Don Quixote and the windmills…

If Cervantes had been born in the 21st Century, there is no doubt that his Don Quixote would also fight against windmills, but it would undoubtedly be wind turbines…

In this post, we will leave the Bardenas Reales desert to go a little further south. We will pay a tribute to the series Games of Thrones by spending a night at the foot of Zafra Castle, we will regain some height and reach the sources of the Tagus and Júcar, at an altitude of 1,600m, in the Sierra de Cuenca, before descending into the Albacete valley to better ascend again to the heights of the Sierra de Cazorla…

After leaving our promontory on the Bardenas desert, curiosity pushed us to the castle of Zafra, a tower perched on a rock, in the middle of a dry and deserted plain worthy of the Lord of the Rings. However, it is another story that was played out here, that of the series Games of Thrones, since fans of the series will not fail to recognise the Tower of Joy from season 6 (see here). And even when you’re not a fan of the series (like us, who gave up after the first two episodes), the most difficult thing about Zafra Castle is knowing if the most impressive thing is the castle itself, perched on a rock no wider than its main tower, or the immense plain all around, resembling an African savannah (or the Plains of Mordor in Lord of the Rings, to continue with cinematographic references). A place astonishing in its immensity…

After the great plains, we gained a little altitude to reach the Sierra de Cuenca Natural Park, and more precisely, the part of the Sierra de Albarracín. Mountains with rounded peaks, a bit like the Jura, with large open spaces covered with grass or stones. This is where the Tagus, Spain’s longest river, has its source, before crossing the peninsula from east to west to join the Atlantic in Lisbon, Portugal. Too bad that the statue which marks the place is a bit… let’s say… uh… well… tastes and colors, eh… On the way, we also discovered what it is than a “doling”, a huge round sinkhole in the middle of the forest caused by the collapse of karst soil…

It is also in the Sierra de Cuenca that the Júcar, another of the great Spanish rivers, is born, before traveling almost 500km to reach the Mediterranean. We followed it for a few kilometres to reach Cuenca, without forgetting to briefly stop at the “Ventano del Diablo”, a triple hole in a rock overlooking the Júcar and which, at this moment, allows to observe a vulture nest, just opposite. At the time of our visit, Madame Vautour was quietly incubating her offspring in her hole in the rock… 😍

In our previous posts, we talked about the impressive number of wind turbines on every mountain ridge or valley all over here. Going down to the Cuenca valley, we understood why! It may have been a particularly windy day, but the fact is that the gusts were impressive, and even more so on board Marvin (which has more or less the aerodynamics of a building brick)…

Impossible not to draw a parallel with Don Quixote, since we are here on his lands (in Castilla-La Mancha), and to think that, in the 21st Century, in the absence of windmills, the valiant hero of Cervantes would undoubtedly fight against wind turbines… The times, they are a changing…

To finish on the cinematic theme, yesterday evening, after having sheltered a little from the wind on the banks of the gigantic water reservoir of the Alarcón dam (26 km² and 1,112 million m³ of water, on the Júcar), we took advantage of our visit to La Mancha to see Terry Gilliam’s film “The man who killed Don Quixote” (trailer available here). Funny enough, already in 2017 when the film was shot, a few wind turbines can be seen in the background, throughout the film…

Ultimately, we came to the conclusion that Spain’s expressways are strategically placed to get through the ugliest parts of the country faster. In any case, that’s the impression we had this morning while crossing the immense agricultural plain around Albacete. Even if “at full speed” is a relative expression with Marvin, we were quite happy to take advantage of a fast route to reach our next stop for two days: the Sierra de Cazorla Natural Park. In the series of superlatives, this is the largest protected area in Spain (2,100 km²) and the second largest in Europe! Hoping we will have a chance to observe one or two Iberian ibex before leaving… By the way, we can add a new autonomous community to our list: we have officially arrived in Andalusia (and we crossed our first olive fields)! 😁

PS: Near Cuenca, we also passed through the village of Valera de Abajo, a small village of 1,400 inhabitants where, we promise, everyone, at 100% and without exception, is a carpenter and makes solid wood doors and windows !! We don’t have photos to prove it, but we can assure you that there was nothing else than industrial door and window carpenters in all the village! 🤓

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In CAZORLA, as anywhere else, LEAVE NO TRACE!

– Always travel on public ways and respect the signs.
– Limit noise and interfere as little as possible with wildlife.
– Respect the other users.
– Leave rocks, plants and other natural features as you found them and respect historic sites.
– Take your waste with you and throw it into the appropriate containers, in the nearest village.
– Do not camp inside protected areas and do not make any fires.