The radio towers walk starts at the same place that the escarpment walk starts. It is a steady climb from Torrealáqime, where you left the car at 450m asl. (above sea level.) to the two radio towers at 878m asl. A climb of 428m (1,400ft)
I did this walk five years ago when I first arrived. It was a Sunday morning in the spring and the hillsides had turned to green after the winter rains. The sun was bright, but not too hot. The smell of the spring flowers was, and still is, an annual delight.
The track meanders up the hillside passing farms and weekend retreats.
The Andaluz Spanish have a thing about a house in the campo. This is an agricultural village in an area of Spain which has been farmed for generations. To own a piece of land is a highly prized possession. It gives you status. To have a second house on that land is an even bigger status symbol. Some of the houses look just like a garage where you would park your tractor, or a chicken run with hens and geese, but inside they have sofas, televisions, a fireplace, gas cooker and an outside barbeque.
Nearly all are illegal. There is no planning permission for these houses. They pay no rates, no council tax, no sewage bills, no water bills. Nothing is registered.
As I walked up the track I passed a few of these retreats as well as the real thing. Proper working farms or olive plantations that are maintained to professional standards.
I passed one weekend retreat where four men were dissecting a pig on a table outside the house under the shade of a tree. The next poor sow to be butchered was squealing in fear nearby, tied to the tree by one of its hind legs. No doubt some of this carnage would find its way to the barbeque later in the day after the farmers had divided the meat up amongst themselves and drunk a few beers. Alongside the table was a bucket into which the pigs blood would be poured. This would make black pudding, or morcilla, which is one of my favorites.
The most remarkable thing was the audience. About two meters out evenly spaced in a semicircle around the table were ten or twelve cats. Another meter out was a second semicircle of dogs, some of them huge mastiffs, who would have liked to have been in the front row, but dare not pass the cats.
As the farmers sliced the meat, the offal was thrown out to the cats and dogs who fought viciously for the morsels before returning to their place in the circle to await the next treat.
I watched for maybe ten minutes whilst these men carved up the pig.
I have only killed one thing in my sixty four years of life. But I like Chicken, beef, Pork and fish. I buy all my food from the supermarket ready packed and trimmed.
This was quite a revelation for me. Clearly, I always vaguely knew what happened before the cellophane wrapped pork chops arrived on the supermarket shelves, but to see it first hand in the open air on a Sunday morning was an enlightening experience. Yet this is what farming is all about.
I was a little uneasy with myself for the rest of the walk.
Higher up the track, nearly at the top, the escarpment reveals another little secret from its long history. The cliff, which is by now only a couple of meters tall, has cross bedding on its face. This means that 200 million years ago this part of the escarpment was in flowing water, either tidal or river. Cross bedding is when one tide has formed a sandbar, which the next tide, or flood, erodes, leaving another on top with different angles of strata. No doubt the banks of this river, or tidal flow had been filled with life. There were no mammals then and birds were still 30 million years in the future,. The dinosaurs were yet to have their day. The law of tooth and claw would be the only law on earth for the next 200 million years. Thinking back to the half circles of dogs and cats, with the farmers in the middle working on the pig, I don’t think humanity or our religions have even made a dent in this primeval law.
Right at the top of the track are the two radio towers and the end of the walk. One is for mobile phones and the other is Canal Sur, one of the TV channels in Andalucia. As I had walked up the track the cloud had been building up and a storm looked likely. At the base of one of the towers is a little cabin, which is normally locked and empty. Today there was a little van parked outside the cabin and a man inside reading the Sunday paper. I talked to him for a minute and discovered his reason for being here, on what should have been his day off.
Olvera and Torrealáquimefrom the radio towers.
If the storm developed into a thunderstorm, the lightning might strike one of the towers. If that happened, his job was to push the circuit breakers back in so that normal service could be resumed.
I wonder if they drew lots for that job.
I did this walk five years ago when I first arrived. It was a Sunday morning in the spring and the hillsides had turned to green after the winter rains. The sun was bright, but not too hot. The smell of the spring flowers was, and still is, an annual delight.
The track meanders up the hillside passing farms and weekend retreats.
The Andaluz Spanish have a thing about a house in the campo. This is an agricultural village in an area of Spain which has been farmed for generations. To own a piece of land is a highly prized possession. It gives you status. To have a second house on that land is an even bigger status symbol. Some of the houses look just like a garage where you would park your tractor, or a chicken run with hens and geese, but inside they have sofas, televisions, a fireplace, gas cooker and an outside barbeque.
Nearly all are illegal. There is no planning permission for these houses. They pay no rates, no council tax, no sewage bills, no water bills. Nothing is registered.
As I walked up the track I passed a few of these retreats as well as the real thing. Proper working farms or olive plantations that are maintained to professional standards.
I passed one weekend retreat where four men were dissecting a pig on a table outside the house under the shade of a tree. The next poor sow to be butchered was squealing in fear nearby, tied to the tree by one of its hind legs. No doubt some of this carnage would find its way to the barbeque later in the day after the farmers had divided the meat up amongst themselves and drunk a few beers. Alongside the table was a bucket into which the pigs blood would be poured. This would make black pudding, or morcilla, which is one of my favorites.
The most remarkable thing was the audience. About two meters out evenly spaced in a semicircle around the table were ten or twelve cats. Another meter out was a second semicircle of dogs, some of them huge mastiffs, who would have liked to have been in the front row, but dare not pass the cats.
As the farmers sliced the meat, the offal was thrown out to the cats and dogs who fought viciously for the morsels before returning to their place in the circle to await the next treat.
I watched for maybe ten minutes whilst these men carved up the pig.
I have only killed one thing in my sixty four years of life. But I like Chicken, beef, Pork and fish. I buy all my food from the supermarket ready packed and trimmed.
This was quite a revelation for me. Clearly, I always vaguely knew what happened before the cellophane wrapped pork chops arrived on the supermarket shelves, but to see it first hand in the open air on a Sunday morning was an enlightening experience. Yet this is what farming is all about.
I was a little uneasy with myself for the rest of the walk.
Higher up the track, nearly at the top, the escarpment reveals another little secret from its long history. The cliff, which is by now only a couple of meters tall, has cross bedding on its face. This means that 200 million years ago this part of the escarpment was in flowing water, either tidal or river. Cross bedding is when one tide has formed a sandbar, which the next tide, or flood, erodes, leaving another on top with different angles of strata. No doubt the banks of this river, or tidal flow had been filled with life. There were no mammals then and birds were still 30 million years in the future,. The dinosaurs were yet to have their day. The law of tooth and claw would be the only law on earth for the next 200 million years. Thinking back to the half circles of dogs and cats, with the farmers in the middle working on the pig, I don’t think humanity or our religions have even made a dent in this primeval law.
Right at the top of the track are the two radio towers and the end of the walk. One is for mobile phones and the other is Canal Sur, one of the TV channels in Andalucia. As I had walked up the track the cloud had been building up and a storm looked likely. At the base of one of the towers is a little cabin, which is normally locked and empty. Today there was a little van parked outside the cabin and a man inside reading the Sunday paper. I talked to him for a minute and discovered his reason for being here, on what should have been his day off.
If the storm developed into a thunderstorm, the lightning might strike one of the towers. If that happened, his job was to push the circuit breakers back in so that normal service could be resumed.
I wonder if they drew lots for that job.
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