Benalúa – Badlands - PR-A 156 Circular Trail

The Benalúa – Badlands - PR-A 156 Circular Trail starts at the viewpoint known as Mirador del Cerro Kabila. From here, we follow a cattle trail that winds its way through the badlands and which has several forks. After a few minutes, we start walking down through a fertile plain with fields of peach trees and some vineyards.

After walking along a beaten track, we reach Benalúa and begin our way up to the starting point through a neighbourhood of cave-houses.

Benalúa is located very near the confluence of the rivers Guadix-Verde and Fardes, in the heart of the plain known as Hoya de Guadix. A typical cave town, it shares a landscape of sharp contrasts with other similar towns in the region: northwards a vast area of badlands stretches for miles and miles, while to the south there is a fertile plain of small terraced plots and irrigation channels, some of which are hundreds of years old.

Benalúa was first mentioned in written sources immediately after the Christian conquest, when it was known as Menaluga, whose meaning remains a mystery. The same sources mention a watchtower, of which nothing remains. Around that tower the first caves must have been established, in the final years of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada and close to an important communications route: El Camino de Jaén (the Jaén Road), harking back to the Roman Via Augusta.

In Benalúa, as well as the modernist industrial architecture that comprises the old sugar factory complex, now the Town Hall and other public buildings, we recommend visiting the neo-Mudéjar church, the Town Museum, the neighbourhood of caves and the Mirador del Cerro Kabila viewpoint.