Jornadas Etnológicas de Lobras y Tímar 2009

The cultural organization of Lobras and Tímar organizes for the fifth time ethnological days. This year they will take place in the school of Lobras on the 1st and 2nd of May. The theme is wine: ´a paseo por la historia del vino´, translated as a ´stroll through the history of wine´. The programme can be found on the website of the Asociacíon Cultural y Etnológica ´Acequia de los Castaños´.

Water distribution at the Cima del Tejar

This post is a serial to the articles: Publication on the acequias de careo from the Alpujarra and Walking along the Acequia de Mecina.
In the Guidebook on the Gran Recorrido Sendero Sulayr published by Editorial Penibética, there is a text on the Acequia de Mecina. It says that it is worthwhile to follow the water down on the days that the ´acequiero´ is distributing the water at the different simas. A sima or cima is a flat area where the water finally infiltrates.
We called the acequiero responsible for this careo canal to ask which days the water would run down as far as the Cima del Tejar where the Acequia de Mecina ends. He explained that this is in the spring four days a month, and that the 25th of April would be next day.
So yesterday with the sound of the music and fireworks of the San Marcos festivities coming up from Bérchules, we walked up. About forty metres below the cima, we heard the beautiful sound of water. We couldn´t believe our eyes when we walked further up. The sight of swampy green grass and small waterfalls and streams everywhere was magnificent.
It is amazing to give it a thought that this ingenious system has enabled people to drink water from the fountains in the village of Mecina Bombarón for at least a thousand years. The profession of acequiero has existed from the Muslim period up to the present. These are the persons that are authorised to control the floodgates and that are in charge of distributing the water at the different simas. We did not have the chance to meet the acequiero of the Acequia de Mecina yesterday, but this is a good reason to walk up another day when ´le toca el agua´ again. As we think that the system of this acequia de careo is really something you should see instead of read about, we made a selection of photos. These photos illustrate the system from the beginning – where it starts taking water from the Río Grande de Bérchules – to 7,5 kilometres further down, just below the Cima del Tejar where the water is distributed.


Related links:
-Dina-mar: Galería fotográfica de los Careos de las Alpujarras

Bonelli´s eagle in the valley of the Río Grande de Bérchules

Yesterday guests told us enthusiastically that they had spotted a pair of Bonelli´s eagles, halfway from Bérchules towards the Junta de los Ríos. As keen bird watchers they knew that this was quite an unique experience as only a thousand odd pairs of this ´Hieraaetus fasciatus´ survive in Europe. The article about the Bonelli´s eagle on Wikipedia explains that it is a large bird of prey. Its population is declining throughout Europe. The strongest populations are in Extremadura, Andalucia, Valencia and Castilla La Mancha, though the bird appears to be in decline everywhere. This bird is classified as ´endangerd´ in the ´Libro Rojo de las Aves de España´ published by SEO/BirdLife. A survey by the Junta de Andalucía in 2005 puts the number of Bonelli's eagle at 650 throughout Andalusia, between 52 and 56 pairs in the Granada province as we can read in the article ´Aguilas perdiceras en el sur de España´ on Waste Magazine. As far as we know, the river valley of the Río Grande de Bérchules is not described as a site in any bird watching book, but is nevertheless interesting. Another bird that was seen on the Junta de los Rios route last week, was a pair of red kites. It was the first time that we heard of an observation of this Milvus Milvus, and we therfore added this red kite to a our bird watching Sierra Nevada check list. Like the Bonelli´s eagle, the red kite is also on the list of 39 ´endangerd´ epecies in the ´Libro Rojo de las Aves de España´.
In general, the Alpujarras offer ornithologists considerable opportunities for exploration of interesting habitats. Three sites in the Alpujarras are described in the ornitholgocial publication ´Where to Watch birds in Southern and Western Spain´ by Ernest García and Andres Paterson: cortijo Dar al Habibi and parque forestal de Soportújar, Capileira to Sierra Nevada and the valley of Trevélez river. On the list of resident Alpujarran birds in this book, figures the Bonelli´s Eagle. We had heard about people seeing the Bonelli´s eagle a number of times, once above ´El Paraje´, but this was the first time a pair was spotted. It could therefor very well be that there´s a nesting place in the river valley of Bérchules, one of the very few in Europe.
Read our bird watching checklist for the Alpujarras - Sierra Nevada here.

Fiestas de San Marcos Bérchules 2009

Like in many other Alpujarran villages, Bérchules organizes all kind of festivities in honour of San Marcos, the patron saint of the animals. This saint´s day is the 25th of April which is this year on a Saturday and therefor the most important day. In the morning at 10.00 hours ´roscos´ or breadrings are blessed by the priest. At 12.00 hours the Holy Mass starts. After the Holy Mass, at 13.00 hours, the figure of San Marcos is carried out of the church together with the figure of San Isidro Labrador, the patron saint of the farmers. Children in colourful clothes, youngsters in covered wagons, riders and villagers with their animals join the procession that slowly moves to Alcútar where the blessed ´roscos´ are handed out. There are a lot more activities going on, see programme of the Semana Cultural and Fiestas de San Marcos & San Isidro 2009:

Adenocarpus Decorticans or ´Rascavieja´

April is the month that the Adenocarpus Decorticans comes into flower. It is an attractive bright yellow leguminous shrub growing up to three metres. It is endemic to mountainous areas in Andalusia and North Africa according to a Spanish text on Wikipedia. There are three other species of Adenocarpus in Spain: Complicatus, Hispanicus and Telonensis. The Decorticans is the only species to be found in the Sierra Nevada and it is one of the protected plants of this Parque Nacional and Natural. We are very pleased to have this ´rascavieja´, as the local people call it, on our own terrain. The dense clusters of rich yellow flowers covering this flatpod are quite spectacular. We have also come across the name ´silver broom´, probably because of its silver-gray foliage.