After wandering around Segovia that morning, we spent most of the afternoon getting to our VRBO in Villalba de la Sierra. It was our longest drive of the trip. After getting into our weirdest VRBO place ever (more details later), we headed off to hike the famous (in Spain at least) La Ciudad Encantada (the Enchanted City), featuring very cool limestone rock formations.
We only made it a little ways. Traffic was stopped as a herd of sheep was being moved from one field to another. There was a flagman, as it turned out there was also repaving being done. Unlike in the States, where first one lane is paved and traffic takes turns using the other lane, both lanes were being paved at the same time. As it was the only route to the hiking spot without driving a lengthy detour, we headed to the main store in Cuenca to stock up on provisions for our stay in the village of Villalba de la Sierra (population: 476).
That night I grilled over a wood fire in the outdoor fireplace in the small but beautiful backyard. The chicken got a bit blackened on the outside because the fireplace didn't have enough bricks to raise the grate high enough above the flame, but it still tasted good. It was a pretty chill late afternoon.
The next morning, we hit the road after breakfast for Las Callejones de Las Majadas, which I had found online the night before. It translates to "The alleys of Las Majadas" and is similar to La Ciudad Encantada, but much less touristic as the Spanish would say.
The four reviews on TripAdvisor said they had hiked both Encantada and Las Callejones and thought the latter was far superior. Opting for the wisdom of crowds four people, I revised the game plan for Las Callejones. Las Majadas is the nearest town (population: 251), but to get to the dirt parking lot of Las Callejones requires a winding several mile drive on a dirt road after driving up a switchback mountain road.
Much to my surprise, Carol did NOT complain about the road, the dirt road, or the wilderness into which we headed. Maybe she was charmed by seeing fields of sheep or of cows as we passed through Las Majadas. Maybe the views on the switchback roads thrilled her. Or most likely it was her coping mechanism of grabbing tightly to the Jeep Renegade and squeezing that did the trick. (She probably thought I didn't notice, but I did -- and hey it worked, so I was all for it!)
It's a winding 3.8km hike through spectacular above ground limestone rock formations and labyrinthine passages at around the 4700-4800 feet height, so the weather was plenty cool. Since I'm not a geologist, I'll let Wikipedia tell the story (the photo is also from Wikipedia):
The Alleys of Las Majadas are a natural environment in Las Majadas , Cuenca ( Spain ), in which the erosion of the Cretaceous limestone rocks produced curious shapes such as passages, arches, monoliths or bridges, configuring a landscape similar to that of the Enchanted City , although of smaller dimensions and surface than this one. In geological terms, the alleys constitute an example of a karstic formation known as lapiaz , which originated from the action of water, ice, wind and temperature variations.
The Alleys have traditionally been used by shepherds to build pens to keep livestock, using rock walls as part of them.
Some of them can still be seen today.
At present, Los Callejones are part of the Serranía de Cuenca Natural Park.
The hike wasn't hard, but it wasn't easy either, as we were constantly going up, then down. Surprisingly, there were 89 posts showing the route along the way, which is quite a few. But even with that, we had to occasionally guess which was the right direction to head, before seeing a post in the distance. Without the posts we would have just wandered around, with the posts we kept from getting lost, despite the occasional uncertainty.
We certainly loved the hike, as the arches, towers, monoliths, mini-canyons, and more formations were beautiful. At some points we could hear a cuckoo loudly cuckooing in the distance (that's what cuckoos do, even when we did not have Cocoa Puffs for breakfast). You'll see in several photos in the post below that I had Carol stand next to some of the limestone monoliths to show just how huge they are, simply to give you some perspective.
We saw some birds, but, besides the rocks, the secondary star of the show was the flora. Again from Wikipedia:
The flora is representative of this area of the Cuenca mountain range, as it includes specimens of black pine, juniper, holly, maple, gorse, boxwood, various aromatic herbs and various types of mushrooms, as well as other species, such as wild roses, blackberries , hawthorns, black thorns or barberries. In the pine forest black pines are mixed with wild ones. Various rupicolous species dot the rocky area. Lavender and thyme can be found in the most exposed areas.
It wasn't until nearly the end of the hike that we saw other hikers, several in the distance, then the naked dude (see two posts below this one), and then a solitary hiker using poles (not needed), and then finally a couple who came into the carpark just after us.
(Editor's Note: Naked dude? Wait, naked hiking is a thing? Writer: Turns out we heard one cuckoo and then saw another -- all of him! I doubt naked hiking is going to catch on. One trip over a stone and down goes Frazier, down goes Frazier!)
I'd highly recommend it. Part of me wanted to also do the Enchanted City for comparison, but my need to hike through cool rock formations was sated by the Alleys of Las Majadas.
For a little trivia, Las Callejones was used for scenes in The World is Not Enough, the third Pierce Brosnan James Bond movie that came out in 1999. Guess what Bond we're rewatching next? At least the naked hiker didn't introduce himself as "Bond, James Bond."
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