Route of the Colada de Fuente Amarga, Pinar de la Espartosa, and Callejón de Borreguitos in Chiclana de la Frontera, Spain.

Details of the Route:
Length: 8.5 km.
Difficulty: Easy
Route: Linear

Sight-Seeing Highlights:
Scenic variety of fauna and flora.

Beginning of the Route:
Novo Sancti Petri Highway next to the Residencial El Trébol, and equally recommendable from the city in the other direction. There is a small resting spot in a place called the "Espartosa."

Description:
This path has a legal width of 20 meters, and was originally designed at the end of the 60´s with a width of only 8 meters. The route begins next to the Residencial El Trébol in Novo Sancti Petri.


The path crosses residential zones and construction sites. To the right we will pass an entrance that would take us up to a place called the "Campano." Currently, we are in the area known as "Pago de Melilla." We will cross a stream called "Arroyo Ahogarratones," of which it´s wide riverbed deceives us of actually how much water really flows there during the rainy season. Continuing along, we will pass on the right a place called the "Colada de Recoberos", a name that comes from the travelling vendors who sold their goods on horseback roaming through this countryside that ends at the Urbanization of the Llano de las Maravillas and highway A-48.


We will be bordering the Velez Thicket, an authentic island forest with an interesting mix of dense forest and Mediterranean scrubland. In the fertile plains of the "Arroyo de la Salineta" (Salty Stream), its waters unite with that of the Ahogarratones Stream below, forming what is known as the "Carrajolilla" (a name for all of the seasonal streams together as a whole). These all run eventually into the Sancti Petri Channel.

A few meters past the stream, we will come to a cross in the road of which we will take the road to the right (Camino de la Cepa), that borders an old quarry. We will follow the sporadic course of the stream, until we reach the urbanized area known as "Llano de las Maravillas" and highway A-48. Here we will go to the left on one of the trails that will take us to the highest part of the place known as "Espartosa." Here the municipal tanks serve as a reference point. They are surrounded by a small hill overgrown with thyme.

In front of the tanks, they have built a simple
vantage point, named "Punto Mágico," (Magical Point) from which one can obtain a beautiful view of the forest of pine trees, the Paja Lagune, and on clear days one can see as far as the city center of Medina, and the mountain country of the Sierra Nevada of Cádiz (Snowy-top mountains of Cadiz).

Our route will descend towards the highway of the lagunes, first by a small path that widens into a trail that goes East. Once we arrive at the highway, a few meters from the Paja Lagune (Official Natural Reserve), whose name alludes o the great quantity of water reeds that almost make the water invisible. These reeds were used for making hut roofs. Next, we take the trail called "Callejón de Borreguitos," (Little Sheep Alley) that ascends ever so slightly and wanders past cultivated land that, along the way, is more and more occupied by buildings. These buildings indicate to us that we are getting closer to Chiclana and its city center, bringing our route to an end at the roundabout that we encounter at the old Fuente Amarga Highway.