Alfarnatejo

The goat bells start before the sun clears the limestone ridge. From the upper terrace of the village schoolhouse, now converted into simple holiday flats, you can watch the herder and his dogs move across the slope like grey silhouettes while the first swallows dive between the rooftops. At this hour Alfarnatejo feels suspended: the Mediterranean is only 35 kilometres away as the griffon vulture flies, yet the air smells of thyme and cold stone, not salt.

A Ridge Above the Crowds

Most visitors race up the A-45 from Málaga airport, swing east past Vélez-Málaga and keep going until the tarmac buckles into corkscrew bends. The final 12 kilometres climb 600 metres through olive and almond terraces; hire cars wheeze in second gear, cyclists stand on the pedals, and the temperature gauge drops a degree every hairpin. When the road finally flattens beside a small white church, you have reached one of the highest villages in Málaga province. The coast’s condominium blocks are invisible; the only high-rise is the 1 500-metre bulk of El Chamizo to the north.

Altitude changes everything. August down on the beach at Torre del Mar can be a humid 34 °C; up here the thermometer stalls at 28 °C and the night air needs a cardigan. In January locals wake to find the stone troughs laced with ice; wood-smoke drifts along streets too narrow for anything wider than a donkey. British second-home owners who arrive expecting “Andalucían winter” often drive straight back down for electric heaters. Bring layers, not beach towels.

Streets That Remember the Moors

Alfarnatejo’s layout makes map-reading pointless. Lanes twist, shrink into flights of steps, then widen into tiny plazas where the only traffic is a neighbour swapping plant cuttings. Houses are whitewashed yearly, their doors painted midnight blue or ox-blood red to match the geraniums. There is no monumental architecture: the sixteenth-century church of San Pantaleón is a modest rectangle with a single bell tower, but its wooden doors stand open all morning and the interior smells of wax and burnt orange peel. Step inside on a weekday and you may find the sacristan practising saxophone for Sunday mass.

Walk uphill past the last street lamp and the cobbles turn into a footpath that crosses the irrigation channel. Five minutes later the village sits below you like a white handkerchief dropped on the brown hillside. Buzzards ride the thermals overhead; in February the almond blossom turns the lower terraces pink, while the higher slopes remain winter-brown. Photographers should aim for the half hour before sunset when the sierra softens to violet and the sea appears as a thin silver thread on the horizon.

Walking Without Way-markers

The tourist office is a single glass cabinet inside the town hall, open two mornings a week, but the walks are obvious if you remember two rules: keep the village on your left for short loops, on your right for longer traverses. A favourite circuit heads north along the Camino de los Merinos, an old drovers’ track that leads in 90 minutes to the Venta de Alfarnate, a thirteenth-century inn once used by muleteers crossing the mountains. The menu has not changed much: grilled kid, rabbit in garlic, and “huevos a lo bestia” – two fried eggs smothered in spicy sausage, ideal ballast before the uphill return. Three courses with wine cost €12; water the mule if you brought one.

More ambitious hikers can continue to the Puerto de Alazores (1 100 m) where the path meets the long-distance GR-7 that runs from Tarifa to Athens. Even in April you may find patches of snow in the north-facing gullies; the wind can knife through fleece. Carry a proper map, not just a phone screenshot – coverage disappears in the first ravine.

Calories You Have Earned

The village’s only proper restaurant, Los Pirineos, occupies a corner house with mountain views from its roof terrace. The €9.50 menú del día starts with garlic soup and ends with cinnamon-laced rice pudding; the middle course is whatever came off the local hunter’s truck that morning. Portions are sized for people who have spent five hours behind a plough, not a laptop. Vegetarians can request “espinacas con garbanzos” but should expect a suspicious stare.

Shopping is trickier. A tiny Día supermarket opens 9–14:00, shuts for siesta, then reopens 17:30–20:30. Stock up in Periana on the way up if you need oat milk or tofu; here the cheese comes from the cooperative in nearby Riogordo and the almonds are sold in brown paper sacks. On Friday a white van toots its horn in the plaza: fresh fish from the coast, displayed on plastic crates still smelling of Atlantic salt. Locals queue with carrier bags; if the cod looks good, buy fast – the driver leaves once the ice melts.

When the Village Throws a Party

The first weekend of August is the Fiesta del Gazpacho, dedicated to the cold tomato soup Britons know from supermarket cartons. Here it is served in plastic bowls from a vast ceramic dornillo stirred by half a dozen women in matching aprons. The recipe is simple: tomatoes, peppers, cucumber, garlic, olive oil and yesterday’s bread, blitzed and chilled in the municipal freezer. Music starts at midnight in the plaza; by 02:00 the DJ has switched from coplas to 1980s British rock and elderly farmers dance with teenage granddaughters. Tourist beds are booked a year ahead; if you arrive without a reservation you will sleep in your car or drive the dark road down to the coast.

Smaller, and more atmospheric, is the Romería de San Isidro in May when residents pack into flat-bed tractors and drive three kilometres to a clearing in the pines. The council provides a free lunch of paella cooked over pine branches; you eat off paper plates balanced on tree stumps while someone’s uncle strums a twelve-string. Foreigners are handed glass after glass of sweet Málaga wine; refusal is taken as personal insult.

The Silence Tax

Peace comes at a price. There is no cash machine; the nearest Santander is in Riogordo and its single dispenser often runs dry on Saturday night. Mobile reception flickers – Vodafone users fare best, EE customers stare at blank screens. If the hire car coughs on the climb, hope it reaches the village garage; if not, the mechanic charges €70 to come out on Sunday and spares have to be fetched from Vélez. In heavy rain the power fails; candles are stacked in every kitchen drawer.

Yet the compensations accumulate. Night skies are dark enough to see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye; wrap up, walk 200 metres beyond the last street light and look up. In October the valley fills with the smell of new olive oil; farmers invite passing strangers into the mill for a thimble of the first pressing, emerald-green and peppery at the back of the throat. And when the church bell strikes seven, echoing off the cliffs, you realise the only other sound is your own breathing.

Drive back down mid-morning and the coast reappears in layers of concrete glare. By the time you reach the motorway the village is already a pale rectangle on the skyline, indistinguishable from the limestone behind it. The engine note drops, the temperature rises, and somewhere a goat bell is still clinking in the wind you have left behind.