vejer de la Frontera, June 10

At 6:20 José, the taxista, was waiting to take me to Los Caños de Meca that I might do a circular walk scheduled for two days hence, pero bueno; it turned out to be a good decision because now I know how to compensate for the walks in Vejer that-are-not-to-be.  

Not all routes are divided into two parts but this one was!  First part: on wide, very sandy tracks through trees. The nice thing was that although the walk started off sort of ho-hum, it improved as it went along.  I learned from labels here and there that there are many species of eucalyptus. 

This is actually a view up a hill showing how the dunes become filled in with tress and such:

Not everyone walks!

The thing is that when you are in dune country, unless there are wide tracks, such as there were here, it can be more than tricky to find your way.  But first you can stop for a REAL picnic....if you are allowed in:

                    

The switch from wide tracks to "Where is the **** trail kicked in as the route transitioned to the second part, that being a ridge along the Atlantic:

The problem was that the GPS kept saying "You are off the rou+glottal stop," when, much to my surprise, I wasn't.  In such situations, i.e., when you don't really know where to go, you spend a LOT of time wandering about and wondering, "Am I going to spend my final days here or what?"  When I could stand the rebukes no longer,  I silenced the GPS, took the clearest indication of a path that vaguely followed Guy's narrative, assuming that I would turn back if it turned out to be a false lead.  It wasn't.

I was so relieved not to be walking down there!!

By and by you come to this tower:

The story is this:  aparentemente, back in the day, when pirates roamed the seas looking to plunder (maybe they still do but we tend to call them something else), the Spaniards of Andalucía built a series of  towers from the heights of which, if they saw suspicious activity—ahoy there—they would light fires to warn others.  Did it work?  No idea.  Did some of the towers burn down?  No idea.