Legend has it that one day a storm struck while all the men of Las Negras were out fishing. Almost all of them drowned, and only widows were left in the village. Travellers arriving here found only women dressed in black (negras), and according to the legend that is how the village got its name. See another version of the story below.
Las Negras is a privileged spot in the Natural Park, sheltered from the west wind (poniente). We head towards La Isleta, visiting El Cuervo and Las Palomas caves, where pallid swifts nest and fly in and out. Above runs the La Molata footpath, one of the most beautiful in the park. On the cliffs you can see blocks of rock breaking away, like a single frame from the never-ending film of geology.
Next comes the 18th-century San Ramón castle, built, like most of the watchtowers on this coast, to defend it against the pirates who ruled these waters.
We reach El Playazo, at the mouth of the Rodalquilar valley, an ancient volcanic caldera. The gold mined from its hills made this place shine and put it on the map. The gold ran out, and the twists of history turned the clean desert landscape above crystal-clear water into the new gold, one you don’t have to blast out of the mountain but must protect instead.
After El Playazo the landscape changes again: the dark, textured rock returns, sometimes crystalline, sometimes shapeless, sometimes whitish. Once more we sail beneath cliffs over 200 metres high, with deep cracks where hydrothermal water once flowed and gargoyles carved by the wind. At the end of the route we see La Polacra, worn by the sea into the shape of an anvil.
Another version
Julián, a contributor to Eco del Parque, adds a detail: “According to very old people in the area, it happened in Cala de San Pedro. More people lived there than in Las Negras. Both were fishing settlements, but hardly anyone lived in Las Negras. In San Pedro more families lived from fishing and from small vegetable gardens watered by its freshwater spring, which still flows today. After the shipwrecks, the fishermen’s widows moved to Las Negras. They all wore black dresses and black headscarves. People passing by boat, and the few who came from inland, saw women in black and began calling the place ‘Las Negras’.”
Although we haven’t found any written record, Julián’s version seems more likely, since San Pedro has one of the few freshwater springs that would have made a settlement possible. We also recommend Eco del Parque, an association that has spent many years promoting and defending the park; their magazine is well worth a look. Thank you, Julián.
