Hiking to Las Morcillas

This is not a post about walking from one tapas bar to another in search of the yummiest morcilla (blood sausage). This post is about a hike I took to see the abandoned village of Las Morcillas in the mountains north of Almería city. José María, one of the history teachers from the high school I work at, is a hiking enthusiast and wanted to share this hike with me. It was pretty beautiful.

As we drove into the mountains, I was amazed at how quickly the elevation was rising. The Sierras around Almería are not the gentle, green mountains of the Oregon coast, but steep, desert mountains.

This building hold a natural spring (with really nice water) and marks the trailhead!

Jose Maria told me that I was the king of the world. I think I look a little more "tele-evangelist" than "DiCaprio," but whatever works. right?

We decided that we would be adventurous and find a new path to the village. It was pretty steep, but it reminded me of my days as a scout, bushwhacking through the White Clouds and the Tetons.

It was pretty steep in a couple spots.

Once we got to the bottom of the canyon, it was a pretty easy hike, except for the thorn bushes that were all over the place. If I didn't know better, I would say that the bushes were out to get me.

With the trees changing colors, it finally felt like fall.

As we hiked, José María explained to us that the village we were going to see was abandoned in the 1970s when the Spaniards and the Germans put in a large telescope on the top of the mountain directly south of the village. The government wanted to make sure that there was no light pollution, so they bought up all of the villagers' houses and the majority of the villagers moved to Barcelona.

All of the houses are about the same size because everyone was just as poor as everyone else.

The upper levels of these houses are living quarters, the lower levels are for the animals (and outhouse activities).

The houses and roofs were all made of the same stone.

Every time you needed water, you would have to carry it up from the stream in the valley.

José María explained that the people who lived here were primarily subsistence farmers, growing wheat on small parcels of terraced farm ground. Many of the people in this village also worked in iron mines on the other side of the mountain.

This platform is where the villagers would thresh and winnow their wheat.

These people lived a hard life. Being in the village reminded me of watching Luis Buñuel's Tierra sin pan in the library at Utah State University on a cold January night at the urging of my regional folklore professor. I joked a little that I felt like I was walking through an abandoned Appalachian village.

Living in Las Morcillas would be a hard life, but it is in a beautiful place.

As we hiked around the village, I found a lot of pot shards and a little horseshoe. My hiking companions told me that I must have had some good luck for finding a horseshoe. I would need more luck if I was going to avoid those darn thorn bushes.

Sometimes it is nice to see the view out of someone else window.

The whole hike was pretty amazing. I was lucky to have a local guide who knew the valley, knew the history, and also knew how to remove thorns from my face.

The observatory that caused Las Morcillas to be abandoned.

At the end of the day my pedometer had reached 14,552 steps. I made it home in one piece, saw some beautiful sights, explored some vernacular architecture, and got some good exercise. It was a successful day.

Post Script: The whole time we hiked I had the first couple of lines from Becquer's Rima LXVI stuck in my head...

¿De dónde vengo?... El más horrible y áspero
de los senderos busca;
las huellas de unos pies ensangrentados
sobre la roca dura;
los despojos de un alma hecha jirones
en las zarzas agudas,
te dirán el camino
que conduce a mi cuna.

¿Adónde voy? El más sombrío y triste
de los páramos cruza,
valle de eternas nieves y de eternas
melancólicas brumas;
en donde esté una piedra solitaria
sin inscripción alguna,
donde habite el olvido,
allí estará mi tumba.

It's a real downer, but a pretty one!