home > almeria > nature

 

 

 

NATURE

 

 

Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park

Covering 45,663ha in the southeastern corner of Spain , Cabo de Gata-Níjar is Andalucia's largest coastal protected area, a wild and isolated landscape with some of Europe 's most original geological features. The eponymous mountain range is Spain 's largest volcanic rock formation with sharp peaks and crags in ochre-hues. It falls steeply to the sea creating jagged 100m-high cliffs, which are riven by gullies leading to hidden coves with white sandy beaches, some of the most beautiful in Andalucia. Offshore are numerous tiny rocky islands and, underwater, extensive coral reefs teeming with marine life.

High temperatures (an annual average of 18°C) and the lowest rainfall in the Iberian peninsula (200mm annually on average) has created a large semi-desert area, with characteristic shrubby vegetation and dwarf fan palms. But the park also encompasses an outstanding variety of habitats, from coastal dunes, beaches, steep cliffs, saltpans, a substantial marine zone of 12,200ha, saltmarshes, inland arid steppe and dry river beds. Designated a Unesco Biosphere reserve in 1997, the park shelters an extraordinary wealth of wildlife, including many rare and endemic plants and endangered fauna.

One of Spain's most important wetland areas for breeding and overwintering birds is called the Salinas de Cabo de Gata, the saltwater lagoon that runs parallel to the beach and is separated from it by a 400m-wide sand bar. Located between San Miguel and the Cabo de Gata headland, this lagoon is of outstanding ecological interest, particularly for its birdlife. The salinas (saltpans) are the only ones still in operation in eastern Andalucia.

Phoenicians, Romans and Arabs were all attracted by the area's rich mineral deposits like agate, jasper and, most importantly, gold, which was extracted from the mines of Rodalquilar. A jetty at Agua Amarga was used for loading ore onto cargo boats. Other inhabitants were Berber pirates, who sought refuge in this remote corner of Andalucia, but the dozen lookout towers dotted along the coast are evidence of attempts to repel them.

Inland, the landscape is arid and desert-like, making for harsh living conditions, even fifty years ago, a period described in a modern Spanish classic, the Campos de Níjar, by Juan Goytisolo, published in 1959. A similarly bleak view is glimpsed in Federico Lorca's seminal play, Bodas de Sangre (Blood Wedding), which features a crime of passion that took place near the Cortijo El Fraile, a farm close to Albaricocques village.

The pristine waters off the peninsula are ideal for underwater photography, diving, snorkelling, sailing, sea-kayaking, windsurfing and all types of fishing. Mountain biking and 4X4 excursions are popular in the mountains.

Desierto de Tabernas Natural Area

Sandwiched between the mountains of the Sierra Nevada, Gador, Filabres and Alhamilla is one of the most dramatic landscapes in Spain, the desolate Desierto de Tabernas. The only semi-desert in Europe; there is a surreal, lunar quality about its wierdly eroded ravines, dry river beds and barren slopes apparently devoid of vegetation, bleached by the sun and occasionally singed with ochre hues. With its poor soils, low rainfall and temperatures that range from -5°C to 48°C, the landscape has been little changed by agriculture or other human activity, with just a few pockets of subsistence farming.

Film makers have long been attracted to its landscape, with its similar appearance to the North American Wild West, and so the desert has been the scene of many a spaghetti western. Visit Mini-Hollywood 7km south of Tabernas, where many westerns were filmed.


Tabernas desert is one of the most geologically interesting landscapes in Europe , since it clearly shows the process of natural desertification and erosion. Its features include sheer-sided gullies, carved out by the infrequent but torrential rains that only fall on a few days in the year. Another feature is piping, where water permeates through the top of a slope and emerges further down through a hole, the water creating an underground pipe in the process. In certain places there are so many holes that they have a created a Swiss cheese effect.

Eight million years ago in the Miocene period the sea covered the Tabernas desert area, reaching inland as far as the foothills of the Sierra de los Filabres, where today a strip of fossilised coral dunes delineates the former coastline. The deposited material consisted on sand and loam and this is what makes up the Tabernas desert today. A million years later the Sierra Alhamilla rose up, cutting off the Tabernas desert area from the ocean and creating an inland sea, where further sand, loam, clay, limestone and gypsum were deposited. At the end of pliocene epoch the sea receded, leaving the seabed exposed to erosion. Access: The A92 dissects the area and the N340 runs along its southern edge. A good route to do on foot into the desert is along the Rambla de Tabernas, a seasonal river; see walks.

Sierra María-Los Vélez Natural Park

Designated a natural park in 1987, the Sierra María-Los Vélez occupies the eastern end of the Cordillera Subbética in the north of Almeria province. It covers 22,670ha, a landscape of impressive contrasts, with its arid, moon-like plains overlooked by the Sierra's rocky summits, which are white with snow in winter, and the dry, barren south-facing slopes compared to its densely wooded north-facing ones. Its climate too is characterised by great extremes, with temperatures plunging as low as -18°C in winter and rising to 39°C in summer. The park's altitude ranges from 800m to the highest peak of María, a barren limestone outcrop of 2,045 m.

Unusually for the otherwise arid and barren mountain ranges in Almeria, the Sierra is clothed in extensive pine forests and Mediterranean woodland, some of the best preserved in the province. It supports a varied flora with nearly half of all plant species in Almeria province found here, including some unique to the Sierra.

Similarly diverse is the park's fauna, with over 100 bird species, including 17 species of birds of prey; in 2002 it was declared a special protection zone for birds. Its butterfly population is also outstanding and includes a subspecies of the butterfly parnassius apollo, which can only be found in this Sierra, and the pseudochazara hipolyte, endemic to southeast Spain. The spur-thighed tortoise that inhabits this Sierra is in danger of extinction and there is a breeding centre for these tortoises in the north of the park at Las Alnohallas.

The area was an important nucleus of population in prehistoric times, as testified by the numerous archaeological remains from Paleolithic and Neolithic times that have been excavated from sites like the Cueva Ambrosio, just north of the park, and the Neolithic hilltop fort at Cerro de las Canteras, near the Corneras river. Cave paintings are found in Cueva de los Letreros near Vélez Rubio and La Cueva del Gabar near Vélez Blanco.

Punta Entinas-Sabinar Natural Area

Southwest of the coastal resort Roquetas del Mar is a 15km-long strip of protected coastline, the Punta Entinas-Sabinar Natural Area and Reserve. Like Albufera de Adra Natural Reserve along the coast, this is a wildlife haven encircled by a sea of plastic from the intensive agriculture that surrounds it. Even in the height of summer the beach is often deserted and its isolation makes it an ideal spot for birdwatching.



The 1,960ha natural area is made up of sand dunes, beach and the raised beach of Los Alcores, immediately north of Punta Entinas. The dunes are interspersed with a series of freshwater and saline lakes. Some of the latter lakes are abandoned salt pans, the Cerrillos-Salinas Viejas.

Declared a special protected zone for birds, more than 150 species have been recorded in this wetland part of the area, including waders, flamingos and the rare Audouin's gull.

To the west within the larger protected zone are 785ha in Punta Entinas that have been designated a natural reserve, which has a higher level of environmental protection.

Access

To get to Punta Sabinar you can either go to Roquetas and then take the road to Almerimar, passing the saltpans Cerrillos-Salinas Viejas before you get to Punta Sabinar. Or take the Almerimar turn-off from the A7 and then turn towards Las Norias. The AL9008 heads south from here to Punta Sabinar. There are two signposted trails within the area.

To get to Punta Entinas, take the exit from the A7 for Almerimar. Head to the east of the village and then walk along the beach.

There is no driveable track or road linking Punta Entinas and Punta Sabinar along the coast. The only way to reach both is to either drive inland or walk along the beach.

 

 

 

Costa blanca   |  Costa cálida   |  Castellón   |   Almería   |  Fuerteventura   |   Gran Canaria   |   Tenerife