After my car failed its technical inspection in February, I was a bit apprehensive about driving further than work and back. As I wanted to get over the feeling, I got myself to organise a short road trip, three villages with some stuff I wanted to see, and a total of around three or four hours behind the wheel.

On my way out, I calculated an hour and a half and added some buffer time, which turned out to be more than enough. I reached my first destination, Pinilla del Valle, a tiny village in the middle of a valley, where thousands of years ago giant hyenas and Neanderthals roamed the land. Today, one can find the palaeontological and archaeological site that has been called Valle de los Neandertales (Neanderthal Valley). The site has been open to visitors under some specific circumstances with a nominal price (2€) and the village has decided to capitalise on the tourists.

They have set up a “museum of jobs” Museo de los Oficios, a glasshouse where a bunch of not-that-old rural implements have been arranged to define the tasks that used to be carried out in the fields before the steam engine changed everything. They decided to add ironwork tasks, too. I however ended up more interested in a pair of storks nesting on a nearby tree.

It takes around four minutes to walk from one end of the village to the other. I strolled along and saw a very cheesy photocall-mural that someone had thought was a good idea to paint, cherry and lilac trees and a mother-cow who gave my camera and I the stink eye.

The tourist information office was locked down, and so was the museum Museo de los Neandertales, the building where they take all the archaeological discoveries and which will eventually open. The only thing I could actually do was climb the observation tower Torre Mirador, though I did not see much due to the trees all around. I also got myself an airport-priced Coke before the visit started at noon.

The guide picked us up and we started walking towards the site, which was a twenty-minute hike away, as to get there one has to border the reservoir Embalse de Pinilla. Once there, we got a lecture that… could have been given anywhere else, to be honest.

Between 400,000 and 30,000 years ago (Mid to Upper Pleistocene), there was a system of caves and rock shelters in the area. These refuges were first used by spotted hyenas – the website says Crocuta crocuta, but that is the extant one, so it might have been Pachycrocuta brevirostris. Later, another species used them for as hunting “bases” of sort – Homo neanderthalensis, the extinct human species known as Neanderthals.

The first humans with Neanderthal characteristics appeared in Europe around the beginning of the Middle Pleistocene, but the fossil record is spotty and theories disputed. They went extinct around 40,000 years ago, possibly replaced by current humans’ populations. One theory is that the Würm glaciation killed off the Neanderthals’ usual prey, and they starved to death because they needed a much larger calorie intake than Homo sapiens.

Though popular culture tends to present Neanderthals as brutish (my own textbooks used to do it too), they were advanced enough to have a complex society with division of labour, caring for the wounded and elder, and even a surprising knowledge of medicinal plants and their use. They hunted in the valley, but they did not live there – they went, hunted, worked the prey there and took back what they needed. On top of that, they created a sort of funerary chamber for a child, decorated with deer antlers. As time passed, the caves collapsed, preserving the archaeological remains inside. The whole valley thing might become a sight to behold eventually, but at the moment, with all the excavations covered by wooden beams, and the museum closed, it feels more like an attention-grab than anything else. Fortunately, the weather was nice enough and although it thundered, we had no rain.

I moved on. Hopping back onto the car, I drove off towards Patones, a village in the mountains divided into two neighbourhoods, with Patones de Arriba (Upper Patones), being the older one. It was established as far back as 1555, it is a “black architecture” village that has in recent years exploded in popularity. One of the reasons is that it cannot be accessed by car: there is only one small parking lot at the edge of the village and you have to walk from there. Since the village is on top of a mountain, it has become a bit of a “hold my beer” feat to find a parking spot nearby instead of hiking the “gorge path” to brag about having parked close-by.

However, I thought that walking the trail was part of the experience. Thus, I parked at the foot of the hill in the more modern Patones de Abajo (Lower Patones), and got ready for the “ecotrack” (whatever that means) Senda Ecológica del Barranco. The trail runs parallel to the local torrent, and it took around 20 minutes to walk it upwards. It was nice and warm, and I had stopped for a snack beforehand, so it didn’t take much effort.

Halfway through the hike there is a bit of an aqueduct, as the area is near the Lozoya infrastructure owned by Canal de Isabel II, which provides the city of Madrid with drinking water. When I arrived at the top, I had to walk a bit by the road – that should be better organised. If using the trail is the recommended way, the last stretch should not be that hazardous. I finally passed by the parking lot and stepped into the village.

Spanish black architecture arquitectura negra takes its name from the black slate that has traditionally been used to erect houses in the mountain range Sierra de Ayllón, where this metamorphic rock is quite abundant. Despite Spain having the reputation of being warm / hot, winters in the central plateau (the meseta) are cold, dry and unforgiving. Black rock absorbs what little sun the area gets, which has been often cited as a reason for the importance of the constructive style. The truth might be as simple as it was the only thing available, especially since slate was also used for fountains and bridges, which would need no heat.

You are supposed to visit the village at weekends, when everything is open and it is teeming with tourists. At 15:00 on an April weekday, there were a few people snooping around and most eateries and treat shops were closed. However, it suited me just fine to snoop around and avoid others for the most part. The village was charming, but I had expected something more after reading so much about it. It was nice with flowers decorating the streets and all, but in the end, just a small village with dark houses. Now that I think about it, though, it’s probably unbelievable for a city-dweller though.

There was a drinking fountain, a washing pond, and old animal enclosures, alongside the townspeople’s houses, which included ovens, though some structures had become abandoned and ruined. After an hour or so I had wandered all the streets and greeted all the stray cats, so I decided to make my way back down using the track. At that time, I was grateful for the couple of frozen-water bottles I had kept in the car.

I still had one more spot I wanted to check out. The nearby hamlet of Viñuelas had apparently rehabilitated a windmill Molino de Viñuelas a few years back in order to attract some tourists to the area. Apparently, it did not work out too well, because the blades fell, and nobody bothered to put them up again. Without the blades, the building is just a roundish-looking construction in the middle of nowhere. Never mind how much the town hall tried to pump out the cultural offer, the village only has a couple of religious buildings, both of them locked down. I had wanted to see the windmill for a while, since I found about its existence shortly after coming back from Consuegra. Pity about the blades.

I drove off and was back home by early evening. The day might have not been spectacular, but it cleared my head. It also convinced me that I needed to have my tyres replaced, as the car complained about skidding on a few curves on the secondary roads. It might be time to start thinking about getting a new vehicle instead. Oh, joy.