MonoMonday: Roads

This is the start of the old Silk Road through the mountains from Competa. Until last week, this ancient stone path threaded its way through some of the prettiest of pretty olive groves before becoming a rough – and occasionally hair-raising – mountain trail wending through the high passes of the Sierra Almijara (some 1400 meters up) until eventually reaching the great city of Granada.

Hundreds and hundreds of years ago, the then Moorish state of Granada grew tired of paying premium prices (and middle-men) for silks from the Far East, and so sent spies and envoys to uncover what might be involved in producing silk for themselves. The spies learned that you need silk worms and you need mulberry to feed them with. Turns out, the terrain around the mountain villages of the Axarquia is ideal for growing mulberries and the climate and altitude is ideal for raising silk worms.

For centuries (right up to the 1950s), women in our local villages raised silk worms in the attics of their homes and the resulting silk cocoons were packed into bales and laden onto mules to be transported across the mountains to Granada where they were processed and the silk then dyed and woven. Granada still produces some of the most prized formal silk items in the world to this day, but synthetics and easier international trade has put paid to the economic viability of producing the actual silk itself in this corner of Spain.

Sadly, I’ve hardly needed to make this image mono at all as last week’s fires have robbed the groves of all their colour except grey and charred black. But the colour will return (olives are incredibly resilient) and the ancient pathway still remains and next spring the ground beneath the trees will hopefully be awash with wild flowers just as it is every spring time. The trees themselves might take a bit longer and it may be that they will actually have to be chopped pretty much down in order to allow them to regenerate from the bottom if any life remains.

Many thanks indeed to gingernan for taking up the reins and hosting this week's mono-fest!