Monday, May 25 - hiking in the Sierra de Aracena

Pics: Cistus, Jabuco, cobbled trail

[We're in Truillo now with better internet (although I have to sit in the hotel lobby) so I've added photos to Saturday and Sunday]

Last night at about 1 AM Maggie and Bucky went rampaging off, barking madly and Jeanne went calling after them…so spotty sleep. Up at eight; Sam served us wedges of hard & soft cheeses, dried beef in olive oil, breads, yogurt, fresh peaches, etc. Wonderful!

The weather was alternating from dark and cloudy to bright and sunny and back again, but we set out to explore the property anyway. We discovered the Villa pool and pool house on a bluff overlooking endless woodlands: an infinity pool with lounge chairs….why couldn’t it have been boiling hot!!! Must come back and vegetate by the pool someday.

We walked down hill to our car and took off for a few KM to the village of Galaroza and parked just off the 2-lane highway. Following the instructions in a wonderful book that Sam lent us called “Discovery Walking Guides - Sierra de Aracena” and using our GPS we took Hike #17 which led up hill along old cobbled country lanes past tiny farms and herds of sheep.

After an hour we reached the town of Jabugo, the most famous ham town in the region, very neat and trim and lined with ham stores. We managed to resist as we had recently had breakfast, and walked down a slope past pollarded chestnut trees and along a bubbling stream, Ribeira del Jabugo, past cherry, peach and almond orchards and onto a walking path lined with wildflowers. After about four miles we returned to the highway and walked back to Galaroza. We couldn’t turn around so thought we’d drive around the block, something that is almost impossible in tiny Andalusian towns. We were almost back when the tiny street on which we were driving down hill suddenly turned into stairs!! Bumpity, bump…we slowly made our way down and out of town!

It was about three, I was feeling rather hungry, but we got back to our Villa without passing anything. I grabbed a beer out of the honor bar and collapsed on the terrace to read. Sam brought out a tray of tea and wonderful tortilla-like crisp cookies flavored with anise. Sam and Jeanne were having friends over for drinks, so we asked them for a recommendation for dinner and they told us about a tapas bar as we didn’t want to wait until nine for dinner.

We changed and set out at 8 and found the bar near the center of Aracena, settled onto bar stools around a tiny table and perused the list of 20+ tapas. Even with Bob’s extensive knowledge of Spanish there were a lot of mysterious words, so we just ordered blindly. We bought bottle of red wine and got a bowl of olives and bread right away. Then the barmaid brought us a plate of ratatouille, cold garlic-mayonnaise potatoes, croquettes of unknown ingredients, different potatoes and Iberian ham. Really good and just the right amount! We picked up ice creams on the way back to the car and arrived back at the Villa very happy