Frigiliana and Acebuchal, The “Lost Village”
Frigiliana is a well-known pueblo blanco (“white village”, of Moorish origins) in the hills some six kilometres inland from Nerja on the coast.
It is a popular destination or departure point for hill walkers, and is on the coach trip circuit for passengers from the cruise ships calling at Malaga, all in addition to the numerous day visitors enjoying its attractive meandering stone stairways and many restaurants.
Frigiliana is therefore a tourist town; but one that still preserves its dignity. It is also a town with a dark past. In the 16th century it was the location of a bloody siege and assault when Christian Spain snuffed out the remnants of a Moorish rebellion. During the Napoleonic Peninsular War French occupying forces hung a few inhabitants because some French soldiers were fatally poisoned- allegedly deliberately.
in recent times, after the Spanish civil war, guerrillas (the Maquis), hiding in the surrounding mountains, waged futile resistance against Franco throughout the 1940s. Frigiliana was the base for the counter offensive by the paramilitary Guardia Civil.
After the fall of the last Moorish kingdom – Granada, which included Frigiliana- in 1492, the Moors were promised religious freedom. This quickly changed to a “convert or be exiled” edict. The reluctant convertees, now called Moriscos, were distrusted and put under many sanctions.
Revolts (there were many phases) broke out at the end of the 1560s. They were brutally conducted and brutally repressed, with much slaughter and enslavement carried out on both sides.
In an early phase of the rebellion, harried Moriscos retreated to Frigiliana under pressure from the royal troops.
Frigiliana was a good spot for a fortress. A mountain, El Fuerte (the Strong) runs a long shoulder down from its summit in the west to a flat clifftop overlooking the river Higueron valley. The Old Town of Frigiliana is built into the southern slopes of this cliff, which in Moorish times was crowned by a small castle.
The last stand of the Moorish rebellion consisted of the defence of the castle and the adjoining heights of El Fuerte. When the Spanish legions stormed both, those who did not wish death or enslavement at the hands of the troops flung themselves over the cliffs.
The sad tale of the Moorish resistance is told in ceramic plaques dotted around the modern town.
Less is publicly remembered about the guerrilla struggle against Franco.
Resistance took the form of hit and run raids, in the (ultimately) vain hope that the victors of World War 2 would take on the last European fascist standing. Franco’s regime was saved by the Cold War and the offer to the US of air bases.
As during the civil war itself, the continuation of sporadic hostilities included assassinations and summary executions. The small community of Frigiliana was divided between Maquis sympathisers and Francoists. It must have seemed that there would be no end to the mutual brutality unleashed in 1936, at which the Francoists proved more adept.
From the summit of El Fuerte there is a view down to a valley through which mule trains once came up from the Malaga coast on their way over the mountains passes to Granada. In the valley sits the hamlet of Acebuchal, once a stopping point for the muleteers .
In the 1940s it was also a place where the republican outlaws came down from the mountains to drink in the tavern and buy or extort provisions.
The Guardia Civil put a lookout post on top of El Fuerte to try to monitor these incursions. Monitoring proved of limited success, doubtless because if bandits were spotted it would be many hours before a police patrol could arrive from Frigiliana over the rough tracks.
Eventually more serious measures were taken. The Francoist judgement was that Acebuchal was a republican holdout village giving support to holdout bandits. The village was forcibly evacuated of all inhabitants at the end of the 1940s and remained deserted and ruinous for the next 50 years.
The desolation of Acebuchal was followed by the final defeat of the Maquis in the early 1950s. A handful of survivors trekked away on foot to France.
Acebuchal became the “lost village” in truth for many years. But now that soubriquet is a marketing slogan for the village very much revived since the early 2000s.
One of the expelled families received permission to go back and rebuild. They went and restored most of the village in the old style.
They created a great rural restaurant as the new centrepiece, which now brings many visitors, although the final valley tracks are not very friendly to normal cars.
These days one can walk to Acebuchal from Frigiliana in about 1 1/2 hours along roads and well signposted tracks.
There is also a more challenging route, involving a long steep scramble up and over a southern spur of El Fuerte. It is best done as one of a guided walk party, for two good reasons.
First, the path is little used and difficult to pick out. It is rough and slippery although not obviously dangerous. There are no vertiginous drops, just a steep gorse and tree covered slope. If you are out of practice in this sort of hill scrambling it is pretty taxing. One is consoled by the promise that once over the shoulder the hike is much easier going, and the views towards Frigiliana and away to the coast are stunning.
The second good reason for being on a guided walk in the hills and valleys is the matter of first aid. Most if not all of the paths which go up steep slopes and down steep valleys have tricky or even dangerous bits (dangerous in the sense that a wrong foot placing, or momentary lack of balance can risk a tumble). The outcome of the tumble depends on the location. It could mean a lethal fall of many metres or an ungainly sprawl of a few feet. Even the latter may lead to injury – cuts, bruises, twisted ankles, or broken bones. The bad chances increase with age.
A guide with first aid kit can tend the injured; not to mention that the group can help any hobbler. Where there is serious injury an accredited guide can call in an emergency airlift by satellite phone.
A steady number of solo walkers get injured or lost in the coastal hills every year.
Me: I had the indignity of falling on the flat after the puffing ascent of El Fuerte’s shoulder. Stepping onto a small boulder; stepping off onto a faithless leg, and suddenly I was flat on my face, or nearly so, because I fell into a gorse bush.
Shin gashes and a bashed knee were patched up by our guide. I completed the Acebuchal walk but suffered from the wounds and aches for a long time afterwards.
May 2024
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