Sunday

We visited the church in Umbrete today. It's a town about the same size as Olivares located about 15 minutes south. They have just moved into a new locale. Previously they met in the home of one of the families that is leading the church.



It's exciting to see growth in a town which has no other gospel witness. Let's hope and pray they continue to be faithful in their service to the Lord!

Mining visit

Donna and I took an excursion today to a small town just a half-hour to the north west of Olivares. It's called Aznalcollar (Ath-nal-col-YAR) and was an important mining town at the turn of the 20th century, mostly by the British. They still do some mining there- pirite and copper were it's main products. Mostly though it's a quiet little town with evidences of the open-pit mining that was done there. I discovered it on Google Earth and found the comments left there to be interesting- so we visited.

It was a beautiful, clear day in the mid-70s so we walked along the path taking pictures and enjoying the views of the river. Afterwards, we headed about 8 miles south where we were told there was an archaelogical site from about 8 centuries BC. We found a dirt road about where we were told it would be and followed it about one mile back through farm land. It is called "Tejada vieja" (old Tejada, because there is another Tejada a few miles down the road.) We were impressed by what we found. It was an early mining town from the Phoenician era of Spain and believed to be populated by the indigenous people of the area. We had to climb a locked gate to get in, but we are glad we did. The archaelogy is not active, but some has been done recently. According to the municipal website, they still arrange group visits to the area. So other than a short sign at the entrance, there is nothing explaining what you see.

From the gate we climbed up a short steep path towards a huge stone wall at the top of the site. Inside, it is basically flat (about 8 hectares) with evidence of stone building foundations and no trees or vegetation. (Was it cleared by recent archaelogy studies???) As you walk through you see the outlines of homes or buildings, obviously arranged in city fashion. In one area there are two stone circles, evidence of some type of oven. Being there makes one wonder what life was like, why did they build at that particular site, why did they leave, etc. etc. Pretty interesting.

From the top of the wall, you can see for dozens of miles in all directions. An obvious high point for this civilization. Glad we made the trip. It was a nice way to spend 3 hours on a Saturday in April.

Photos of our trip can be seen at: http://picasaweb.google.com/hanch6/ExcursionToDamAndTejada

See our route in Google Earth/Maps here (If this link doesn't open directly in Google Earth, try saving it to your desktop then opening it from Google Earth)