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From Los Belones
Ascent of the La Fuente Hillock
Length - 3 kilometres
Difficulty Easy
Duration The climb takes 45 minutes
Recommendations
Appropriate climbing footwear should be used, either boots or sports shoes with a good grip. Avoid the midday heat.
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Description of the route
From Los Belones, take the road next to Cajamurcia Bank, Avenida de la Fuente, which takes you over the motorway and after driving 1.3 kilometres you come to the village of Las Barracas. At this crossroads you will see a fountain with a tap, the water flowing directly from the La Fuente Hillock (the quality of this water is such that people even come from Cartagena to collect the water in plastic bottles to use in their homes as drinking water), at this crossroads take the left hand fork, which is initially tarmac and then turns into a dirt track. After some hundred metres the road peters out and this is where you have to leave the car. Right at this point, next to the ruins side of the hill surrounded by vegetation. Follow this path for approximately three quarters of an hour, passing a pinewood, so closed-in at times that one believes to be in a much more humid latitude. From the summit the view is difficult to forget.
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Places of interest
From the summit you can take in the marvellous view of the Mar Menor showing all the different geomorphological factors that created this privileged natural salt water lake. To the east one can see the volcanic origin of Cabo de Palos, the islands in the lagoon, and the narrow stretch of sand that eventually formed the large bay through years of accumulating sediment in its shallow waters. The small Islas Hormigas, situated opposite the lighthouse, with their own luminous signal, have such exceptionally beautiful sea beds that they are now protected and have been declared a Marine Reserve. A little further up, La Manga magically surges out of these calm waters like Neptune's city. In the south, the golden sands of Calblanque enhance the blues and greens of the Mediterranean. To the north stretches the lowlands of Cartagena, converted into an oasis of perpetual crops thanks to the canaled water supply. The golf course, with its acres of greens gives this brown area a touch of colour. The woods at the bottom of the hillock were the main livelihood of the local inhabitants until only a few decades ago. In Cobaticas, the village situated on the east side of the hill, there used to live approximately 40 families whose livelihood was the cattle they looked after (there were more than a thousand head sheep), the crops of esparto grass (people cam from the village of Nerpio, in Albacete to harvest the crop) and above all the firewood they collected from these woods with horses and then took in carts to Cartagena, La Union and even Murcia.
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