Gorafe

The road to Gorafe peels off the A-92 like an afterthought, dives through a cutting of blood-red clay and suddenly you’re on another planet. Think Grand Canyon minus the crowds, or a spaghetti-western set left out in the rain too long. At 855 m above sea level the air is thinner, the colours sharper, and the only soundtrack is the wind rattling almond branches and the odd goat bell. This is not the Andalucía of guidebook patios and flamenco bars; this is the edge of the Altiplano where civilisation ran out of puff and the stones got the last word.

A cemetery older than Stonehenge

More than 200 tombs lie scattered across the eroded hills, dating from 3500-2500 BC. They are not grand – low circles of dry stone, some barely knee-high – but quantity matters. Walk the signed Sendero de los Dólmenes at dawn and you’ll have the whole necropolis to yourself, the dolmens glowing pink while the Guadix basin is still in lavender shadow. Start by 08:00; by 11:00 the sun is brutal and the stone turns the colour of burnt toast. The Centro de Interpretación (opens strictly at 12:00 and 17:00, closed Mondays) hands out a free map and explains why these graves face east – the same reason the dead here were buried with seashells from 100 km away. Stock up on water at the fuente outside; the next reliable tap is 6 km along the trail.

A village that keeps its doors shut

Gorafe proper is a single loop of white houses, 382 souls, two streets wide. There is no petrol station, no cash machine that works for more than a day, and the tiny supermarket sells tinned tuna, tinned beans and not much else. The Mesón el Mirador opens when the owner feels like it; if the metal shutter is up, order a £2 caña and you’ll receive a free tapa plate heaped with roast pork and chips. Cards are useless – the reader is “broken” and has been since 2019. Bring euro notes or you’ll be washing dishes.

The Iglesia de la Anunciación keeps its wooden doors bolted unless the priest is in town; peer through the keyhole and you’ll spot a 16th-century Mudéjar ceiling painted the colour of Oxo gravy. Locals congregate on the plastic chairs outside the ayuntamiento, gossiping in rapid Granadino accents that clip the ends off words. Politeness is to nod, say “buenas” and keep moving; nobody came here to be your best friend.

Sleeping underground

The only reason to linger after sunset is the cave-house. A dozen have been turned into rentals: constant 19 °C year-round, absolute blackout silence, Wi-Fi that flickers like a 1990s dial-up. Cueva La Luna has a skylight punched into the hillside so you can stargaze from bed; bring a red-light torch or you’ll blind yourself climbing back down the rock-hewn stairs. Expect stone floors, thick walls that swallow phone signal, and the disconcerting feeling that a hobbit might wander in asking for sugar. Prices hover around £70 a night for two, cleaning fee included. Book by WhatsApp – the owner answers after 21:00 when the kids are asleep.

Heat, thorns and the Milky Way

Summer is a furnace. Temperatures top 35 °C by 10 a.m.; the gypsum crust on the paths crunches like broken plates and the esparto grass will skewer through canvas trainers. Walks need to be finished early or left until the sun drops behind the Mirador de los Coloraos, when the cliffs switch from ochre to molten copper and photography finally makes sense. Winter flips the coin: nights drop to –3 °C, the access road ices over and the village smells of almond wood burning in open grates. Spring and autumn are the sweet spots, warm enough to sit outside at midday, cool enough to hike after lunch without wilting.

Darkness here is total. On a clear moonless night the Milky Way unfurls like spilled sugar; shooting stars are so common you stop pointing them out. The village switches off its streetlights at midnight – part energy saving, part astronomy pride – so carry a head-torch for the walk back from the bar.

A two-hour detour, not a pilgrimage

Gorafe fits between Granada and the cave houses of Guadix; allow 90 minutes from the airport, two and a quarter from Málaga. The last 20 km twist through semi-desert: fill the tank in Guadix because the village pump closed in 2008. If the dolmen trail is enough, two hours on the ground suffices. Stay overnight only if you crave silence thick enough to taste, or if you’ve always wondered what Britain’s Neolithic landscape looked like before the motorways arrived.

Come unprepared and the place will punish you: no cash, no water, no signal, no mercy. Come with a full water bottle, a paper map and modest expectations and Gorafe delivers something rarer than charm – it delivers the unedited version of inland Spain, where the stones outnumber the living and the clock long ago rusted solid.