotel I saw, the Hotel Castilla, which is fine (and good value).

Worth mentioning one particular feature you have to get used to as you walk through Spain and that's the dogs. Every enclosed space has a dog in it. The dogs are alarms and you can set several of them of at the same time. There are three types of dog - big savage dogs, small savage dogs and a small minority of dogs that don't bark - dogs in disgrace. I have taken a few pictures and they are nearly all of small savage dogs, taking a picture of a big one is just too scary - they get even madder and the separating fence cannot hold back a big mad savage dog for so long.

















The last dog is example of the minority category - the dog in disgrace, for some reason he wasn't barking.

The only thing I would say is that so far, touch wood, when you do across a dog on the wrong side of the fence, they seem less fierce. If they start barking all you have to do is shake a walking pole at them and they shut up - so far.

My thanks to Josie for her sponsorship, clearly a very kind person both for supporting me and putting up with Mike Hoare for a boss.

Monday March 7th, Cuevas del Becerro to El Chorro

Today was a brilliant walk but a series of minor planning cock-ups combined to make it a bit more exciting than I had intended. Had hoped stay at the Olive Tree in El Chorro, which looks really nice, but didn't quite make it.

My itinerary says that 26 kilometres for today's walk, a relatively easy 16 miles. This is a bit tedious but because I went away from the trail yesterday for accommodation, I didn't work out until into the walk today that yesterday's walk was shorter and today's longer than I had realised. Because I thought it was a short walk I had a leisurely start (nearly 10) and was behind all day. When I got to El Chorro (at about 7.15) it was getting dark and I then discovered the Olive Tree was four more kilometres further on so opted to stay on a campsite in town which has what they call bungalows (I would call them big garden sheds). Having got a big garden shed, which sleeps eight people in bunk beds, I had a very nice bath, I then worked out that this is a campsite and they assume people bring their own bedding. Fortunately it's quite warm, 300 metres lower than last night, and I had eight pillows which I sort of weaved around me as insulation .

Anyway enough of the cock-ups what about the walk. Well it was really good. I'm now out of cattle country and into olive oil country (plus other things) which means no fences and the route essentially follows trails used to work the land. Much better on my feet.

The route takes you directly east across two broad valleys, finishing at El Chorro which is dramatically set at the bottom of a gorge.









The countryside is big and open, not easy to capture in pictures, and the light was not very good. The first picture is looking back to Cuevas del Becerro and the second one, from same place looking forward to the ridge of the first valley, about eight kilometres away. The peak on the left is the Cerro del Escribano which is 950 metres high.

Crossed the ridge from the first valley at about 12.30 and a sign said that Ardales, the town at the bottom of the next valley was still three hours away. All the signs on this part of the walk seem to overstate the time needed and I got there in two. Ardales must be carbon free, it had huge wind turbines whirring above it and a massive solar panel farm alongside it. It also has a working roman bridge which I crossed to get into town. A nice looking town, and another one like Jimena de la Frontera clambering up a rock.

As there was no dinner at the Olive Tree I stopped for lunch in a bar. The football from last night was on and I hung around hoping to see the Spurs game.









I knew it was about 13 kilometres to El Chorro which I figured I could do in 2 and half hours so was slightly taken aback when I saw a sign that said 6. It was a great walk, the weather and the light had got better all day, but it did go on a bit. It took me about 3 and half hours.

El Chorro sits at the bottom of a gorge through which runs the Rio Gaudalhorce. On top of the cliffs on the west side sits a huge reservoir the massive walls of which have to be largely circumvented before you head down 600 metres to the bottom of the gauge and cross the dam into El Chorro. The walk down was very steep and the light was going so an interesting 20 minutes to the bottom. The gorge, the dam, even the reservoir at the top were all very impressive but it was cliffs above El Chorro that stole the show. The light has almost gone when I took the picture below but hopefully some of the scale is captured.





So despite missing the Olive Tree, a great days walking. Have now done a full seven days and it might sound like a weird thing to say, given that I'm on foot, but it feels like I'm racing through Spain.

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.