SOUTHERN SPAIN

Summary

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Hike to an old mine and cave outside of Benalmadena Pueblo for a unique experience in the local hills. Enjoy unbeatable views of the coastline, surrounding towns and mountains as you go.

Trail Stats

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Trail Details

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There’s absolutely no reason why you should take this route if your destination is merely the Cueva de las Mina de las Trinidad (Trinity Cave). We took this circuit to add quite a bit of mileage to an otherwise relatively short hike to and from the cave. If you are solely wanting to see the cave, start from the trailhead by the Stupa in Benalmadena Pueblo. It’s by the butterfly park. Calle Palma del Rio (the street) will take you to the trailhead. Can’t remember if there’s parking or not. Definitely no bathrooms. From there it is a relatively short walk up to the cave, albeit steep in some sections. If you’re like us and want a longer, more exhausting trip, by all means follow our route or create your own from the interconnecting trails through these mountains.

Turn Here and There

We began our loop hike at the Sendero Tajo del Quejigal trailhead, on the PR-A56 trail. Once again, this trailhead is directly off the A-368. There’s plenty of parking past the trailhead sign. As per the prototypical path in Spain, you’ll immediately head straight uphill. Commence heavy breathing, though it does come with great views of an AP-7 bridge. After a relatively short distance the trail splits. We chose to head left onto the PR-A57, loosely following the AP-7 freeway. As we did this hike as a quasi loop, we’d pop out hours later from the other trail. Technically you could do whichever way you like. But our primary goal was the cave, so, left it was as the cave was closer this way.

In general, you’ll stick to the PRA-57 trail. In two places the trail will turn right and head uphill. Ignore them. Continue following the freeway. After the second turn of the PR-A57 there’s technically no posted trail. As in you’ve reached a dead end. However, there is a very clear and ridiculously easy trail to follow that’ll take you to the PR-A58. And this is the one that takes you to the cave. As a side note, if you look up hikes in the area, these trails will have different numbers and names depending on the site you’re in. Not confusing at all. Now that you’re nice and flustered and unsure if it’s worth the hassle, ignore all the switching trail numbers and simply parallel the freeway. If you do, you’ll wind up in the correct spot. Easy peasy chicken squeezie.

While on the “non-trail” section of the hike, we saw those nasty toxic Spanish caterpillars. The dreaded Pine Processionary Caterpillars. These horrific creatures have toxic hairs that they can project off their bodies at will. Typically if stressed or threatened. Luckily they are easy to spot as they come down from their nests in the pine tree’s in a long Congo line of horrors. These loathsome creatures are responsible for killing several pets each year. If your pet is unfortunate enough to inhale one of those dreadful hairs you’d better hope you’re close to a vet. Vile little creepers.

Revolting creatures aside, there is a big bonus to walking on this path. Near the top (because of course you’re steadily heading up) there is a phenomenal viewpoint. Perfect to catch your breath or simply admire how gorgeous the area is. It’d be a perfect spot for a cup of coffee. Or breakfast. It really is lovely.

To save myself from sounding like a broken record, I’ll divert you to my Cerro de Moro Loop post to read about circling what I refer to as “Tower Mountain.” Granted, we exited at a different spot, but the mountain part is certainly accurate. I’ll skip to the good part. The Cueva.

Trinity Cave or Cueva de las Mina de las Trinidad

I am enchanted with caves. Which is weird because I don’t like the dark. I still remember having to walk down our long country driveway in the middle of nowhere Idaho to shut the gate in the evenings. Why my father didn’t on his way home I don’t know. Was this nightly? No. Likely infrequent at best. But still. My father could spring out from behind a tree to scare the ever living daylights out of me. I hated closing that gate at night. I’ve no doubt it was hilarious on his end of the deal. Granted, I am my father’s daughter in that there is a certain delight to rounding a corner and scaring the living bejesus out of someone.

Back to caves. Dark, sure, but I find them so very intriguing. And beautiful. Some more than others but each in its own unique way. Trinity cave is remarkably yellow. As a warning, if you choose to go in, you will not come out unscathed. In this case, you’ll return a tad more yellow than when you entered. There are always dangers to entering caves. You could have a rock fall on your noggin. Bad day. The cave could collapse. Very bad day. There could be noxious gas. Also a bad day. You could get lost. Not such a great day either. You could fall into a chasm. A few bad days if you survive the fall. In other words, weigh your options. This cave is frequented by quite a few people yearly and is open to exploration. Though you’ll still need a light and some common sense.

Now for a brief history on Trinity cave. It was the site of an old ochre mine a long time ago. Has been abandoned or closed for decades. Ochre is an iron rich material that used to be extremely valuable. It was used medicinally, in art, as a preservative to animal hides and mixed with oil to preserve and protect wood. It’s still used to a degree in skin care products and for some medicinal uses. End of history lesson. Now you know.

The mine (or cave) has a gate that, while I presume is supposed to be shut, is not locked. Should you decide to enter, you’ll find yourself in a large cavern with a path leading upward into the mine. The entirety of the cave is yellow. Very yellow. If you touch it, your skin, clothes or pack will be covered in that yellow. And it does not come off without some scrubbing. Once again, you’ve been warned. Initially, I tried to only assist myself up and in with a fingertip hold. That was abandoned the further in we went as we nearly had to crawl through sections, or more accurately, do the awkward crab crawl.

There are multiple little caverns to explore inside. We inspected nearly all the little nooks and crannies we could squeeze into. While in most sections we could stand, a few places required an entertaining duck and shimmy to get through. Which always resulted in a new golden smear somewhere on our persons.

If you like rocks at all, there are some marvelously shiny ones inside. Certainly no impressive stalagmites, but plenty of interesting patterns to view. Even some glittery pink whatnot. No idea what that was but it glimmered most becomingly.

At one point we found an old cable up a very wet and slick upshoot. You could see a patch of daylight way above if you stood in just the right position looking up. Now, as I love to harass Doug, I got all amped up to climb up. Doug, as I knew he would, immediately put the kybosh on that. Said he “drew the line” or some nonsense. It really is lovely knowing your spouse so well. As if I really wanted to get metal slivers in my hands from some nasty wet cable while sliding around on very wet a rock face. And then having to slop back down. Would have been miserable. Nope. But it was fun to get a rise out of him. Sorry but not all that sorry.

The deeper in you go, the thicker the air gets. The humidity is exceptionally high and it never was even remotely cold. I read somewhere that the air back there has a high percentage of iron oxide. Not the best to breathe in for prolonged periods, especially if you suffer from any respiratory ailments. We were more than fine but it did smell funky.

Getting back out should be relatively easy, there are arrows spray painted all over showing you the direction to exit. So, no worries there. Unless your lamp went out. Then you might have a problem.

Once you exit the mine you can assess the damage. While my hands and backpack suffered the most, Doug’s pants took the brunt of the amber affliction. Well worth a load of scrubbing back home. Though, my poor backpack may never be the same.

Homeward bound

Back to the trail. I’ll skip ahead to where we ventured off from the previously posted Cerro de Moro loop and made our way back to where we began. Basically, to return to the Benalmadena Pueblo, you’ll turn a sharp right quite a ways down trail from the summit. There’s a sign. We wanted to return to the Sendero Tajo del Quejigal trailhead we’d started on that morning. So we went straight instead. How exciting. It was interesting as we’d never been on this mild stretch of trail before.

This bit of trail connects the Cerro Moro area (tower mountain) with Monte Calamorro (gondola mountain) trails. Somewhere in the center, it also connects to the trail we needed. As for the trail itself, there seemed to be quite a bit of sand stone along the way. Which results in a few areas of quite a lot of sand. Turns out, I still loathe sand. Stuff gets everywhere. I don’t care for it in my socks, shoes, clothes or on my skin. Yuck. So I did the tender, tip toe stepping of one desperately trying to avoid that awful ick called sand. Probably looked like a deranged moron trying out for the world’s worst ballet show, but hey, at least there wasn’t sand in my socks. Victory for me. As for Doug, he knew who he married. We dated for three years prior to getting engaged. Nothing should be a surprise from me.

The downward path out was typical in Spanish fashion. It rapidly descended the mountain and had footing that makes you really wonder how more people aren’t walking around in medical boots from breaking or at least spraining their ankles. Loose rocks, sand, roots. Uneven rocky terrain. Loads of fun. I can’t fully describe the surface but just think if it can put strain through your ankles, it will.

Which all brings me to an interesting observation and curiosity as a non-native person temporarily in Spain. And I mean the following with no offense. I’ve seen loads of male Spanish youth, (in this case I mean mainly teens) roaming around the streets, busses and trains. There’s often a punkish vibe to them. Hedgehog hair cuts, trying to be edgy and cool with their posturing and attitudes while in actuality being mildly in the way, somewhat loud kids. As in, swinging on the overhead hand bars on the train, being loud, taking over all the limited space kind of things. Nothing overly harmful. Just typical, mildly inconsiderate kid things. Now for my question. When do they transition from this stage to complete bad ass? To the men running past us up and down mountainsides without a care for their ankles and knees? While having a nice casual chat with their running partner? With calves the size of my thigh? Or to the bikers pedaling effortlessly straight uphill without a care in the world? These people make you feel more than out of shape. They are on a whole other level. It’s insane. When does this happen? This magical switch? I’ve yet to see any teens on the trails, or even on bikes. So when? And how? It must be some magical switch that turns on their inner beast mode. The Spanish just make it all seem so easy. Rock on Spaniards! I’ll continue to ponder this for quite some time.

In synopsis, if you relish a good cave experience and are willing to take the associated risks, visit the Cueva de la Mina da la Trinidad. We loved our time in there, probably spent a good hour to hour and a half inside. I believe it goes somewhere between 700 to just under 1,000 feet back. Or just under 1/4 mile. Though, that is through a variety of chambers with a lot of winding around. Regardless, enjoy your time out in nature and delight in all the optional adventures awaiting you!

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