Day 22 – to a high spot above Segura de la Sierra

Not long after breaking camp, on the road between Riopar and Siles, I passed into the north east corner of Andalusia.

It was a Sunday morning and, as expected, pretty much everything in Siles was closed – I had optimistically hoped for a coffee. These days are warm in the middle still, so it was better to get started with my planned route as soon as possible.

The plan was the peak of Navalperal from Acebas at 1618 metres.

The man above has the most wonderful job. He spends his days at the Casa de Vigilancia with his binoculars.

I called him the ‘jefe de la montaña’; actually he worked for the Junta de Andalusia, (a sort of National Park Ranger) to spot fires. He is an ex forest firefighter himself. This post is manned 24 hours a day in the high season, and at weekends now, but just 9 until 3 weekdays until the end of October. Basically, when there’s people around as fires don’t start themselves very often. Though the temperature drops to perhaps 12C at night, it’s still up to 28 or 30C in the late afternoon.

This was a wonderful mountain day. The views from the summit ridge, which is about 3 kilometre long, were superb.

The jefe de la montaña even provided water for the dog..

And, a short video, if you can bear with my awful Spanish..

Once down, we drove only a few kilometres to an airy but shaded spot, with a great view of Navalperal, and laid low with a book in the heat of the day.