Valdevaqueros, Punta Paloma and the Sierra de Bartolomé

Caves, wind, and the walk that keeps calling me back




Some places don’t call you back out of habit, but because something in them remains unresolved.



I’ve been walking the routes between Valdevaqueros, Punta Paloma and the Sierra de Bartolomé since 2010. Sometimes in silence. Sometimes talking. Always with the sense that the landscape is slightly ahead, setting the pace.



You usually start from the sand. The sea slowly falls away and the trail climbs through pine trees, fossil dunes and soft ravines. The Strait appears and disappears. Africa, on clear days, decides whether to show itself.


Climbing into the Sierra de Bartolomé. The south as direction and state of mind.

A landscape with memory


Before the climb is complete, the land already speaks. The Necrópolis de los Algarbes lies nearby — burial caves carved into rock, reminders that this place mattered long before we called it scenery.
  


Higher up, natural caves and rock shelters appear. Not dramatic, but dense with time. Prehistoric remains and cave paintings here began to be properly studied in the mid-20th century, with German researchers such as Lothar Bergmann helping draw attention to this territory.


Stone shelters. Places where time didn’t leave — it simply stayed.

Summits, views, and the way back to the sea


Reaching the area around Pico Betijuelo or walking the ridges of San Bartolomé isn’t heroic. It’s a slow conversation with the ground. Circling birds, wide silence, constant wind.



And then comes the descent. Sand again. Valdevaqueros returns as if nothing happened.



There’s no clear ending to these routes. Just the quiet certainty that you’ll come back.


Routes on Wikiloc

• Punta Paloma – Bartolo – Valdevaqueros (2023)
  
• Punta Paloma – Bartolo – Valdevaqueros (2022)
  
• Punta Paloma – Bartolo – Valdevaqueros (2024)
  
• Punta Paloma – Bartolo – Valdevaqueros (2018)
  
• Pico Betijuelo and Baños de Claudia

Where ArteCaballero fits in


Many ArteCaballero pieces begin in places exactly like this. Not as literal souvenirs, but as echoes — a certain light, an unexpected contrast, a feeling that stays.



These landscapes aren’t painted to be explained. They’re painted to live with you. To hang quietly on a wall and, now and then, bring you back here without you noticing.