The museum at Barranda did not disappoint and luckily I timed my visit with a tour in which the guide played quite a few of the instruments. Traditional instruments from all over the world. The building was purpose built and the acoustics were excellent, such that listening to the sound vibrations was a whole body experience and left me feeling quite tingly. The guide explained that the reason that the town of Barranda was chosen for the site of the museum was because of the annual traditional music festival that is held there in the last weekend of January, called "Las Cuadrillos". The museum's website is also excellent and has several fascinating videos.
http://museomusicaetnica.com/
There were still a few hours of daylight left after I left, so I continued cycling through Singla to La Almudena where there was a hostel marked on Google maps. My plan was to avoid the main highways to Castillejar, and as many mountains as possible, although in Spain they are never far away. This would take me through some of the least densely populated and driest areas of the country, in some parts along roads which were no more than tracks, but in fact they were the most direct routes.
At La Almudena the hostel had been closed since the Covid epidemic, and it didn't look as though it was going to open again soon. Just next door however was a huge field with several piles of rooted out olive trees waiting to be burned. One of the locals said the land had been allocated for new housing and that it would be perfectly ok to put my tent up. I've never seen such dust. It was so fine and powdery that it behaved almost like a liquid, sending out ripples from my shoes as I walked. It was a very comfortable place to sleep. Next morning I was the first customer in the local supermercado, anxious to find enough food and drink (that was not too heavy), to get across what looked to me like the empty wasteland ahead. There was only one town on the map, Canadas de Canepla, for the next 80km or so. There was however plenty of human activity going on, principally agricultural, as the road followed the valley of another tributary of the Rio Segura, the Rio Quipar. It was also clear that the area had at one time been more densely populated as there were numerous abandoned farmhouses and communities.
This restaurant looked as though it had been deserted relatively recently, sited next to an old Moorish tower, and suggested that the river had offered a livelihood to agriculturalists for many centuries.
The crops being grown were almost exclusively kitchen vegetables and the broccoli was being harvested by gangs of pickers and packed into refrigerated articulated lorries. There was virtually no other traffic on the road. Gradually the road began to rise away from the valley and I was able to look back down to where I had come from.
As I went on I began to notice a familiar smell that I had got to know in northern Spain but hadn't noticed traveling along the Costa Blanca and along the Via Verde cycle path. Tucked away behind a hillside I soon could see where it was coming from.
This is an intensive pig farm where goodness knows how many pigs are kept indoors and fed on concentrates, probably never seeing the light of day. The smell comes from the slurry which is produced in vast quantities and is difficult to dispose of as the land can only absorb so much. Pig farms like this have sprung up in Spain wherever the economic conditions for growing crops have become marginal, and I have the impression that pork production is gradually replacing the more traditional sheep and goat farming. Spain certainly seems to be providing the consumers of Europe with an endless supply of cheap pork products almost single handedly.
The road took another turn back to the head of the valley and all of a sudden I found myself at the source of the river. It's a high marshland and the source moves seasonally up and down the contours but it's roughly at 1100 metres and again I found myself wondering at the mystery of how it is that water emerges from the ground so persistently at such a high altitude in an area that has experienced a severe drought during the last six months. To me it seems nothing more than miraculous and I can quite appreciate why such places have been traditionally associated with divine providence and benevolent spiritual forces.
With the river valley behind me the road went up into some rolling hill country that looked, from a distance, uncannily like the Berkshire downs. And the cultivation changed from vegetables to grain which probably contributed to this impression.
The transition from the province of Murcia to Almería was also marked by a change in the condition of the road.
The high point of the crossing into Andalucía and the watershed of the Rio Guadalquivir is near the settlement of Topanes, a small and relatively isolated town which had not even shown up on my map. I passed through at around 3pm, feeling very depleted and was delighted to find a Taverna. The staff were all sitting down together for lunch when I came in, but they made me feel very welcome and fixed me one of the most memorable cups of coffee ever. At any rate I returned to the route with renewed vigour and made my target destination of Canadas de Complena mucho quicker than expected. Which as it turned out was very fortunate as the hostel I had hoped to stay in had once again closed down. The next village on my route, Orce, was about 30km along a dirt track and looked as if it was mostly downhill. I was assured by a local that I would find somewhere to stay in Orce. I was desperate for a good clean up and some home comforts, so launched myself into the unknown! So glad I did, it was a fantastic journey. New roadside plants for one thing, connected (maybe in my imagination) with the new river basin?
Then, very soon, my first sight of a mountain, La Sagra (2380 ms), that dominates, like Table mountain in Capetown, the region which I'm entering, the Andalucían Altiplano.
And slowly at the edge of the road the unmistakable signs of a new river valley, Rio Orce, draining westwards, which would take me all the way to the small town of Castillejar and the home of my sister Jenny and her partner, Alan, who had been living here for almost 20 years. It felt like coming home!
And as if to confirm what the maps were telling me this very welcome sign appeared at the roadside:
Andalucía is defined as an autonomous community within Spain and is composed of eight individual provinces including Almería and Granada. The Altiplano is a geographical rather than political feature and is mostly contained within the province of Granada. The current thinking is that millions of years ago it was submerged and formed an inlet of the Mediterranean sea. The process of plate tectonics has gradually elevated the region which became an inland sea and eventually drained completely. The Altiplano now forms a "lowland" area between several different mountain ranges which surround it, although the lowland itself is at an average elevation of around 850m, hence it's designation as Altiplano or high plain.
It's quite difficult to capture the scale and dimensions of the area but if you zoom in to the next picture you'll get some idea of the immensity of the the plane and the surrounding mountains (La Sagra dominating the northern skyline at centre background)
To the south is the immense and imposing Sierra Maria (2050ms).
But I'm heading west along the river valley to Orce which has an extraordinarily rich archaeological history. During the period when the Altiplano was a lake it became very a favourable location for human communities. The lake provided all the benefits of a marine environment and the surrounding areas were composed of a geology that was suited to agriculture and cave dwelling. From neolithic times through the Iberian culture, Roman and Moorish civilisations that prospered here up to the present day, people have lived in caves in the Altiplano for likely more than 10,000 years.
As I approached Orce (pronounced Orthay) the first signs of the caves appeared at the side of the road.
These are chimneys emerging through the ground from the houses below. In a few hundred yards the road takes a turn and descends in front of the houses where I took the next photo
They may look like ordinary houses, but if you take a closer look you'll see that they merge into the rock face behind them. There's no telling how far back the inhabitants have dug into the rock to make themselves more comfortable.
Following the road to Orce the river cuts a deeper and deeper channel into the sedimentary rocks that were once the sea floor. This canyon is riddled with Neolithic cave dwellings and archaeological sites that have restricted access.
On arriving in the beautiful community of Orce my frustrations were served to discover that there was absolutely nowhere in town to stay! The pension was full and none of the other establishments which clearly were once hotels, were taking guests. Unimaginable what is happening to Spain!
Having exhausted my reserves of noble energy I left town dejectedly looking out for a place where I would reluctantly have to pitch my tent one more time. Luckily I didn't have far to go as there was a recreation area with a hot spring and swimming pool only a short distance from the town, it was perfect. But I was starving hungry, although luckily with enough food on board for a beggars feast. I was joined by a friendly moggy who helped me to enjoy the contents of a tin of patē. Seems she quite liked bread too! Nice to find some unexpected friendship at the end of what had been quite a long day. To call it frustrating would be entirely wrong. I didn't get what I wanted, which was a comfortable bed for the night with hot water and a bathroom, but I had instead been witness to a new and entirely awesome landscape populated with acceptance and hospitality. And the landscape itself seemed to embrace me to it's warm bosom at the end of the day, holding me at dusk like a child in spite of all my juvenile fears and civilised reservations.
