Coming along the A-432 (from Cazalla), at the entrance to the village there are a series of streets named after Andalusian provinces; I park, making my homeland, on Calle Córdoba and from here I head for the adjacent Calle Manuel Díaz, where I leave the village, next to the football pitch. I start the climb towards the first milestone of the day, the Cerro del Cura; the path reaches a concrete section, where the slope becomes steeper, although it then becomes smoother, even flatter, before reaching the Cerro del Cura viewpoint. Unfortunately the fog prevents us from enjoying the view of the village (we have to make do with the panoramic photo on the panel); the path (from Guindales) descends again to the village, where we can see the traditional dry stone walls that delimit the olive groves or land for livestock.
On reaching the road, continue to the right towards the roundabout and then along a road next to the A-433 (towards Guadalcanal), which still has some asphalted sections; after almost 2 kilometres along this road, leave it for another more interesting road on the left, the Cañada Real de Merinas (on which you can see a yellow arrow, as it is the route of a Jacobean pilgrimage route, the Camino de la Frontera, which continues towards Guadalcanal). The path, bordered by an elm grove, runs parallel to the Rivera de Benalija stream (although it is practically dry) and a short path takes us to the Cueva, a widening of the stream that descends a hillside with a small lake inside a cave.
Further on, the path forks; continuing along the path on the right, I then approach the stream of El Pueblo, before returning to the path that then links up with the one that goes off to the left and leads to the A-432. I continue to the right along this road for about 700 metres, and then along a path on the left (Camino Siete Caminos), which leads to the hermitage of the Virgen de las Angustias, patron saint of Alanís. It was erected to commemorate a victory over the “Moors” in the nearby valley of Matamoros. The first two sections date from the 15th century and the third, and the main chapel, from the 18th century. The main altarpiece, in Gothic style, has a sculptural group of the Pietà, with Saint John and the Magdalene, from the 16th century, which was destroyed, as was the original image of the Virgin of the Anguish, also Gothic, at the beginning of the Civil War.
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