Casillas de Diaz - Pico Aguililla, PR-A 118.1, Gibralgalia, Cártama (Málaga)

22 03 2022

Casillas de Diaz – Pico Aguililla, Gibralgalia

This walk starts on the outskirts of Cerralba on the old Camino de Gibralgalia (MA 3400).
There is off road parking at the start. Head off on the road which is a quite road. After 2km you get to a junction on your right the PR A 118.1, which goes to the abandoned hamlet of Casillas de Diaz. A few houses are being renovated and this ghost town is slowly starting to get inhabited again.

From here head towards Pico Aguililla where the Antennas are.
There are some lovely panoramic views taking in Casarabonela, Zalea, Alora, Pizarra and Cerralba.

We stopped for a drink at the only bar in the village – Bar Tio Pepe.
From here make your way down this minor road which brings you back onto the MA 3400.

Here is an interesting article in the Sur about the ghost town of Casillas de Diaz.
Ghost town comes back to life
Casillas de Díaz, an old nineteenth-century village abandoned between Cártama and Pizarra, resurfaces from the ruins of the hand of its new inhabitants

When eleven years ago Manuel Galindo bought his future home for two million pesetas, he already knew what awaited him: two old houses demolished, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by old buildings with broken roofs scattered throughout the hills.
The rickety village of Casillas de Díaz was then far from what it was back in the mid-nineteenth century, when it formed a populous nucleus inhabited by simple people and farmers. Manuel was looking for tranquility and nature and found both in this ghost town that did not step on a soul on a daily basis. Only on weekends were the few families who kept their property standing there.
"I and my partner always liked the countryside. We fixed the house and we came when we still had neither electricity nor water, "says this mobile phone worker who today is the president of the community of neighbours in the area, which he himself promoted in 2000. Because that's right: Casillas de Díaz seems to be living a second youth.
From among the ruins new stable homes have begun to emerge. Most of them stand on the fallen houses of yesteryear, giving the whole a picturesque aspect in which past and present merge. Currently about six families live there permanently, while, if you count those who reside seasonally or spend weekends, they reach thirty.
The latter is the case of Ana García. She and her sister inherited the house that once belonged to their parents and, before that, to their grandparents. Most of the year is spent in Cártama, but every time they can they go to this villa, which crowns the village and from where you can see almost all the towns of the Guadalhorce Valley and even the sea. "Before, there weren't even houses here; they were all palm ranches," Ana recalls.
The origin of Casillas de Díaz is well documented. Alejandro Rosas, researcher of the history of Pizarra and its region, comments that the first references date from 1847. "The original house belonged to a man named Antonio Diaz. Then the rest of the houses were settled around and hence the current name, "he explains.
Rise and fall
Although there are no concrete figures on the census, Rosas highlights that in its most populous period (surely the first half of the twentieth century), more than two hundred neighbours could live there. Today, you can still see the walls of more than fifty of those houses, which formerly had small farms in which vineyards and olive trees were cultivated.
From the 50s and 60s, the natives of Casillas de Díaz began to leave. Agriculture and livestock no longer gave to live and those who were still dedicated to it moved to the new neighbourhoods for peasants that the Government built nearby, such as Zalea and, above all, Cerralba, where there are still natives of the village. Also in Sierra de Gibralgalia, which is the nearest urban centre and is part of the municipality of Cártama.
The jurisdiction of Casillas de Díaz also has its curiosity. It was once part of Gibralgalia, when it was an autonomous local entity. Later, the territory was divided and part of the houses became part of the term of Cártama, although most now belong to Pizarra. Manuel Galindo points out that this division has always been a problem when it comes to convincing municipalities to provide the area with basic services. "One day I had to bring the two mayors here and wrestle from each one a commitment," says the president of the community.
Their work has paid off and work has recently begun to bring the water network to the houses, which are now supplied as they can from the wells of the mountains. The next challenge is to achieve the conditioning of the lane that gives access to the area and that is in very bad condition, "especially when it rains," says Manuel.
The few inhabitants of the area are convinced that a notable improvement in basic services would mean attracting even more people. Although, in reality, almost all of them recognize that what most attracted them to Casillas de Díaz was precisely the almost absence of neighbours and its appearance as a village anchored in time. "This is the glory," says Félix Rodríguez, a recently retired Galician who came here five years ago and has been busy with housing reform ever since. The works are already very advanced, especially considering that he has done everything alone.
His case is exceptional, because most of the current owners had to resort to crews of workers to reform the old houses, which they bought for four hard. So did Spencer Mitchell, a Briton who has been there since 1999 and who is still undergoing renovations, although his house is practically finished. His is one of the three families of foreigners who have turned Casillas de Díaz into a sparsely populated, but cosmopolitan nucleus.
Manuel Galindo still remembers when, just moved, his wife, his daughters and he met at night around a portable TV. There they stayed until it was gradually extinguished. At that time they had no electricity and everything worked with generators. They even once had to use the car battery. "The next morning I had to start it in spurts," he explains. Three and a half years after that, three neighbours agreed to pay for the light line and, today, poles and cables fly over the ruined houses.
The arrival of running water and the arrangement of access could end up definitively boosting the repopulation process that began 11 years ago. Perhaps then the new colonists will even resume the tradition of gathering in the streets to celebrate the Night of San Juan, as their primitive neighbours did.