Hike to Acebuchal - the lost village

This morning, I skipped on the jog with Wendy as I am doing a hike.  Wendy headed to the beach side for her jog.

Today’s hike is to Acebuchal, the town Wendy and I tried to find earlier in the trip with no luck.  Met my tour guide John at the triangular square in town.  He says this is his most popular hike he does.  I believe he does it every Wednesday.  We took the bus to Frigiliana where we met the rest of the group.  I think we were 16.  3 others are taking a taxi part way as to avoid the some of the hiking.  Here is a short description about Acebuchal that I found on the internet:

“Acebuchal is a tiny picturesque town; littered with small white painted houses, with bright coloured doors. The twisty little lanes were too narrow to take the average size car. The colourful geraniums and honeysuckle spilled over the walls of the local gardens.
Franco led his army in a civil war in the 1930's and over threw the king and his government. Franco drove the residents out of Acebuchal to stop them assisting the opposition forces. The houses were made uninhabitable and left to decay and gradually be Acebuchal became ruins. Years later a local man, Antonio, whose parents lived in the town decided to rebuild doing an amazing job.”

The first part was walking thru the town of Frigiliana and then on paved road to get where the hike starts.

Frigiliana

Along the way, abandon farmhouse

The first part of the hike was probably the hardest and was about 45 minutes long with a few stops along the way up. Some very nice views of the Frigiliana, the surrounding hills and the valley up to the sea as we climbed up.

View on the way up

Up we go

View of Frigiliana, Nerja (way back) and the sea

Love his driveway

Panorama view of the valley

We then walk a short bit on paved roads until we did a much shorter hike.

The rest of the walk was either on paved or unpaved road until we reached Acebuchal.  It took about 2 ½ hours to complete the first half of the hike.

Along the hike

It is all downhill from here

Acebuchal

2 people came in for lunch on horses

For lunch, Antonio and his family did a family style lunch for the hiking group that John brings.  We sat down to pitchers of cold beer and dry white wine which was made in Frigiliana.  Just what I needed at this stage as today it was very hot and probably around 25.  It was followed by hot bread with olive oil for dipping.  A lovely green salad was served with feta cheese.  For the main course, we had a chicken in a sweet white wine sauce with honey, wild boar served goulash style, potatoes in olive oil and broad beans with bacon topped with cheese. Everyone eat as much as they could and there were still some leftovers.  The cost was 10€ per persons and it was a bargain as far as I am concerned. We sat outside to eat but they do have a small restaurant with a few tables inside. The son tells some of the repeat hikers that he is going to go to cooking school for 3 months.  All I can say is that he is doing a great job now, so it will be even better when he gets back.  Highly recommend this place.  They are only opened during the daytime. www.barelachebucal.com

Contact info.  Not sure if .com works but I think .ES does

Antonio, the man responsible for bringing back the village to life

What the doctor call for at this point

Broad beans.  Never had them before.  Delicious

Sweet wine chicken with honey & our potatoes in the background

Wild boar.  Happy to get some on this trip.  Makes my day :-)

Part of the group.  Too busy eating to get up and take a picture of the full group

Lots of old pictures to look at, look at that fresh bread at the bar,  Yummmmy.

Next we did a short village tour with John explaining some of the village history and work that Antonio and his family did.  When Franco expelled everyone from the village, they took the entire roof off the building so the rebels could not use them as shelters. Because it was an abandon village, you are not allowed to tear down walls, so the village home were rebuilt the same as they were 60 years ago.

One of Antonio's son is in charge of flowers and keeping the place clean.

The whole village used to be like this

Acebuchal was on a route that went from the sea to Granada which is 70 KM long.  People with donkeys used to travel this route and carry goods to sell in Granada. If they had fish, this route was done in less than 20 hours.

We then walked back following roads all the way back.  It took about 1 ½ hours to walk back.  Much faster but with very full bellies and the hot weather, I was happy to reach Frigiliana and the bar where we stopped for a cold beer before catching the bus back to Nerja.  The hike was about 14 km with about 400 metres in altitude gain.  About 300 going to the highest point in the hike and then 100 metres on the way back as Acebuchal is below the high point.

The last 1.7 km road in and out of Acebuchal.  The sign looks like 17KM. You can drive all the way, just need to be careful.

If going watch for this sign outside Frigiliana

Houses in Frigiliana

Children practicing for Easter in Frigiliana

Much nicer than when we were first here 1 month ago

Downtown Frigiliana

The bar we stopped at in Frigiliana 

 

Our grand kids would love this

I got back to the apartment just before 5, where we headed for the beach for some R&R.  There was a small breeze but it was still nice.  We stayed there until about 7 when it started to get colder.

not too many point for presentation style

I made spicy chicken fingers with creamy curry rice and sautéed asparagus which we enjoyed with a nice glass of red wine. 

Wendy says lets go out for a glass of wine and a tapas.  We ended up to the Los Barilles (The Barrel Bar) since the last time we were there, we got some nice cheese as a tapas and that is all we wanted as we already had supper.  We were happy to see that is what we got as tapas.  I decided to have a second glass of wine, this time I got a piece of ham (we think) between 2 small slice of bread.  A couple of tables down they were having a chorizo that you cook yourself over an open flame.  So I decided to order one as well since it was only 2€. Wendy also ordered another glass of wine and I followed a few minutes later since I was still cooking my chorizo.  Not sure what type of liquid was burning and I am not sure I want to know either.  Sometimes the unknowns are just better.  We got one more tapas and this time it was a mini pork burger.  Very delicious.  The chorizo was served in a mini rolls and was also very good, must have been the cook.  The waiter asked how we liked it cook, medium, well done. We opted out for Well Done and he came over about 5 minutes later and takes the sausage off the sticks and blows out the flame..

DIY bbq

Moi in action

Four people sat next to us as we were just finishing our wine.  The lady says I been following your blog.  We had a great chat with them and talked about many things.  If memory serves me right, Jenny and her husband were from Aberdeen Scotland and retired here 7 years ago having never been to Spain before.  They had their niece and a friend with them which they were introducing them to the art of the tapas. Also sitting at another table was the family from Manchester that spoke to us earlier in the week telling us they were following the blog.  Unfortunately we did not get a chance to talk much but did say hi on the way out, they are leaving for home on Friday.  That lets go out for 1 glass of wine turned out to be a lot more but we had a great time.

Jenny and her niece from Scotland

Wendy is on a roll with crib, no need to mention the skunk and 1 other win she had.