Mountain Climbing in Carrícola

Mountains are pretty common in Spain; as a matter of fact, few countries are as mountainous as this one, all the “rains in Spain fall mainly on the plain” clichés notwithstanding. Taking advantage of another midweek sunny day when Sagrario is in València, we decided to visit a town that was famous for sundial clocks (Otos) and another one next door with sculptures in nature. We knew we wouldn’t have a lot of time but daylight is starting to get slightly longer each day so we had to try. The town with the sculptures is called Carrícola but it also has a castle, or ruins thereof, and we wanted to check that out first. As we neared it we had to rely on Google Maps to get us there … and that’s how we ended up going mountain climbing in Carrícola, or Otos: the exact location is somewhat in doubt.

The road Google told us to take looked reasonable enough, at first, but before long it became clear that we may be taking the long way around. We saw a road sign pointing to the Castell de Carrícola so we followed it, since both it and Google were telling us the same thing. What we didn’t know was that while, technically, both were correct, the approach to the castle was going to be rather unorthodox.

At first the dirt road looked OK, a bit narrow, clearly one-way, but that’s not unusual for castle approaches, especially the less well-preserved ones. Very soon, however, we realized that we were climbing–and rather quickly, I might add–a side of a mountain and before long we had a rather steep trees side up on the right and an even steeper side, at least from our vantage point, down on the left. The view to the left was at once breathtaking for its beauty and expanse and also breathtakingly horrifying when we thought how high up we were and how far down we could be if Sagrario were to lose control of her old beater Audi even for split second. To say we were just a wee bit scared shitless would be a fair assessment, all the while squealing both with laughter at the absurdity of our position and fear of how we were going to manage it. And the craziest part of it was we had no idea how far the road would take us. Google was showing me our position at all times but it was almost too impossible to believe. The map below shows the road we were one and while it may seem large here, it was far from it.

What is actually quite funny is that we did reach the castle, eventually. Or, more precisely, the stairs to it since the castle itself now lay below the road from which someone had so thoughtfully installed a staircase to the ruins, a staircase we refused to follow because it just did not look safe and we had our fill of unsafe activities for the day. We did stop the car at a viewing spot and got out to walk off the tension a bit and also to peer over the edge to see just how steep the mountain was. It was steep. Very steep. And, according to Google, we had no choice but keep going until another road branched off this one to take us back down to the urbanizations below, and it wasn’t either of the first two we approached. Those were just more Google lies meant to keep us moving forward.

I did think of recording the drive at some point, producing these two short clips for your amusement.

Nearing another possible turn-off, we realized we were driving alongside some mountain goats except they turned out to be the domestic kind. They looked at us with as much surprise as we did at them. Fortunately, they were not there alone as a very lovely man, their herder, helped us confirm that the road we were thinking of turning into did, in fact, lead down to the town of clocks, Otos, which we were trying to get to, having totally given up on the whole castle thing. Technically, we were in Otos already, as the very first clock was right there, at the point of return to civilization.

Looking back it wasn’t easy to see the road we took, but by the general location of the castle tower, the one we saw from above, it was clear that we were very much in mountain goat territory. This may sound crazy but I’d totally do it again, though I think I’d rather be the one driving, a 4×4 preferably, though not a very tall one.