Villanueva de Algaidas-Cuevas de San Marcos

Dear friends,
I don't understand how star ratings for hotels work, and I don't understand how they relate to the cost of a room. I thought it was to do with how firmly the shower head is attached to the wall, but it seems there's no correlation there either. The place I stayed in last night was 50€, the place before that 40€ and the one before that 20€. The 20€ place had one star, the 50€ none. The pension I'm in tonight is 10€.
I think John Wyndham must have spent some time in these parts before he wrote 'The Day of the Triffids'. Both olive trees and triffids produce oil, they both cover the whole countryside in row upon endless row, they both communicate with one another by rustling, they both shoot out a deadly sting as you pass by... It's obvious.
I spent the morning plunging through olive groves, supposedly following a river, but in reality climbing in and out of eight foot deep stream beds and trampling down freshly ploughed soil. Every so often a post for the GR7 was placed to indicate the (notional) path. I had lunch (beer and sandwiches) in Cuevas Bajas and bought some ibuprofen tablets from the chemists. Every tiny hamlet in Spain has at least two or three pharmacies.
I rang ahead to a pension in Cuevas de San Marcos, mindful of last Monday when the hotel was closed for the staff's day off. It turned out when I got here that the pension is no longer operating, but the lady takes in people if they turn up. Just as well for me because there's nowhere else to stay here.
I took a picture of the olive trees. They stretch half way to America.
A wayfarer in Spain