Barbate - Los Caños de Meca: the cliff
Nature park La Breña y Marismas del Barbate
Back and forth walk, 13 km
With the Sendero del Acantilado you walk from the parking lot on the A-2233 in Barbate along a path on the cliff of Barbate to the beach of Los Caños de Meca. You walk through a dune area with pine forest, the Pinar de la Breña, and overlook the Atlantic Ocean. Halfway through you will pass the Mirador Torre del Tajo, a 16th-century watchtower.
stage 1 - forth (6 km 517)
From the parking lot you walk along a wide path along the sea. You have beautiful views. The path ascends slowly until you arrive at the Torre del Tajo, a 16th-century watchtower. There are several viewpoints there. You continue walking along the path along pine forests until you descend to the beach of Los Caños de Meca.
stage 2 - back (6 km 517)
You walk back the same way.
The Cliff of Barbate
The Barbate cliff is one of the most spectacular landscapes in Andalusia, with a length of 4 kilometers and a height difference of more than 90 meters at some points. Shaped like a hollow arch between the beaches of Yerbabuena and Caños de Meca, it is the most important cliff in the province and, together with that of Maro-Cerro Gordo, the largest in our autonomous community.
The rock wall is not only the result of the erosive action of the waves; a fault in an east-west direction, with a series of accompanying parallel faults, facilitated the erosive dismantling of the rock and its modeling in the form of a rectilinear cliff with large height differences.
The relief on which the gorge has been eroded consists of horizontal layers of calcarenite (limestone/carbonate rock), deposited in a marine coastal environment during the transition from the Miocene to the Pliocene, approximately 5 million years ago. The bottom layer consists of sandy loam.
Calcarenite layers are permeable, while loams are not. For this reason, the drainage water that infiltrates the massif penetrates to the sandy loam layer and then appears on the rock face in the form of several water sources. The local place name caños refers to this phenomenon. An old canal, now in poor condition, ran on the dividing line between the calcarenite layers and the sandy loam layer to collect the water and transport it to Barbate.
Source: Breña and Marismas del Barbate Natural Park ("El acantilado de Barbate" information panel)
- shape
- return
- length
- 13 km 34
- location
- Province of Cádiz, Andalusia, Spain
- start
- parking lot Sendero del Acantilado, A-2233, Barbate
- turning point
- Playa de Los Caños de Meca
- path
- path:87% track:11% stairs:1% road:1%
- elevation
-
rise: 287m / fall: -287m
lowest: 1m / highest: 100m
photo 1 of 8
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Route "Barbate - Los Caños de Meca: el acantilado" is recorded on 10th June 2023 and placed on 27th January 2024. The route has been viewed 3507 times.
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Points of interest
- Torre del Tajo (XVI)
- Sendero del Acantilado, A-2233, Barbate
- Viewpoint near Torre del Tajo 2
- Viewpoint near Torre del Tajo 1
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