Sunday March 20th Jodar to Quesada

As usual after a spell in the bar of a nice friendly hotel, this time the Hotel Sierra de Quesada, it is easy to forget that today's walk was not actually all that nice. If I wasn't trying to complete the E4 from Tarifa to Budapest than this is a day's walking I would try and avoid.

The purpose of the walk is really to get you across the wide valley between the Sierra Magina and the Sierra de Cazorla. This is a 40 kilometre gap and today was a hot day to be walking across 36km of it. Would rather not imagine what it would be like to do this in mid summer.

Firstly we probably should have stayed in the other of Jodar's two hotels if we wanted to minimise our walking time. The Hotel Cuidad de Jodar adds at least 2 kilometres and is definitely at the most unattractive end of town. The older part of Jodar is at the north end and close to the exit for the E4.

The nice bit of Jodar

Either way it's 15 kilometres of road walking before you get onto something which is marginally kinder on the feet. You do get some nice views back to Jodar and the Sierra Magina Massif in the background but it's a big price to pay for all that foot pounding. There were of course no E4/GR signs and we were guided by the GPS track and the Cicerone Guide but we did come across a one off sign in a field of olives that suggested a cross country route from Jodar Who knows we may be doing the E4 an injustice but I somehow doubt it.

The secret E4

By the time you get to leave the road, at the bridge over the Rio Guadiana Menor, you will probably be like us and running on half empty. Perhaps we should have tried harder to escape the sun but we couldn't really find anywhere in the olive ridden landscape (no trees), so after a short break we just plodded on. The path started to climb and the scenery was definitely more interesting, at last becoming too dry even for the olive trees, but even this improvement couldn't change the fact that this was a hot and fairly unpleasant walk.

Wide open spaces

Olives everywhere

It's a long shallow valley running from the village of Hornos de Peal to Quesada and at one point you can choose between a slightly more shady route on a road from Toya and the E4. By then the sun had got to us and we stayed on the E4. Painfully you don't get to see Quesada until the last kilometre and you think you're never going to get there. It is however another attractive town and, after two beers in such a nice place, you can forgive anything. However if you're not on the same mad adventure as me then get a taxi, a bus or anything to the bridge at the Rio Guadiana Menor and then have a nice walk.

Quesada

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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

Thursday March 17th Carchelejo to Cambils

The decision to taxi back from Cambils to Carchelejo turned out to be a good one for a number of reasons. First and foremost, after yesterday's mega walk, we both felt very tired this morning, my knees ached and for the first time I was concerned that I was not getting stronger but starting to wear out. So a short walk to Cambils without any serious weight in the rucksack, back here and rest and recuperation this afternoon, was just what the doctor ordered.

The walk from Carchelejo to Cambils is 15 kilometres with 200 metres of climb. It is supposed to take 3.30 minutes but unburdened with gear we did it less than 3. It involved a 5 kilometre march down the road to the motorway (through olive fields), under the motorway, and then 10 kilometres along a pretty valley up to Cambils. Nice weather and a pleasant walk. Lunch in Cambils and then back to Carchelejo for that rest and recuperation.













Staying in our own little house, with a cooking facilities, we decided to eat in - baked potatoes, cheese, ratatouille. For once it was nice not to eat in a bar.
The bars are actually great fun. You no doubt get a slightly odd impression of Spain spending so much time in bars but it is interesting none the less. The first thing you notice is that drinking habits are different here. As well as drinking all day, they drink different things. Lots of spirits, whisky, gin, and brandy and not much beer and certainty not in the large volumes consumed in the UK. The tapas thing is real and you only have to have a beer and small plate of ham and cheese will be offered as well. If you sit at the bar, and that's the best place to sit, then it seems almost compulsory to drop as much debris on the floor as possible. A television in the corner is an absolute fixture and this will be on even if the sound is turned down. The bars are very friendly, very male places, and although it's rare to find someone who speaks English, people are interested in what you're doing and somehow you usually strike up some sort of conversation.
Worth saying that food is a bit hit and miss. The menus are all basically the same, but the amount you get is really difficult to anticipate and it seems courses are sometimes for more than one person. So in Frailes Christine managed to order courses each of which had to be for two people at least. The first was Russian salad the size of entire upturned blancmange with breadsticks sticking out of it Desperate Dan style, very tasty but Christine only managed to eat about 20 per cent of it. The second course was calamari served on a huge platter and again there was more than enough for three people.
We did notice an English couple in the bar in Frailes and they have turned up in Carchelejo tonight having completed the walk we did yesterday in two days. Although they were carrying more gear, and had camped on the way, they clearly felt that doing the walk in one day was a bit of achievement and explained it away by saying that we were obviously younger. Nice to be accused of being younger even if it wasn't true.




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Wednesday March 16th Frailes to Carchelejo

After some fairly dull walking, and some fairly dull weather, things took a dramatic turn for the better today with perhaps the best day's walking of the trip so far. Finally escaping the olive trees and getting over 1500 metres for the first time, today's walking combined great views and some tough walking, with absolute solitude (apart from Christine).

Faced with a 35 kilometre walk and just under 1300 metres of climb we needed an quick start. Unusually the bar opened early and by the time we got down at 7.45 there was already a crowd drinking coffee and brandy, very civilised. We passed on the brandy but had a plate of ham and cheese with bruschetta, two cups of cafe con leche and were well set up for the walk.

The weather was cold, dry and overcast, it looked like rain, so nothing to encourage taking in the scenery. As it was the first 90 minutes or so involved a march along the road, up the valley, past the small village of Los Rosales and on towards the 1600 metre mountain of Paredon which was decked out in wind turbines. The metalled road by this point had turned into a track.


Passing a series of ruined farmsteads we eventually climbed to about 1200 metres and contoured around the north side of Paredon. Not a olive tree in sight, the views were now amazing, very remote grazing countryside with bits of snow scattered around the tops of the mountains. The weather was also getting better.


After a steady climb up to the pass at 1500 metres, down through scrubby woodland to a farmstead, Cortijo Los Alamillos, and following the Rio Valdearazo down the route takes you along a forest trail through a valley/gorge for about 7 kilometres. The sky was now virtually cloudless and the scenery almost alpine. There was a shepherd at Cortijo Los Alamillos and he was the only person we saw on the entire walk.





To be honest all this would have been enough to qualify the walk as really good but a huge dollop of icing was about to be placed on the cake. The GR7 continued along the gorge but left the trail and the gorge became much more dramatic. The big sandstone cliffs, wind eroded and forming strange shapes, were now casting dark shadows across the path. The river flowing into this darker, deeper gorge, seemed to be flowing in the wrong direction.






Having walked alongside the river for a kilometre or so, the path suddenly takes you across it and then up a steep climb and out of the gorge. This was the first climb since leaving Tarifa and the ascent, which was over 400 metres, took a good 40 minutes. Just before we got to the top 4 Chamois (I think) danced across the trail.



The final walk into Carchelejo was the inevitable march downhill. We got the hotel in Alcala la Real to book us a Casa Rurales, the Mezquita de Megina, and decided to stay there two nights. The Mezquita landlord told us that the two hotels in Cambil are shut and offered to ferry us back from there after tomorrow's walk and back there the following day.

Had a nice dinner in the bar near the church and watched the Real Madrid game. Trying to understand the Spanish news about what is happening in Japan, given a number for the people missing by a Spaniard and can only hope that this is a mistranslation.

Tuesday March 15th Alcala la Real to Frailes

Sort of rest day today, just a 9 kilometre walk to Frailes. Chance to stay in bed, have a leisurely breakfast and then take a look around Alcala la Real. Strangely the first time I've really felt tired since leaving the UK was this morning, maybe because I had time to notice, or maybe it was the bottle of wine demolished over dinner last night.

Christine is reading the Jan Morris book Spain, and although I'm sure this is really out of date now, it does talk about how poor this part of Spain is. It is difficult to understand how well people are doing just by walking through the countryside but looking from an English perspective there are some conflicting clues. Investment in public infrastructure looks high, public facilities look great compared to many places in the UK, but private sector facilities, shops, restuarants etc, feel old fashioned and in short supply.

Alcala la Real is a good illustration of this. As well as the brand new hospital and sports stadium there is a huge investment taking place In the restoration of the castle and abbey, impressively located on the hill which overlooks the rest of the town. Potentially a huge draw for tourists the facilities you would expect in a town with this at its heart don't seem to exist and we struggled to find somewhere to have lunch. I suspect that growing olives is not a lucrative activity, that this area is still a poor place, and there is not enough money going around locally to sustain the restaurants and other facilities you might expect.








The six tourists, and party of school children, going around the Castle and Abbey got a real treat. Although Napoleon had destroyed most of the building in 1812 the restoration is recreating all the layers of history left by the different occupants of the site from the before the Roman period. Really interesting morning.

After lunch we made the short and leisurely walk to Frailes where we are staying at the Meson Hostal la Posa. Frailes is really base camp for what is a very long walk tomorrow - 35 kilometres and 1300 metres of climb - one of the toughest walks yet.

Friday March 18th Cambil to Torres

Disaster! The Casa Rural owner takes us in his car to Cambil, we set of on the walk, and I say to Christine "where are the walking sticks?"
She replies "What walking sticks?".

I say " my walking sticks, the ones you have been using ever since you arrived in Spain".

After a few more moments trying to deny the obvious, Christine has to acknowledge that she has left my walking sticks, the lightest sticks money can buy, at the Casa Rural.
We wait long enough for the Casa Rural owner to get back to Carchelejo, ring him and think we have a deal for him to return with sticks. We wait for 90 minutes and discover he had misunderstood us or we had misunderstood him and he isn't coming back but will post the sticks on to a Hotel of our choosing, sounds complicated. We eventually set of on the walk at about 11 o'clock, I'm in a mega sulk, the only thing that could have been worse would have been me leaving the sticks not Christine.

All this was a bit of a shame really because the weather was perfect and the walk looked very promising. It involved 27 kilometres walking, a 1000 metres climb, went over a pass at 1650 metres (highest point to date), which went next to the Pico Magina which at 2164 metres is the highest peak in Jaen Province and took us through the Sierra Magina Natural Park.

An initial climb up through olive trees along a track (and after a short section along a road), turned into a walk through evergreen oak.

We passed what looked like several old ruined moorish hamlets and a tumble down castle - Castillo de Mata Bejid. This part of Spain was the borderland between Moors and Christians for a couple of centuries and the province of Jean, has more castles per hectare than anywhere else, or so it seems. We had a great lunch by the side of the track: cold jacket potatoes, the remains of the cheese and a fat sweet little cucumber.


We climbed and climbed up the endless track, cutting off a few corners up stoney grass slopes, until we finally got to the pass, Puerto de la Mata, at 1650m. The sun was beating down from a cloudless sky and we both caught the sun. The views of the Sierra Nevadas behind us to the left were unbelievable as the whole range was carpeted with fresh snow, witness to the very cold weather we've had for the last few days.


After a flapjack stop (all gone now) we started our descent on what looked like a never ending track, winding ever down but not seeming to get any closer to Torres.


At long last we hit town at 5.30. We were relieved to find the Hotel Jurinea and were welcomed by a kind woman who spoke no word of English but was happy to provide two cold beers, then passed on the message that our host from last night would drive over with the lost sticks tonight. Bingo.
Still no Wi-Fi so the blogs are stacking up. Can get emails but publishing blogs with pictures seems to require more than data roaming bandwidth. Have learnt that Tottenham have got Real Madrid in the next round of Champions League. This is good news as it means that I will definitely get to see the game. As I understand it, I will get to see Spurs in the next round as well, when chances are we will have to dispatch the other Spanish pretender,Barcelona.

Update, Friday 18th March

My Dad has sent me a text to say that he has had no wifi connection for three days now and is unable to update the blog. As soon as he arrives somewhere less remote, he'll update with the week he (and my Mum) have had.

Thanks,
Hannah