Land Rover heaven

This blog seems to be going from the sublime to the ridiculous, but as long as we’ve lived in Siles, I’ve wanted to write a post about the beloved Land Rover.

The Land Rover is the olive farmer’s and the hunter’s favorite mode of transportation in and around Siles. I had not spent much time around the classic Land Rover, which is far different from the Range Rover popular as a high-end vehicle in the U.S. The Land Rover is basically a jeep body sitting on top of a tractor. The seats are slightly less comfortable than the original equipment straw-filled seats in my old ’75 VW Beetle. The bodies of the vintage Land Rovers are made of aluminum so they don’t rust, and most of them now sport a healthy dose of bondo along with the aluminum.

Their top speed is 80 km/h (about 50 mph), and they are an absolute hazard on the open roads, especially at night when their tiny taillights are barely visible even when they are not obscured by a trailer they are pulling which usually has no taillights at all. Many is the time I’ve come charging up on one at 120 km/h and found out how well my brakes work.

In the woods and olive groves, however, they are the perfect vehicle. They’ll carry more people (and dogs) and go (slightly) faster than a tractor, can pull a trailer bigger than the bed of a pickup, and as an acquaintance once said of his VW dune buggy, a Land Rover “could climb a tree if you chained it to one.” Battered and beaten, but rarely abandoned, the Land Rover lives on here in Land Rover heaven.

And so, we offer this homage to the humble Land Rover of the Sierra de Segura.

Up in the mountains, down in the streets

We had a busy weekend in and around Siles, the second-to-last of our sojourn here.

On Saturday, we drove to a beautiful spot even farther up in the mountains than we are here to do a little bit more hiking. The spot is called the Embalse de Anchuricas, and it is another small mountain reservoir set among several peaks that climb to almost 1800 meters. We did not climb today. We just strolled along the mountainsides by the edge of the water enjoying the views. The sky was blue, the sun bright, and we could see the reflections of the trees and mountains and sky in the reservoir. We also visited the nacimiento (headwaters) of the Rio Toba, which like so many headwaters here consists of water pouring out of a cave.

After Anchuricas, we drove higher into the mountains along dizzying roads to a little town called Pontones that sits at about 1400 meters. There we had one of the better meals that we have had in all of Spain. On the terrace of Meson El Cortijo overlooking the Rio Segura, we had delicious salmorejo (a type of gazpacho made with bread), the best potaje (a pork stew) I’ve had in Spain, and fabulously grilled local lamb with olive oil and pinch of salt. Arroz con leche (sweetened rice and milk) and cafe con leche finished the meal. Pontones is a tiny town even more in the middle of nowhere than Siles, and restaurants in tiny towns everywhere, not just in Spain, can be a bit dodgy, but this was excellent. If you ever find yourself in Pontones, Meson El Cortijo is the place to go.

After walking the few streets of Pontones, we drove to another nacimiento, this one the headwaters of the Rio Segura. And it too is a hole in the ground with water coming out of it. Except for the fact that the water is frigid, the general look of it reminded us of some of the hot springs in Yellowstone National Park in the U.S. In our park, visiting nacimientos is a bit like climbing 14-teeners (14,000 foot peaks) in the Rockies: there is a certain pride an desire to visit as many of them as one can. We can proudly say that we have now visited the headwaters of all of the main rivers that issue from our sierra: the Guadalquiver, the Borroso, the Guadalimar, the Mundo, the Segura, and the Toba thrown in for good measure.

Saturday night was a big night in Siles. During the evening and early morning, the town prepared for Corpus Christi. In Siles that means decorating the streets with temporary carpets made of flower petals and colored wood shavings. A processional route is cordoned off on Saturday evening, and people begin sketching their designs on the street pavers with chalk. After sketching, the folks using primarily wood shavings begin to fill in their sketches with the appropriate colors of shavings. The carpets made of flower petals are not filled in until around daybreak so that they are still fresh for the processional.

To glimpse the process I took to the streets about 1:30 AM on Sunday morning, and they were alive with activity. A carpet at least 50 meters long and 3 meters wide had already been completed by the church. Several other giant medallion-like designs had been finished in other streets, and many were underway. Children were roaming the streets looking at the work or helping and the town abuelas (grandmothers) were out in force as well. It was a very festive atmosphere.

On Sunday morning around 8:30 AM, we took in the mostly finished products of the night’s work on our way to get churros for breakfast. Some folks had been up all night and were still adding final touches, such as shrines or hangings from balconies, or fixing carpets that cats had found in the night. Flowers and reeds outlined the entire processional path between the brightly colored carpets. We were amazed by the effect, and the whole affair showed Siles at its finest. Because of our travels, we have missed a number of town celebrations during the winter, but we were glad to have seen part of this one.

I say “part,” because we did not stay for the processional itself. After churros, we went on our last international hiking expedition between the Americans and the Spanish, with a little French thrown in for good measure. Like the others, this excursion was organized by our friend and neighbor R, who is the father of F&H’s friends D and R. Our goal was a local landmark known as the Piedra del Agujero (rock with the hole in it), a small limestone bluff with a hole through it that rises out of a pine forest at the top of a low mountain.

We drove part of the way up the mountain and parked near what amounts to an old ice factory. There was a squat building with thick stone walls and a stone roof well-shaded in a grove of pines. Inside the building is a big round hole or well, and before refrigeration the ice makers would pack snow into the well during the winter and let it compact into blocks of ice. In the summer, they would cut the ice out of the well and take it down into the town to sell. The site is called the Pozo de Nieve, the snow well.

From there we hiked up to the Piedra del Agujero, though we couldn’t get too close because of the imposing cliffs directly under it. We did, however, climb some ridges next to and above it for some absolutely stunning views of the surrounding valleys and mountains. Of course, followers of this blog will recognize that as de rigueur by now.

After the hike, we had la comida and spent the afternoon at the cortijo (think cabin) of R’s sister P. P is retired now, but spent all of her adult living and teaching in Paris, where she still owns and apartment and spends at least half of her year. The other part of the year she spends in her cortijo on the side of a mountain in our Spanish sierra. It really seems like the best of two worlds to me. The kids spent the after playing in a tiny pool filled with mountain water and dancing to Spanish tunes set up by R, and the adults spent the time talking and picando (nibbling) and enjoying some locally made wine. Even the locals were talking about how it seemed like time out of time. It was truly a glorious afternoon and evening– the kind of day it would be nice to bottle for later consumption.

Shoulder season or crisis season?

The castle and church complex in La Iruela

The locals in Siles told us that there would be no spring, and it turns out they were not wrong. We’ve gone directly from 50s F and rain to sun and high 70s F, and a temperature sign I saw in Baeza on Sunday even claimed it was 80 F.

Even with that, we are still in the “shoulder season” for travel, which is both a blessing and a curse.

It’s a blessing because prices haven’t skyrocketed yet. It’s a curse because some tourist sites have yet to open.

On Sunday, it was a bit of a curse in the Cazorla/Peal de Becerro area. Or perhaps the curse is the longer term economic crisis in Spain.

In La Iruela, where we were staying, we walked up to the castle and church complex near the top of the town. However, upon arriving we found the complex locked and a sign explaining that it was being renovated. The sign appeared a bit weathered, and there was no sign of work in progress, so we were not sure if, like El Cubo in Siles, this was a long term closure due to lack of funds or off-season work not yet completed. There was one visitor who had made it into the castle (see above left), or maybe he was helping with the renovations.

Stymied in La Iruela, we left the La Iruela/Cazorla area– the entrance to the other edge of the park that we live in (those of you in Minnesota think Ely; those of you in the South, think Gatlinburg)– and headed to the nearby ruins of a Roman villa.

We were expecting another complex like the one at Italica, but this is what we encountered at the Roman ruins of Bruñel:

However, we noticed a very nice BMW motorcycle sitting in the olive groves nearby, and as we pondered our next move, some folks appeared from inside the fence with helmets in hand. I did not see how they emerged from the fence, but I met them at their motorcycle and asked how they had entered (in Spanish).  They showed me the whole in the fence, but I had noticed that there was an inner fence as well, so I said, “But there’s another fence right?” and they said, “Yes, and there’s another hole,” and they told me where that one was as well.

And this is what we saw:

Within the foundations of a small Roman settlement or a large Roman villa are the remains of a number of floor mosaics which decorated rooms and courtyards in the 2nd through 4th centuries. It appears the most intricate ones have been carted off to museums, leaving the geometric designs to bake under short roofs and be encroached upon by weeds and flowers.

Again, the fading signage, the holes in the fences made by enterprising tourists, and the roofs covering the main attractions suggest this is not a shoulder season issue.

This area is comprised of two fertile river valleys among gentle hills and has been inhabited for thousands of years, so there are a number of historical sites, and with both of our morning plans abbreviated by closures, we thought we’d try one more site nearby. This was a pre-Roman tomb on a small hill near the town of Peal de Becerro.

And, as you might have guessed by now, we were again locked out.

This time the fence was a bit more formidable, and there was no BMW hidden in the olives to show us the way in. There was, however, a really nice pavement roller, fresh blacktop, and a new sign, so maybe this was a shoulder season closure. Hard to tell.

In the time-honored tradition of turning lemons into lemonade, we opted for a picnic near the tomb with the following view of the Spanish countryside (and the one you can see in the header if you click on the title of the post to go to the post page rather than the generic blog homepage).

Refreshed and unbowed, we headed for the town of Baeza, a UN World Heritage Site because of the number of 16th century buildings still standing in its old quarter, which we hoped would not be closed.

Why Spanish bathrooms often smell less than good

We are having a great weekend out and about in the mountains not far from home, and in our travels we saw this perfect example of a major Spanish plumbing problem we’ve experienced throughout the year.

The majority of Spanish bathrooms, in homes or hotels, smell a little bit, and sometimes more than just a little bit. If they don’t have the slight tinge of sewage, it is often because it is covered with a large amount of some sort of air freshener.

And this is part of the reason:

Under this sink is a drum trap. Drum traps are illegal in Minnesota, and I suspect in most parts of the US, though you can buy them at Home Depot and Menard’s (I’ve never understood why). The drum trap does not hold water to block the passage of air, and smells, back up the drain.The other reason the smells come back up through the drain is because often there is no vent pipe, a practice that is also illegal in the US. The vent pipe works to suck the stink up and out of the house even if one did use a drum trap.

The best way to stop the stink is to plug the drain, which explains why rubber stoppers are also very common.

Still, if everyone has their drains plugged, the stink has got to go somewhere eventually, and that somewhere is back into the house.

“Hooray for the Minnesota plumbing code!” I say

Aprovechando el sol

Aprovechar is a Spanish word that I really like. It means to take advantage of, but not in a bad way. For example, people always say we are aprovechando (taking advantage of) our year in Spain because we have visited so many cities and done so much hiking here in the mountains.

This weekend we took advantage of the first sunny days of spring to get back on the trails.

On Saturday, Chris, H, and I hiked with our American friend T to a mirador (lookout) above the headwaters of the Rio Mundo, which we visited in the fall. This is across the province line in Castilla La Mancha, but only about 15 km away. Like Athena from the head of Zeus, the Rio Mundo sprouts directly from a cliff face, and we hiked to the top of this cliff from the back.  The view you see here, which is to the north and east, was stunning.

The only small hiccup in our plan was this sign that we saw on the trail. It derailed us for a moment because this gate was across the trail, but then we realized we needed to go through the gate because we saw the footprints of other hikers. What does the sign say? “Danger wild cows,” or maybe “angry cows” would be a better translation. These are the cows (not bulls) with horns that they run through the streets during the festivals in the local area. They will charge you if they are in the mood, but fortunately, we did not see any. I must admit, it does seem odd that an official hiking trail (the GR 66 for those of you keeping score at home) goes through a wild cow pasture, but it does keep things more interesting.

Smalls falls at the top of the Arroyo Borracho cataract

On Sunday, we were invited on an excursion by the father of one of F’s good friends, who is also our neighbor. She has an older brother with whom H plays, so it seemed like a win-win. By the time we set off, we felt like true Spaniards. The excursion had grown to 6 children and 8 adults in four cars (a common generalization about Spaniards is that they like to do things in large groups). And what started as a hike to a waterfall turned into a hike and an impromptu picnic (again, to generalize, food is very important) with cured pork loin, sausage, cheese, bread, chips, crackers, tomatoes cooked in olive oil, carrots, cucumber, and wine and beer.

Members of our international expedition above the biggest single drop in Arroyo Borracho

We were proud of ourselves because we our fridge was well-stocked to contribute to this spread. When we first arrived in Spain, we were invited to Sunday events only to find that we didn’t have any food in the fridge to contribute. Now, we have it down.

The trip was to a creek called Arroyo Borracho (Drunken Creek) that is usually dry or just a trickle, but has a great waterfall, which includes several falls and an impressive slide, when it is running.

Happy mom and kids with one of the Arroyo Borracho slides in the background left

And of course, it is running now because it has been raining since December. The views around the falls are spectacular as well because it is at about 1350 meters and in between Segura de la Sierra (the city with the castle on top of it) and El Yelmo (the tallest peak in our part of the mountains).

The excursion turned out to be an international expedition as well because we had representatives from Spain (both Castellano and Catalan), the US, and France. If our friend S had been along, we could have even represented the Netherlands. Well, perhaps another day. Especially if the sun keeps shining.

 

F with her friend D hiking the trails

Out and about in Las Cotillas and Hornos

Chris and I found ourselves sneering and self-satisfied recently when we saw a tourist destination touted for its cobblestone streets and “old-world charm.”

Bah! We live in cobblestone streets and “old-world charm.” Why would we want to visit it?

And yet, this past weekend, we went to two small, nearby towns (yes, there are towns smaller than Siles) that we had not visited before and experienced more of this exact charm and some amazing views of the mountains as well.

The first of these was Las Cotillas, a hamlet of about 100 people in the winter that grows to maybe 500 in the summer. Las Cotillas is about 12 km from Siles. It has one store that is open for two hours in the afternoon, but not on Sunday. It hangs off the side of a mountain and is topped by a small 16th century stone church that looks like something out of Harry Potter or Game of Thrones. Very few of the “streets” are big enough for a car, and most of them are little more than ramps and stairways. Further above the town is the foundation of an old Moorish fort– old here meaning about 1000 years, give or take.

We had been invited to Las Cotillas by a friend of a friend for paella– which here is often just called arroz, literally rice. We had an excellent meal, including mulled pears for dessert, and the views of the surrounding mountains from the dining room French doors were spectacular.

Las Cotillas has one more amazing amenity that we probably won’t get to sample. There is a public pool that hangs off the side of the mountain as well and has about 270° of incredible mountain views– and a poolside cafe. Sadly, it won’t open until June, and we’ll be leaving Siles about then. But it would be an amazing place to spend a lazy afternoon.

The other charming village we visited, this one on Sunday, was Hornos de Segura (pop. 675). Hornos is about 20 km away. It sits on top of a short hill overlooking a large reservoir created by a hydroelectric dam in the Guadalquiver River. This creates the biggest lake around these parts in a flooded valley much like the TVA projects of east Tennessee and from about the same time period. The town itself boasts stunning views of the lake, views of El Yelmo (the tallest peak in our part of the Sierra de Segura), a gargoyle encrusted little church, remains of ancient city walls, and a rebuilt castle that houses a cosmolarium (planetarium).

We peeked into the church, but left the cosmolarium/castle for another day. After roaming the city, we went on a hike that followed a path about half-way up the sides of some low mountains following a small river churning below. If you want to try your Spanish or see how bad the Google translator is, it is this route. We did not cover the whole distance because rain was threatening and then, unsurprisingly, materialized. But we had a great walk nonetheless, including a snack in an olive grove where we all took turns posing for the camera.

Among people who know us here, F&H have become somewhat famous for allowing themselves to be coaxed into so many hikes, and that makes us very, very happy.

Snowball fight!

Last weekend we tried to go farther up into the mountains for a hike, but we couldn’t go any farther when we reached this section of the road (I use that term loosely) we were following. Like we keep forgetting about siesta, we also keep forgetting how much the weather can change with altitude.

Sadly, we did not come to  Spain prepared for this kind of weather, but fortunately, there really isn’t that much of it– just enough to tease. I suspect most of this snow is already gone by now. We’ve been having cold, clear nights and bright, sunny days with temps reaching into the 60s F.

The kids couldn’t resist a little snowball fight though. And from what I recall, these were some of the smaller snowballs that were thrown. I’m not sure who won, but I think that Chris got the worst of it.

Given that we couldn’t hike, we drove deeper into the sierra profunda (deeper into the mountains) to explore some areas we had not seen before. Along the way, two horses wandered out of the pines and across the road in front of us. We are no longer surprised by random animal sightings (goats in the streets, horses at the bar, chickens behind the house), but we stopped to have a look  anyway.

The fine specimen here was just as curious about us as we were about him.  He pushed his nose all the way into the front passenger-side window for his close-up, and Chris had a close encounter of a horse kind.

Our tour of the mountains ended at a picnic area bounded by a frigid, rushing stream that Henry fell into while racing pine cones with his sister. This forced our retreat back to Siles for warm, dry clothes and a smaller chance of hypothermia. (Note to self: bring an extra set of clothes for Henry and Frankie and a blanket and a pole to fish them out of the stream).

Fun Friday rides again

The second of three falls

Chris and I stayed out of the clouds today when we visited the Cascadas del arroyo de La Hueta (waterfalls of La Hueta creek). This is a series of three waterfalls of about 20 meters each along a small creek that has carved a little valley and canyon into the mountains. It is above the aldea of La Hueta, which is in a hollow about 20 minutes from Siles by the kinds of mountain roads that appear in car commercials. (An aldea is a tiny group of houses in the middle of nowhere.)

The trail is not marked, but it is fairly well-traveled to the first falls. After that, things get a bit trickier. We took along our trusty guidebook, Sierras de Cazorla, Segura y Las Villas: Guia del excursionista, to help with the trip. Being in Spanish, our trusty guidebook isn’t always super helpful because even if I can translate the words, I’m not always sure what they mean.

Gill checks the book at the third falls.

For example, how is one to know the difference between a pista (track), a sendero (path), a carril (lane), a camino (path, track, road, way), senda (path or foot-path), and finally a senda de cabras (a goat path)? Are these synonyms, or do they really suggest different types of routes I should be looking for, or is it some combination of both? I suspect the latter.

However, because of all the rain we’ve had, the creek was roaring down the falls, and keeping one’s bearings next to a very loud creek is much easier than randomly wandering the mountains. We were definitely going cross country at times again this week, but we were never lost. And just to make things more interesting, we returned a different way than we went in. The whole route was probably less than 4 km, but it was definitely the most rugged 4 km we’ve hiked so far in these parts.

Chris mocks the tourist’s penchant for Suzy Chapstick poses (top of second falls). She didn’t really think I was going to take that picture 🙂

Into the clouds again . . . and again

Chris and I had a plan to climb another nearby mountain on Friday (yesterday), but a heavy fog promised we wouldn’t be able to see anything from the top, so we opted to walk into the woods from Siles and explored some trails we had not followed before. In the process we found a mirador (an overlook) we had not visited before (el mirador de Rayuela) and a road we had never taken.

We took said road and became the closest to lost we have been in our time in Siles. We knew where we were the entire time, but we couldn’t figure out where the road was taking us. Finally we had to dive into the woods and bushwhack back toward town because we had to get back to pick up the kids from school. We were out for about 3-1/2 hours and probably covered 12-15 kilometers. And, of course, by the time we reached home, the fog was just burning off and the summit we originally wanted to climb was clear and bright.

So, being the stubborn folk we are, we drove over to the foot of that summit, called Peñalta (1404 meters), today with Frankie and Henry, despite low-hanging clouds. We were sure they would burn off as the day progressed.

The good news is that Frankie and Henry set a new personal record, hiking 10 kilometers (6 miles) up and back. The bad news is that not only did the clouds not burn off, they started raining on us as we headed back down the mountain. Thus we spent another day in the pine trees and clouds, but we had a great walk nonetheless.

And when we reached home, our landlords invited us to join them for Saturday la comida in their cozy summer kitchen behind our house. Saturday and Sunday la comidas are often like old-fashioned Sunday dinner, a big meal with family or friends. We had a garbanzo bean stew,  baked chicken, morcillo (translated as blood sausage, but this version did not have blood in it), salad, fresh bread, plus cookies and chocolates for dessert, with wine, espresso, and even un chupito (a digestif). We followed this with board games and dominoes. The gathering broke up a little after 5 PM, and that was lunch!

Today, I feel firmly sabbated (yeah, I know that’s not a word).

Chris, Frankie, and Henry in the clouds on top of Peñalta