Cape Barbaria, the southernmost light of the Balearic Islands

PalmThe Barcelona writer, doctor and politician Joan Colomines i Puig (1922-2011) defined Cape Barbaria as "one of the wildest, most inhospitable, desolate, barren and lonely places on the island. But one of the most attractive." It is not in vain that the Basque filmmaker Julio Medem chose this space as the main setting for his film "The Cape of Barbaria." Lucia and sex (2001). Medem's Formentera was Lucía's (Paz Vega) escape route, a hole into which she could fall and restart her life. The southernmost tip of the Balearic archipelago is a good place to rediscover solitude and, at the same time, the essence of the most primal earth.

But the territory encompassed by the former Cape Barbaria inn is much more than a vanished memory, the idea of a pocket island discovered by hippies in the 1970s, easy to explore by motorbike or bicycle, surrounded by fig trees and colonized by lizards sheltering among the rocks. Barbaria is a Formentera space where history has left a strong mark on its immense bareness. Right around the Llano del Rey, the epicenter of our route, a total of thirty-three archaeological sites are concentrated, representative of the various stages of the island's history. Twenty-one sites belong to prehistory, one to the Punic period, four to the Roman period, five to the medieval Islamic period, and another four are of indeterminate age, as no materials are available to date them. Not to mention the Garroveret Tower (1763), the southernmost of the watchtowers on Formentera and the Pitiusas.

If you dare, now is the time to take the first step on this arid and stony itinerary, deeply fascinating and hypnotic, which will take us through a desolate and inhospitable land, guided only by the southernmost light of the Balearic Islands. The starting and finishing point is the parking lot of the Cape Barbaria lighthouse, past the Tanca de Allí Dins gate, where public transport does not reach. The road begins in the very center of Sant Francesc, heading south. Along the way, we can visit three perfectly signposted archaeological sites. The last, Cap de Barbaria, 1, is found at the beginning of the route.

The route

[00 min] We set off from the parking lot, where a small path leads eastward to the aforementioned site. It is a circular structure about 13 m in diameter, the northeastern third of which was almost completely destroyed to make way for gravel when the road was built. All that remains is a wall-like plinth made up of two parallel courses with internal filling. Cape Barbaria 1 dates from the Early and Middle Bronze Age (around 1600–1000 BC), a time when the island was densely populated.

We leave the archaeological site behind and continue along the path (E/SE) that now brings us to a group of juniper trees, among which one stands out for its size and the shape of its crown [05 min]. It measures 5.5 meters high, with a crown diameter of almost 9 meters, and the stump measures 54 cm in diameter, with a perimeter of almost 2 meters. It is a relatively young specimen, less than 100 years old. In 1992 it was classified as a singular tree by the Regional Ministry of the Environment. Further on, we find the remains of an old iron machine, to the right of the path.

One of the difficulties of the route are the numerous paths laid out on the dry, rocky surface of the terrain we cross. [20 min] We will find milestones, which should guide us towards Xaloc, towards the sea. We advance parallel to the Els Pins stream, which is on our left. Once we reach the coast [30 min], the same path leads us southward toward our first point of interest, which we already see. It's the Garroveret Tower [50 min]. Before that, we'll cross the place known as El Forn, a small depression in the terrain.

Garroveret Tower

This construction, dedicated to coastal surveillance, was completed in 1763. Its construction, like that of the rest of the island's towers, was carried out by the engineer García Martínez, who followed the 1756 plans of Joan Ballester. It is a nine-meter-high, two-story, truncated-cone structure with an upper platform with a sentry box and protected by a continuous parapet. In the years immediately following its construction, it was armed with artillery from the Church of Sant Francesc Xavier. In 1824, it served only as a watchtower. It also no longer had permanent tower keepers until 1852, when this unit was created under the Ministry of War. It was declared a Site of Cultural Interest in 1949.

We leave the tower in the direction of Cape Barbaria and its lighthouse, from 1967. A short stretch, barely ten minutes, that we will do along a path that passes over Cape Cibolles. [1 h 00 min] We go out to the esplanade, used as a parking lot, next to the rectangular fence that surrounds the Barbaria lighthouse, where we place our particular finis terrae In the south of the Balearic archipelago. Just a few meters from the aforementioned facility, facing the sea, we find the Foradada Cave at Cape Barbaria, accessible vertically via a wooden staircase, which gives us a new perspective of the surroundings.

We resume our march westward, following the markers that show us the clearest path. We'll pass three torrents, the first and easiest being Ras. Then we come across Teia [1 hour 10 minutes], which forces us to make a U-turn inland to cross its awkward ford. And finally, Falzia, which brings us to the end of our route, a coastal crossing that, in this last stretch, allows us to enjoy the colossal and unmistakable profile of the Vedrà. When we come across a dry wall, the limit of the Valla de Allí Dentro, which stops at the cliff [1 hour 45 minutes], we must turn right, uphill. We follow some markers that will escort us to a dirt track that we will follow to the esplanade from which we started our walk [2 hours 00 minutes].

@Fita_a_Fita