RIO CHILLAR

RIO CHILLAR -  NERJA to FRIGILIANA

The course of the Rio Chillar (“course” being a neutral term which does not necessarily imply the presence of water) marks a definite boundary as it passes Nerja. At the sea or southern end, it hems in the urban development of Nerja itself; and is cossetted in an artificial channel with walkways on either side. Further north, the Chillar gets more practical – on the town or eastern side there is a dusty carpark and builders’ merchants, along a pitted unmade road. On the western side, accessed by various  fords and rickety footbridges, are semi-rural arable plots and cottages.

A little further up, there is the overwhelming and ugly high concrete viaduct of the coastal motorway, under which one does not linger (not least because of worries about the quality of the concrete).

Above the motorway, the Chillar soon has a junction with its tributary, the Rio Higueron.  This river (often dry) comes down the gorge which borders the eastern flank of Frigiliana. If you turn up it, you pass more agricultural plots and eventually  reach a track. This goes up to the hamlet of La Molinetta, an old mill complex which stands on the Nerja-Frigiliana road where it takes its last steep bend before reaching Frigiliana.

If you suffer from vertigo you should leave the river valley here. There is a shortcut footpath from La Molinetta to the outskirts of Frigiliana which avoids most of the road.

Otherwise, pressing on along the Higueron means passing through one of the river’s  cahores, or canyons, which create (when there is plentiful water) a fast and challengingly deeper flow. An artificial path consisting of steep sideless stairs and canyon-wall ledges has been made to help walkers to negotiate this obstacle. It is somewhat vertigo-inducing, especially the stairs, which many prefer to descend on their bottoms (if coming down from Frigiliana). If you so suffer, but your luck is in, perhaps you will find no water, and can find a way to scramble down the large boulders, if descending. If you you are going up, I think the stairs need to be taken; but the ascending vertigo is far less!

If you ignore the Higueron junction and continue to proceed north east up the Chillar, you soon come to a place where a road descends to the river by a small modern industrial building, next to which is a carpark. Beyond this point the Pinto hill rears up. It is the beginning of the sierra heights, and is the feature which divides the two rivers. You are now at the mouth of the steep Chillar valley. However, it is at this point very wide; made wider because the side of the Pinto has ben gouged by large-scale quarrying. The river here, in the absence of heavy rain or melting snow, is a collection of effortful trickles.

The real beauty  of the Chillar lies just ahead, where the valley narrows to create gorges which must be waded through. Also, high on the eastern side, an acqueia (stone-made water channel) snakes along the valley/gorge. This you can allegedly walk along (but not I…).

[Work/walk in progress]

April 2015