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First glimpse of the
stupa |
Moors
and monks
Back from Rwanda and walking with gorillas,
Tony Allen takes on
a more tranquil trek
This
month, we’re off to explore the hills to the south of Lake Viñuela.
Our destination is an ancient Moorish watchtower guarding the pass to
the south of the lake but nearby, perched incongruously on the
hillside, we’ll pass another monument which would seem more at home on
the forest slopes of Burma or Indochina than in the Spanish campo.
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| We start at the
northern end of the new bridge over the Rio Guaro, where a small side
road to Portugalejo leaves the main A335. From here we can see the old
watchtower, the torre de la atalaya, on the crest of the ridge to our
southwest. Parking in the side road and crossing the A335
(carefully!), we set off down the crumbling once-tarmac track to the
left of a new house surrounded by orange trees. This track doubles
back down into the river valley, soon turning to a concrete surface
and swinging left to pass under the crumbling bridge which carried the
old road to Zafarraya.
After about 100m we leave
the concrete track to cross the stream on rough stepping stones
directly under the new bridge and, on the far bank, pick up a small
footpath heading to the right, upstream and parallel to the river. The
footpath is quite slippery so if the water in the stream is low it
easier simply to follow the river bed. Another hundred metres and we
pass a stand of tall eucalyptus and, 50m further on, turn sharp left
onto a concrete track which climbs diagonally up the slope to the
south of the river (0.37km). |
La
atalaya |
|
Goat pen by the
wayside |
Beside the eucalyptus
a sari-clad woman is planting cabbages in the hot sun in a small
field. She barely looks up as we pass, hurrying to get the plants in
and watered before the sun withers them. A Moorish woman quite
probably cultivated the same patch 600 years ago - centuries of
progress reflected only by the plastic irrigation tubing which has
replaced the open channels carrying water to the plants.
Following the concrete track back up the hill, we pass one track
leading off to the right and then, opposite the end of the old road
bridge, double back to the right to follow a second track on up the
hill. After about 200m we swing left to wind up a pretty little side
valley, its slopes clothed with low scrub and scattered with larger
retama bushes. |
A couple of hundred
metres further on another track, its entrance guarded by two posts and
a chain, leads off to the right (0.76km) but we ignore this and
continue to wind on up the hill. As we climb we emerge from the scrub
into olive and almond groves. Then, ahead and to the left, across a
broad valley, a magnificent panorama opens up revealing the austere
grey mass of la Maromato, to its left the Boquete de Zafarraya, the
great cleft slashing through the mountains on the horizon.
Cresting the slope we come to the nose of a spur. The track doubles
back to the south and then swings west along the spine of this spur,
with the atalaya clearly in view ahead of us. To the left on the far
side of a tight little valley is the hamlet of Aldea Baja and beyond
we get our first glimpse of a strange looking white dome. Shortly
after, the track forks beside a ruined cottage (1.35km). |
Aldea Alta and
Maroma
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The
left hand fork leads across the valley to Aldea Baja and we’ll return this
way on the final leg of our walk. For now, however, we take the right fork
and continue to climb gently westward along the side of the ridge.
The track now leads us past
a modern bungalow beside a tall mast and a couple of subsidiary tracks to
the left, one barred by a rusty old chain. Next, we come to a triple track
junction; to the left is a small sidetrack, straight ahead a second track
leads up to an old cortijo with green-painted outbuildings and, to the
right, a third track, which we follow, contours on around the hillside
(1.9km).
|
Bees at work |
Passing through a
patchwork of garigue and scattered olive trees and ancient carobs, we
reach the lip of a small side valley.
On the far side, and a
little below us on the tip of a spur, is a crumbling cortijo flanked
by beehives and to its left a footpath zigzags steeply up the spur
towards the atalaya, clearly visible now on the ridge.
We drop down into the
side valley, densely clothed with cistus and gorse, broom and feathery
retama, then, climbing the far slope, emerge just above the cortijo,
where a prominent sign warns us “Abejas Travajando” - bees at work!
(2.93km). |
The views from here
are splendid: straight ahead is Lake Vinuela, beyond it the towering
peaks of the Sierra de Enmedio. From there, the Sierras de Alhama and
Tejada, divided dramatically by the Boquete de Zafaraya, sweep to the
right in a huge arc around the horizon to the great ridge of Maroma.
Below Maroma, now satisfyingly below us, we can also pick out the old
bridge and our start point.
Our track now winds on up the hill, crossing and recrossing the crest
of the spur, then swinging left back across the side valley we crossed
earlier to a prominent “T” junction, where we turn right (3.49km). |
The two bridges |
After
about 40m a side track leads off to the left but we stay on the main track
which soon narrows to a footpath. This proves to be only a temporary
bottleneck. The footpath almost immediately opens out again into a broad
track which winds on up through the olive terraces, past a secondary track
to the left and then as we round a bend below another ruined finca, the
tower reappears only 150m ahead of us (4.14km).
 |
From the tower we
enjoy a splendid 360° view; north to Zafarraya, west to Comares, east
to La Maroma, and south to Vélez Málaga and the coast. The tower is
perfectly sited as a communications link between the fortifications at
Vélez Málaga, Comares and Zalia, the ancient castle overlooking
Alcaucin, and dominates all the ground between. An information board
beside it relates its history and the legend that it was built in a
single night.
After a pause to quench our thirst and eat our “iron rations”, we head
west from the tower, following the track along the spine of the ridge
past a new villa and down into a saddle. At the cross tracks here we
turn left and the olive trees and almond increasingly give way to
vineyards as we skirt around a series of side valleys on the southern
slopes of the ridge. |
| About 800m later, as
we pass through another small saddle with a fenced off villa to our
right, the gleaming white dome we spotted earlier appears ahead of us
again.
Now the track skirts
alongside two vineyards protected by chain-link fences and, at the end
of the second vineyard, a well-used track turns off to the left,
taking us to the foot of an avenue of conifers sweeping up to the
astonishing spectacle of a Buddhist stupa, blazing in white and gold
and garlanded with fluttering flags (5.84km).
The stupa, “a monument and place of meditation”, was built in 1994 by
leading Buddhist teacher Lopon Tsechu Rinpoche, and overlooks the
retreat and meditation centre in Aldea Alta, the hamlet which we can
see just down the hill.
After gazing in wonder,
we follow the track on to the east, ignoring the footpath which leads
off to the right - a shortcut for visitors from Aldea Alta.
Our track, marked by a
series of cairns, slants across the hillside before dropping down into
a side valley and joining a larger track beside a ruined finca and
domed stone well (6.54km). |
The stupa |
|
Lake Viñuela |
Here, the right-hand
track leads across the valley to Aldea Alta but we head straight on
towards Aldea Baja.
After climbing a small
spur, we descend again into another small valley and after about 900m
reach a little chapel on the outskirts of the village, opposite which
we turn left onto a sidetrack. This bypasses the village, rejoining
the main track at a T-junction lower down the hill where we turn left
once more (8.240km), and about 350 m later find ourselves back on our
original route and turn right for home.
We’ve seen neither Monks nor Moors on our walk, but it’s good to
imagine the spirits of both roaming the sierras in peace and harmony,
their souls lifted by the majesty of the mountains. |
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Previous walks
by Tony Allen
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September 2006 |
October 2006 |
November 2006 |
December 2006 |
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January 2007 |
February 2007 |
March 2007 |
April 2007 |
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May 2007 |
June 2007 |
July 2007 |
August 2007 |
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September 2007 |
October 2007 |
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