THE SPANISH VILLAGE WHICH WAS LOST AND FOUND

THE SPANISH VILLAGE WHICH WAS LOST AND FOUND

I have written briefly about the village of El Acebuchal in a larger piece on Nerja, Frigiliana and, among other things, their histories in the Spanish Civil war. This pieces looks a little more closely at the fortunes of the village, past and modern.

Acebuchal lies in a mountain valley about 7km north of Frigiliana. The “main” tarmacked road through Frigiliana ascends the mountain foothills in a series of the usual bends (it will eventually wind back to Torrox to the south West); after about 3 km , on a straight section of road, one passes a large plantation of poly-tunnels and immediately there is a sharp right turn off the main road. It is marked by a helpful signpost to “El Acebuchal” and its restaurant.

This side road is narrow and twisting, and made of carelessly splashed concrete, such that the edges and varying contours are difficult to read. A slow but not particularly dangerous drive, past a lot of “Campo” properties (however an anxious driver may well be rendered more so).

Soon after this road reaches its summit, there is a distinct dip, where a short stretch of a side road to the side road is indicated to the right: “El Acebuchal”. Turn here; and either park just below the road, where a mountain track begins, and walk the rest of the way, or, if one’s nerve and suspension are robust, drive along the stony track for about 1.7km down to the village in its valley.

Walkers must follow the same route from the turning off the main Torrox road. Before that they have a choice. Either they must slog up the main road, stepping aside for traffic (the road is wide enough for walking not to be dangerous if vigilance is excercised); or they can take a rural side route which will be certainly be less troubled by traffic and is probably a little shorter if a little steeper. It does not, however, cut out the last section of the main road (about 0.5k ) before the twisty turning.

So: leave Frigiliana to the North on the main road. Pass a garage and within about 100m turn left down a side road by a restaurant. Just beyond the restaurant is an information board with sketchy details of walking routes. At this stage you won’t find the information of much help. However the board itself and others like it are markers.

Walk on. Eventually you come to a hairpin bend round which the road goes up steeply. At the bend there is a big goat pen, which may be full or empty depending on the time of day  (the goats get driven somewhere up the mountains at certain times). There is the vestige of a track beyond the pen. Ignore it and continue up the road.

Around the next corner you will see ahead of you, branching off to the right, a more distinct track. You will know this is correct way as another information board can be seen a little distance up it. Follow this track and soon you will rejoin the main road, 0.5k below the signed turn off to Acebuchal.

As you drive or, more likely, walk down the final length of track you soon catch sight of the village (hamlet, rather). Traces of its history – abandoned in 1949 and re-populated, or at least rebuilt, from the mid 1990s- are not immediately obvious. It appears as another neat, if remote, example of modern tourist Spain, in, and with the welcome constraints of, the National Park. Villas, lawns and swimming pools are in view, albeit on a small scale. Where is the “lostness” of the lost village? You may well wonder.

Before reaching Alcebuchal, you pass a still abandoned house, on the wall of which is a large mural of dense narrative. It tells of a family whose parents, perished; whose grieving daughter stumbled for help through the winter pastures; who became a holy poor woman; and after her death, a saint. It is breathless and incongruous stuff. One cannot help thinking that it is a sainthood which has fallen flat as, apart from this lonely and wordy memorial, there does not appear to be any sign of devotion to the saint is this part of Andalucia (but I stand to be corrected on this observation).

The last bend before the village has a signposted path going off it steeply up into the hills. This path is part of the old long-distance mountain routes from the coast towards Granada, and was key to Alcebuchal’s former existence and prosperity  a relative term, of course).

Mule trains would travel up these paths. The village was a stopping point for the drovers of the trains. It is said that, in fact, truly only the drovers stopped: the mules went stolidly on, while their masters sank a few fortifying glasses before catching up with their beasts.

The village has been renewed, and more, as earlier suggested. In 1949, Franco’s Guardia Civil ordered its abandonment – by some 70 families. According to the book  by David Baird, Between Two Fires ( a phrase coined to describe the situation of the village itself), the hold-out Republican guerillas of the Sierra used Acebuchal as a place to re-supply themselves, whether on a voluntary or forced basis.

It is difficult to imagine now, with even rudimentary road and track connections, how the village was effectively beyond the continuous jurisdiction of the Guardia Civil. But take away modern roads (however rudimentary) and public lighting: then a 7 km distance in mountains was far, and the village remote. Guardia Civil patrols doubtless confined themselves to daylight, leaving plenty of time for the guerillas to materialise.

Alcebuchal was rendered a No-Man’s land. Or, in the words of the Roman historian Tacitus: “Solitudinem faciunt, pacem appellant” – “They make a desert and call it peace”.

The guerillas were finally eliminated in the early 1950s, all hope of intervention by Western powers against Franco swallowed up by the Cold War and Spain’s convenient strategic position. But the village continued deserted. Doubtless mule trains had been replaced by trucks. It took the Andalucian tourist boom, which affected not only the Costa but also the pretty mountain villages like Frigiliana, to suggest the viability of a resurrection.

So it came about. A local man, Antonio, who was a child at the time of the eviction, led the reclamation. His family began rebuilding the ruins.

Pride of the village, and its main or only attraction, is the restaurant they have created, which serves wonderfully sauced dishes, including (local) wild boar.

But although the restoration is to be applauded (and the restaurant well worth the walk or drive), the village today is one more tourist destination, with most of the new buildings second homes or holiday lets. Only four local families now live there.

Luckily the National Park surrounds. Sitting outside the restaurant, one looks at steep wooded slopes. But apart from old photographs inside the restaurant, there is little continuity between the old, remote, village, which, in the 1940s, was at the front line of a vicious civil war, and the somewhat bland Costa outpost of today.

March 2015