Exploring the Bandit Country of Andalucia’s Serrania de Ronda
High in the far-flung mountains of the Serranía de Ronda in Andalucia, Spain, at the headwaters of the Rio Genal, you will find a group of villages, Igualeja, Pujerra, Juzcar, Cartajima, Alpandiere and Farajan. All appear very similar, cute white villages perched on rocky buttresses or glued to the adjoining of steep valleys, all as well for the reason that populations of less than 1000, the whole thing and an unrecorded times of yore lost in time.
Even their modern history is similar. After the re-conquest in 1492, fearing that the Moors living on the coast would engagement able to contact their brethren in Morocco, a law was passed prohibiting them from living within a league of the sea. Many moved voluntarily and many more were moved more forcefully, to the inland villages in the remote Serranía de Ronda, no doubt hoping they would troth able there to live inside peace alongside the existing Moorish inhabitants. Unfortunately it was not to be as well as the persecution hung on. Many converted to Christianity and became Moriscos but even for them the end was within sight and they were eventually all evicted by Spanish Christians who carried over their lands and houses. By 1610 the last of the Morisco resistance, centred around Juzcar, was more than. Meanwhile each of the villages had benefited from the largesse of Diego de Deza, the Archbishop of Seville, who, in 1505, initiated a church building programme to commemorate the 20th anniversary of the expulsion of the Moors take pleasure in the area.
Today the villages are a sleepy reminder of what once was. The local industry is centred around the chestnut, orange, lemon and cork trees that fill the valleys likewise, for the shorter villages; grapes, olives also wine provide a little variation. The older folk gather at the one or two remaining bars and reminisce and grumble about the younger people who are increasingly attracted away indulge in the hard life acting the home to the less dimmed lights of the coastal towns. They are invariably friendly and innately curious about the stranger, yet quietly reticent, a legacy of their not so recent precedent days.
Yet for all their similarities each village has had its moments of fame. Juzcar for instance was the site of the foremost factory in Spain. Founded in 1731, the Finca la Fabrica was a smelting situate built and the aid of German technicians. Locally known as the tin factory, the ore was carried from the immediate sierras to be worked near a source of fast flowing water, the Rio Genal, and close to a supply of wood to make the charcoal to fuel the furnaces. Armour for the monarchs of Spain was made here and the factory operated till the early 20th century.
Cartajima also dabbled in metalworking. A munitions factory was constituted there in the early 19th century to turn the local iron ore into cannon. The village became so wealthy that it became known as Cádiz el Chico – “Little Cádiz”. Appropriately Cartajima looks down on all the abundant villages producing been grounded at the extraordinary altitude of 800 metres (2,500 feet). Why it was built that high is anybodies guess but there are tantalising clues. Greek manner tombs found there contained coins along with human remains that hint at a very early history. The name itself is as a result akin to that of Cartagena, the Greek port established Mercia, that it couldn’t not be accidental. Sadly all archive material was done for during the Civil War in 1936 so we will now by no indicate know.
Igualeja was the scene of, possibly the initially, doomed battle at egalitarianism. As Spanish Christians displaced the Moriscos, each family was given an equal inside portion of dwelling house sufficient to support a extended family. People in Ronda wrote a doggerel, ‘Los de Igualeja, todos iguales, todos iguales’, ‘The people of Igualeja are all equal, all equivalent’. Hardly Shakespeare but it gets the go through across.
Alpandeire has a population of less than 400. Its church, built necessarily in 1505, is pointed out as ‘The Cathedral of the Hills’. This immense along with imposing structure dwarfs the entire town. Maybe it was this building, that dominates every other, that energize Francisco Tomás de San Juan Bautista Marquez Sanchez. He was born there in 1864 and, at the age of 33 years, went to Granada plus became a Capuchin monk. As Fray Leopoldo he arrived to the Serranía de Ronda and spent the remainder of his pious life travelling between the villages performing miracles. He died in 1956 and within a few years was nominated since the reason that sainthood. His statue stands on a hill enigmatically looking over his flock.
All six of the villages, the one never more than 4 kilometres from the afterwards, are connected by an intricate network of paths that lead you finished chestnut plantations, across fast flowing mountain streams, finished shadowy oak groves and along precipitous ridges that are now a enjoyment for the modern walker but that once competent a remote more dismal reason because they are the ways of the bandit, the bandoleros, their furtive passage hidden from the view of any watchkeeper on the main tracks, and it was in these villages that they had their lairs.
In the 18th and 19th centuries the Spanish feudal system broke down and resulted in many men who felt the major way they could feed themselves and their families was by becoming a bandit. The caves in the rugged mountains and valleys of the Serranía de Ronda and the small, handy knit villages sieved an ideal refuge derive enjoyable which they may perhaps get the hidden paths to ambush the coaches with travellers on the few roads that ran between the main towns of Gaucin, Ronda and Malaga. Their skills smacked a chord in a romantic age furthermore they were awarded attributes they never saw in life to such an extent they gained the standing of being modern daylight Robin Hoods. Upper style young men included the part, which was acknowledged for guy personality the European centre of banditry, on their European Grand Tour itinerary actually hoping to be robbed. The bandits became a tourist attraction also each village had its hero. However, when the true tales are told around the bars in the dead of night these scoundrels were anything but Robin Hoods.
Francisco Flores Arocha was born to an impoverished family in Igualeja in 1897. He was gifted along furthermore a fine intelligence that he second hand to gain wealth by doubtful means. He married Maria when he was in his twenties and without delay coveted her father, Salvador’s, finca, la Fuenfria. Fransisco first offered to buy the finca but Salvador was not following selling it. Fransisco returned to the negotiating table with a gun. Salvador still refused to sell addition to Fransisco tempted the trigger and scene in addition to killed his sister in law, Anita. He took to the hills and became a bandolero. Despite becoming a legend in the hills, the life prepared not suit Fransisco and he decided to make a last war to gain the finca. He returned in addition to killed everybody he found there, including his mother in law. A manhunt ensued and on Fresh Year’s Eve in 1932 the Guardia Civil slaughter him in Arroyo Hondo near Benahavis. Alpandeire excessively has its bandit, Antonio Barbaran Jimenez, recognized as El Barbará, who met his future at the end of the Guardia’s rifles in 1851.
The bandidos became so notorious and so effective at their chosen trade that in 1844 the Guardia Civil was formed to suppress dissension in rural areas, with an emphasis on the bandoleros of the Serranía de Ronda. It took them almost solitary hundred years. The previous bandolero, Juan Mingolla Gallardo, otherwise known as Pasos Largos or ‘Long Steps’. He was born near Ronda in 1874 and carried to the hills after killing a farmer and his son who accused him of poaching on their land. He was caught and imprisoned in 1932 but managed to escape and die in true bandolero fashion, in a shoot out with the Guardia Civil.
To explore bandit country yourself you can stay at the Bandolero Hotel at Juzcar. This warm, comfortable, rural hotel has the surroundings its name suggests and a menu that features local dishes prepared by Cordon Bleu chef Ivan. Tel: 952 183 660
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