HARD SPRING

A trail that combines agricultural and mountainous landscapes, offering sweeping views over Carcabuey, passing through olive groves, Mediterranean vegetation...

We’ll start the route by heading down the steep Sauceda Street until we reach the A-3226 road, which we’ll follow for a few metres to the left until we take the first path branching off to our right, next to a transport company’s warehouse and car park. Here we begin the ascent to the Sierra de Ios Pollos. As we gain height, the views and landscape will surprise us with spectacular panoramas of the town centre of Carcabuey and the entire range of surrounding mountains. In turn, rural cottages dot the path until we reach the well-known Fuente Dura. This spring is so named because its flow persists even during periods of persistent drought. What is striking about it is not only this fact, but also the beautiful pool it forms at its source, where one can see the various cracks through which the water from the underground aquifer flows. During periods of heavy rain, this pool even overflows. From here, we continue climbing amongst scattered olive and holm oak trees until we reach the valley that runs the length of the mountain range; we will follow this from one end to the other, surrounded by crops and with views of the highest ridges covered in patches of natural woodland. Once we have crossed the mountain range completely and begin the descent towards the west, a path branches off, heading back towards Carcabuey through a vast expanse of holm oaks. We will take this path, but not without stopping to enjoy the views from this end of Los Pollos of Pico Bermejo, the Sierra Gallinera and the nearby scattered settlement of Los Villares. We will make our return to Carcabuey via the old Hogazal path, which leads us onto a mountain trail amongst limestone outcrops and vegetation that, having been freed from the pressures of livestock and agriculture, is beginning to recover and reclaim the land it once dominated. Thus, the holm oak (Quercus rotundifolia), the purple loosestrife (Phiomis purpurea), the globe broom (Retama sphaerocarpa), the dog rose (Rosa canina), the common hawthorn (Crataegus monogyna), the fennel (Foeniculum vulgare), the rosemary (Rosmarinus officinalis) and gorse (Ulex parviflorus) will accompany us along one of those stretches favoured by hikers, away from the wide tracks adapted for agricultural work, deep within the Sierras Subbéticas Natural Park, allowing us to discover first-hand the importance of this natural area and the values that led to its protection within the RENPA (Network of Protected Natural Areas of Andalusia). On this stretch, it is also very interesting to discover ancient structural features built using techniques that are now obsolete, such as the dry stone walls that mark the boundaries of the paths or the edges of the estates. These are important ethnographic resources that often go unnoticed but whose true value we must recognise. The end of this section of the trail takes us back to the Camino de los Pollos, where we began our walk, retracing our steps until we reach the town centre once more