El Tempranillo – Andalusia with a difference

Normally it is not very wise to want to follow in the footsteps of famous criminals. However, sometimes it is worth it – for example in the mountainous hinterland of Malaga. Not far from the beaches of the Costa del Sol of Spain drove here once famous highwayman, the Bandoleros, their mischief. A drive through the Andalusian “mountain bandits” near Ronda leads visitors through deep ravines, oak forests, endless olive groves – and some of the most beautiful white villages of southern Spain.

Today it is mainly the tight curves of mountain passes, and the flocks of sheep on the road, make your heart beat faster of the traveler. Previously, however, was a journey through the hinterland of Málaga a dangerous adventure. One should always have plenty of cash as a precaution with him to appease the robber, the U.S. travel writer Richard Ford told its readers in the middle of the 19th Century. He knew how dangerous the Bandoleros were wicked. On the other hand, he was fascinated by how many writers and adventurers of his time the excitement of the robbers who were hiding in the inaccessible mountains near Ronda.


Countless stories and legends glorified the memory of the Bandoleros, and rose to national hero after whom today courses, hotels, restaurants and streets are named in the villages. The magistrates, merchants and wealthy travelers have seen in the Bandoleros murderers and highwaymen. For the impoverished population of Andalusia were some of the Bandoleros but true freedom fighters, rebels against the social differences and benefactor, who robbed the rich to share their loot with the poor.

Robin Hood was one of those Spanish President José María Hinojosa, alias “El Tempranillo”. “He certainly was one of the most famous of all time and Bandoleros had class. He will always have the women removed their rings with a kiss on the hand and the compliment, such a beautiful hand needed “no jewelry, said Jesús González Almazán, director of the Bandolero Museum in Ronda. With weapons, historical paintings, coins, clothing and personal belongings of the bandits, the museum’s life as a cruel Bandoleros “Barbaran” or the dreaded “El Bizco» dar.

The king of the hijackers but was El Tempranillo, who said of himself: “. In Spain, the king reigns, but the mountains I rule” in the villages around Ronda his word was law. Who pulls the tracks of “El Tempranillo” comes through the mountains, through white villages such as Casares, Gaucin Setenil or whose houses built into the cliffs look like small dens.

Especially active was “El Tempranillo” on the mountain roads of today Grazalema National Park, where the steep slopes and narrow rocky passes the attacks easier. Today more than chasing a wild mountain goat travelers a fright. The rugged landscape is constantly whitewashed villages and valleys interrupted by, for example, Grazalema, one of the most beautiful white villages of Andalusia. El Tempranillo lived here many years, if he had not just hide in caves from the police.

Even today, villagers worship her, “Robin Hood”: Every year a festival is held in mid of October, in which all the inhabitants dress up in costumes from the era Bandolero. Theater play on the adventures of “El Tempranillo”. It flows in streams of red wine, and roast goat and lamb legs could also come from a feast in the village of Asterix.

Further south lies the nature park Alcornocales, Europe’s largest cork oak conservation park where wild boars, foxes and deer can be observed. Extends east of the Sierra de las Nieves, Juan Mingolla Gallardo, where once, also known as “Pasos Largos”, raged as poaching and banditry. He is considered one of the last great Bandoleros and came in 1934 in a shootout with police died. Tourists keep coming back to walking past scenes of his raids. Like other Bandoleros also hid “Pasos Largos” long in the caves and woods of the Guardia Civil.

The former capital of the Bandoleros is Ronda, which lies above the Tajo Gorge White village, whose silhouette is already fascinated by Ernest Hemingway, Orson Welles and Rainer Maria Rilke. A 200 meter deep ravine divides the “city of thieves” in two halves. In the bullring – the oldest in the world where pop queen Madonna turned her 1994 video for “Take A Bow” – also once fought, “El Tragabuches”. The famous matador killed one day before his first wife and her lover and eventually had to flee from police into the mountains, where he led a life Bandolero.