Doña Campiña – El Palacete – Cuevas de Almanzora

If something has distinguished Cuevas del Almanzora since memory has recollections, it is the agriculture.

A land of abundant sun, mild climate in winter, fertile land and scarce water that its inhabitants have been able to manage with admirable efficiency.

There cannot be a more privileged environment for the cultivation of fruit and vegetables than the one offered by Cuevas del Almanzora. What is not left over is the water, which falls little and when it falls nothing escapes the universal deluge.

One wonders what the gigantic and wide dry and empty riverbeds of the area are really for until they understand the quantity of rains that fall at times and the storm of water accumulated in the nearby mountains that rush towards the sea like a stampede of bison.

The Cuevas del Almanzora farmers’ cooperative set up its own reservoir to be able to offer the guarantee of water to all those crops that feed the markets in the area every morning and many of the supermarkets in the rest of the country.

Doña Campiña wondered what could be done with that gigantic reservoir, which in its day, ended up also being used for Olympic rowing and canoeing events, and currently houses the best water cable-ski park in Europe. And so it is that you come to think that things have many more uses than those attributed to them. However, no matter how many turns of the imagination, the countryside, agriculture and farmhouses are what rule in Cuevas del Almanzora.

When the silver boom took place, back in the 19th century, many Cuevanos, like Doña Campiña’s family, did not allow themselves to be blinded by easy deals and did not neglect their lands.

And since nothing lasts forever, the area’s mining boom went into decline just half a century later. Those who invested their money well were well situated with better farmhouses and large estates, and many others, who too soon had become accustomed to living on income, had a bad time facing a future without a job or benefit, since from a rich child one does not live to unless they can guarantee you your whole life without maturing or working.