Spanish Walk Before The Lockdown

Before the Lockdown – a Last Hike in Spain

Long ago – you must forgive my faltering memory; age and distance make things so blurred, and ancient events hold on by their fingertips, and then drop away. It must have been March 2020 (can you remember then?).

Well, in those times, I went walking in the sierra behind Nerja, guided with friendship and expertise by professional guide, John Keo.

I had looked forward to this walk with mixed feelings, for it brought back an embarrassing memory. A few years ago, new to the area, and filled with self-confidence from reading numerous hiking guides, two of us set out on our first walk, on the same trails. We got lost, precariously following a false path to a precipice. Recovering the route, we arrived at the high point for a lunch break.. But our sandwiches were still on the kitchen counter back in Nerja.

John Keo is an Irishman relocated to Spain. His walks have a loyal following and, thanks to successful publicity in Ireland, attract increasing numbers of Irish. Our walk had a majority of Irish participants.

The walk started in a barranco near Maro, the satellite village for Nerja. This barranco is called “de Sanguine” (of blood). People say that this is because of a battle or ambush during La Reconquista, involving Christians and Moors. So far as I know, there are no historical reports of a battle hereabouts that would have filled a river or dry riverbed with much blood. Also, it is unlikely that this bit of Andalucia would have been a tactical battleground, consisting in the C15 of scattered small villages. (A century later, nearby Frigiliana would be the scene of a bloody battle, ending a Moorish revolt against the new Christian kingdom.)

In the Franco era, the local coast and barrancos were indeed used for smuggling arms for the resistance. But again, there is nothing in the history of those times to underpin the barranco’s sinister soubriquet.

The barranco is typical of many linking sierras and coast. Seasonal floodwaters, either regularly or in some torrential past, create a mainly flat stony surface, interrupted by piled rocks and storm-tumbled vegetation. Sides, thick with bushes and trees, grow steeper as the barranco pushes inland and gradually upwards.

We walked steadily for an hour or more. Then the path turned off, to climb the valley side in zig-zags, always going further in towards the mountains, with trees and bushes gradually thinning to allow views upwards and down towards the coast. But it is steep and hard work.

We could see our goal, the ruins of an abandoned cortijo (cottage), named Cortijo Rufino standing on a flat lip of land at the top of the valley.

Behind it, the sierra continues to climb, because the cortijo is on the median slopes of a mountain, El Cielo, which rises to 1,500 metres. We were aiming for about half that, and made it by lunchtime, with sandwiches all remembered.

The cortijo’s little plateau contains a space where there was once a threshing circle and a decent expanse of springy turf – perfect for a picnic.

Towards the end of our break, one of the Irishwomen in the party produced a tin whistle and began playing a mournful folk tune, The Black Velvet Band (a song about infatuation and deportation) to appreciation and muted hums. She paused and said that she was a little rusty on playing from memory. I, despite being in a British minority of one in a party of 5 Irish and 3 other nationalities, was emboldened, or foolish. Did she, I enquired, know the tune to Carrickfergus (a song about infatuation and terminal dissoluteness)? She nodded slightly and, after a false start, found the melody. Now I had been learning this song in my singing class in London, so, quietly at first, and then in full voice, I joined in singing the words. (The valley and mountains did not echo.) I was listened out for one verse in silence. A pause. Shall I continue? Unanimous nods. So on I sang for another verse..I’m drunk today, and seldom sober/ a handsome rover from  town to town/ Oh but I’m sick now/ My days are numbered/ Come all you young men and lay me down.

JK ( a singer-guitarist himself) was moved to give me a hug and the accolade “my favourite Englishman”. He then led us on the tricky downward trail.

We finished in a strange place – a sort of unpaved layby almost directly under an ugly motorway viaduct. But on one side was a stone structure covering a natural spring, holding several pipes through which the water flowed, first into a big stone trough, then away to form a little stream. Our party drank and paddled, while JK walked a short distance to fetch his van.

There was a huge German-registered campervan parked by the spring. Its owner was carrying two massive plastic bottles to and from the pipes. He filled them, staggered back to the vehicle, emptied them into his water tank, and returned – again and again. Was this a watery version of the Sisyphus myth, I wondered, with this man forever condemned to fill a tank that always leaked away two bottles’ worth? I never knew the answer, because our van arrived and took us away.

May 2020