Magnificent walkers' guide to Jimena countryside

JIMENA The local walkers' society in Jimena, called Caminete de Luna ('Pathway of the Moon', approx., beautifully named after a street in the village) held a book presentation on Friday evening (photos and text of the event in another item). But it's not just any old book. This is a magnificent, practical work of art that contains 35 routes through the Los Alcornocales Nature Park (not 'Natural' Park, please!). The routes are of varying degrees of difficulty, and can take anywhere between less than one hour to nine and a half. The ringbinder makes it easy to remove each route and the waterproof paper it is printed on, very practical. But that's not all. The photography, mainly by José Manuel Contreras and Raúl Cárdenas but with contributions from others, is absolutely stunning - and serves to remind those of us who live just outside Los Alcornocales that we live as close to Paradise as we humans can. (More great big photos and descriptions below - but we promise not to go OTT again...)

There are 35 different routes through the Park and its surroundings, with room for more as time goes on. Each numbered route has its two or three pages that include...

...a detailed map, indications of difficulty, altitude references, GPS references and everything you ever wanted to know about it.

And then, as we said, there are those fantastic photos.

But perhaps what will surprise you most, stun you in fact, is the price (which we won't tell you here): believe us, it is value for money you are unlikely to see anywhere these days.

But there's even more.

The publisher of the book and the man behind the initiative is one Cristóbal Delgado (above), born in Jimena not that many years ago, and an emmigrant to Barcelona, where he and his wife Dolores, own a very successful book printing works called (surprise surprise) Editorial Oba.

The publisher (called editorial in Spanish) has consistently helped out by printing as much as he can for the village where he was born. Thus, feria books, Music Festival programmes, flyers and pamphlets, have come our way for next to nothing. That's a lot of love for your pueblo, something Jimena can only reciprocate by naming him Favourite Son, its highest honour, a couple of years ago. We should offer him a great big thanks again, for this truly magnificent work of art. Which we do, Cristobal.

(Having had several enquiries about its availability in English, TranslationHELP has offered to translate some of the more significant parts of the book)

It is available at several places throughout the town: Petrol station, Garabatos stationery shop (opposite pool) and La Tasca, among other places.
(please let us know what you think of it!)