Cañadas - a social, cultural and historical diversion

The start of the Cañada de Marchantes

Look at a large scale map of any part of Andalucia (and most of Spain come to that) and you will quickly discover that rural areas are crisscrossed by cañadas (droveways).  Andalucia has a disproportionately high proportion of these old cattle trails - 3,000 km - amounting to 25% of the total national network. Their abundance reminds us of the former importance of transhumance (the seasonal movement of livestock) and that, before mechanisation, droving (herding animals along what amount to linear pastures) was the only way to get sheep and cattle to market. Hence these ancient vias pecunaira (as they are also known) are flanked by broad margins to provide grazing en route, wells to provide water (abrevaderos), overnight resting places (descansaderos or majadas) and points where counting animals to enable royal taxation was facilitated (puertos reales).  

An abrevadero near Alcala de los Gazules

Exactly how old these routes are is a matter of some dispute. Most authors suggest that they date to the early Medieval period but some suggest, perhaps fancifully, that they may be traced back far further into antiquity and are an echo of the migratory routes taken by wild animals and early human hunters who pursued them in Neolithic times. It is certain, though, that their use and legal status can be traced back to the 13th century. The most significant regulation was enacted by Alfonso the Wise of Castille in 1273. Their legal status as protected common land has since been confirmed and regulated by national laws in 1995 and local regulation in Andalucia in 2001.  These laws were enacted to ensure the conservation and restoration of these trails (and anything culturally or environmentally valuable associated with them). Despite this, rapacious landowners have habitually used their power to illegally block cañadas or absorb them into their own landholdings. Hence some routes exist only on paper, many are illegally blocked at some point and others have degenerated into narrow little used paths but many remain as gravel tracks with generous borders.  ​

Cañadas (in the north called carrerada or valgada)  fall into three main categories:
Cañada Reales: tracks up to 75m wide.
Cordel: tracks not above 37.50m wide (literally a 'string')
Vereda​: tracks not above 20m wide (a 'sidewalk')

For the most part they seem to be named for the places they link but they are also named after topographical features or the trades using them. Not surprisingly, today they more used by walkers and cyclists than herders. Happily for naturalists those broad untamed margins are a perfect reservoir for wildlife.   They can also act as unexpected sources of cultural, social and historical information as I discovered when researching the Cañada de Marchantes (Merchant's Droveway) as noted in my previous post. 

The monument at Punto Magico

Looking through my photos to use for the update on this area kindly provided by Richard Page-Jones, I found a photo that I'd entirely forgotten about. It  shows a small monument along the Cañada de Marchantes at the intriguingly named Punto Magico.  Despite my Spanish remaining no more than utterly dreadful, I was able to grasp the gist of what was written but had meant to check online to find a translation of those words I hadn't understood.  

With the help of "Google Translate" I managed to resolve all but one of my questions. The word that remained, "Paquiro", was obstinately obscure no matter how many dictionaries, online and otyerwise, I consulted. However, this too was explained when my good friend Luis-Mi Garrido Padillo explained that it was a name.  So thanks to Google, Luis-Mi and with a little editing by myself this, I discovered, was what was written: ​

Magic Point - Miralamar.
Our Romantics and seafarer forebears rightly called this place Miralamar (Sea View). The sea, the bay (of Cadiz), Chiclana and its countryside, a whole wide horizon is viewed from this hill where Paquiro had his vineyards and the drovers' road takes us to the lagoons of Jeli and Montellano and 'Cortijo del Ingles'. Chiclana de la Frontera VII centenary 1303 - 2003"

Paquiro - Francisco Montes Reina

​"Paquiro" was the nickname of Francisco Montes Reina who was born in Chiclana in 1804.  Abandoning his ambition to become a surgeon due to his father's financial problems, he turned instead to bullfighting.   Reina remains one of the most famous names in bullfighting history, having codified rules for the corrida and introduced the matador's now traditional  "Traje de Luz" (Suit of Light) and hat, the Montera. Indeed, the toreador's headgear is named after him (from his family name Montes).  Whatever your personal views about bullfighting, it's clear that Paquiro was a considerable local celebrity whose memory was so important to the town that almost 200 years after his birth (and over 150 years since his death) it was felt it important to name him on this monument. That he is still revered by many in his hometown, a traditional area of support for bullfighting, is also reflected by the fact that there's a museum dedicated to him and bullfighting in Chiclana. 

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The view from Punto Magico - a photo never does it justice.

The view from Punto Magico is indeed extraordinarily spectacular encompassing, as the inscription tells us, a wide panorama across the sea and the hinterland of Chiclana. Yet so wide and open is the view that it's difficult to do justice to it in a photograph (particularly one of mine).  Today it seems a somewhat out of the way place to commemorate Chiclana's septcentenary but I would imagine that it was chosen as from this point all the factors that shaped the town's history are visible from here. The sea that provided both sustenance and, until the coming of the railways, the best means of transport (although it wasn't until 2009 that a tramway linked Chiclana to the 19th century line to Cadiz).       

The 'Cortijo Ingles' mentioned on the inscription may seem surprising given that this view looks out towards Cadiz the scene of Drake's (in)famous 'singeing of the King of Spain's beard' when, in spring 1587, the English privateer sacked the place (and in the process gave the English a taste for 'sack').  However, it was also near here that the British tried to break the Napoleonic siege of Cadiz at the Battle of Barrosa (Chiclana, 5th March 1811). Despite a single British division defeating two French divisions and captured a French regimental eagle, the British were unable to break the siege and the French continued the siege and held Chiclana until August the following year.  Subsequently, British investors became heavily involved in the sherry trade and it is probably then that the farmhouse was given its name (one of several farms in the province so named).

Battle of Barrosa 1811 - note that the Laguna del Puerco has long since vanished.

All of this, of course, will be lost on determined monomanic birders who will have eyes only for the avian delights of the area which, with luck, can include the declining and much sought after Rufous Bushchat! 

Rufous Bushchat (Photo - Richard Page-Jones)