Los Genoveses beach. One kilometer of history.

Los Genoveses beach.

A detail you should know is that there are no chiringuitos, nor street vendors offering Louis Vuitton for 20 euros. Don’t come here. You won’t find all-inclusive resorts or the umbrella-sunbed combo. You will find one kilometer long and about fifty meters wide, several kilometers away from the the main road and quite a few minutes from Almería city and airport. Los Genoveses is one of those pristine, protected beaches—one of the few left along nearly eight thousand kilometers of Spanish coastline. Declared a Natural Park, empty in winter and bustling in summer, its timeline stretches far back and is filled with significant events.

What was going on in the world?

• 14 m.a.
  Beginning of submarine volcanic activity, with the current coastline below sea level.
• 1012.
  Creation of the Almeria Taifa after the disintegration of the Caliphate of Córdoba.
• 1147.
  Conquest of the Taifa by Christian armies.
• 1571.
  October 7: Battle of Lepanto (Greece).
• 1987.
  Declaration of the Cabo de Gata Maritime-Terrestrial Natural Park, December.

One kilometer of history.

I stepped onto the sand of Los Genoveses on my first visit, as always in these cases, following advice —very good one—by someone who spends four months of the year wintering in La Isleta del Moro. The first time you experience something, especially a landscape, it is admirable but lacking a part. On the following occasions, you add details, imagine events, and give names to the views.

The beach, located between Cerro del Ave María to the north and the Morrón de Los Genoveses to the south, forms one of those perfect bays described in pirate tales. It is difficult to choose the most beautiful bay within the Cabo de Gata Natural Park. Some texts I have read mention it as the very one.
The nearest town is San José, about a 30-minute walk away, from where I reach the Collado del Cortijo, topped by the ruins of the Cortijo del Collado and its windmill Recommendations and impatience speed up the descent towards the sea along a winding path between Cerro Ave María and El Campillo plain. The plain is reddish, with a fertile appearance and edges lined with agave plants, prickly pears cacti, and a few pine trees.

At a certain point during the descent, I begin to catch sight of the shimmering sea and the sweeping curved relief of the coastline. I reach the sand passing by the first bunker. Later comes the second one, the southern one. North bunker and south bunker both are protected under a 1985 Spanish heritage protection law. They join other military structures scattered along this coast for deterrent purposes —against potential attacks. These particular ones were built during the Spanish Civil War and, like the rest, the only aggression they endure is abandonment, neglect, and the action of the sea. All of them are highly corrosive forces.

I step onto the sandy carpet. To the right, small sand dunes pushed by the wind. Yes, sure, they have a technical name: the backshore. To the left, a calm sea with gentle waves, also with its technical name, the shoreface or littoral deposit, highly dynamic and, I believe, with excellent conditions for underwater activities.

It was not diving that attracted those who would give the beach its name. In the 12th century, Al-Andalus had been reduced to the taifas of Granada, Málaga, and Almería (Al-Mariyya). Geographical borders did not always coincide with political and cultural ones. These were times of extraordinary permeability among Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Muladís.

But the Reconquista tightened Christian coffers and expanded their kingdoms. In 1147, the king of Castile and León, with the help of his Italian alliances, launched the conquest of Almería. A fleet of 200 Genoese and Pisan ships anchored in the bay to take part in the fight.

I have reached the south bunker, the center of the beach’s arc. From here I imagine the Italian galleys and carracks landing their supplies, filling the sands with soldiers, military tents, and colorful banners. The dunes became a base of operations for a couple of months until the capture of Al-Mariyya.

I am not going into the details of that campaign, but at this point you need to know that the conquest of the taifa was short-lived and soon returned to Muslim hands. In any case —and this part was definitive— the place kept the name of those Italian mercenaries.

In the final third of the quiet bay, the beach is marked by a rocky outcrop. A whitish promontory cuts across the line of sand. This is the fossil dune of Los Genoveses—a sedimentary deposit formed underwater millions of years ago and brought to the surface during the uplift of the Betic Mountains, caused by the collision between the European and African tectonic plates.

More ships arrived centuries later, in the 16th century, at this gentle bay. It became the beginning of a major naval war operation—a logistical, coordination, and transport effort that likely prevented a cultural shift in Western Europe. Around 20,000 participants, including sailors, soldiers, and rowers, forming the core of the Holy League’s Army, anchored in 1571 on the sands of Los Genoveses. Aboard 80 galleys and galleons, they turned the bay into the gathering point for the victorious Battle of Lepanto. From the highest point of the fossil dune, the clamor of hundreds of sails can still be heard. If you listen closely, you can make out the voices of the officers issuing orders and counter-orders to the rowers, who made up the bulk of the galley crews.

Despite efforts to control the Mediterranean and its coasts, this section of coastline remained sparsely populated—or even deserted—due to piracy. Medieval Arabic texts refer to Cabo de Gata as Taraf al-Qabita or al-Qabta, the latter name closely resembling the current one. Turkish and “Barbary” pirates—as the Maghrebis were known—landed daily, with complete impunity, in the coves of Cabo de Gata. There they would remain hidden for weeks, and from where they raided ships or penetrated inland carrying out their attacks. But that is another story.

Volcanic complex Natural Park Cabo de Gata.

At first glance—as I have already noted—we appreciate the perfect arc that embodies the quintessence of a Mediterranean bay. Each sector of the Natural Park is itself, a different landscape, from the previous one and hinting at details of the next, which enriches the walk along the entire coast. Los Genoveses offers its uniqueness from start to finish.

I reach the end of the kilometer-long beach beneath the Morrón de los Genoveses. It is a hill about 70 meters high, dark in color and in strong contrast to the turquoise waters. I decide to climb it. The effort is short, and the views do not disappoint. Behind me lies Cala de los Amarillos, and the next stretch of coastline beneath Cerro del Barronal.

I continue until I reach the geodetic vertex that crowns the Morrón and overlooks the entire picture. Excellent views stretch across all the landscape I have walked. In the center, the red colour of El Campillo, the bay, and Cerro del Ave María. To the north, the coastal sector of Los Frailes.

I make use of geological maps and compare some pebbles I have collected on Cerro del Ave María with those I am standing on now. The history of the terrain traces its origin to volcanic episodes that occurred about 14 million years ago in submerged environments, later exhumed and subjected to erosion, leaving domes and vertical cliffs in this sector of Los Genoveses. Here there are more technical terms: pyroxene andesites and dacites, all igneous rocks, magmas flowing under different conditions of emergence and cooling.

These magmas erupted from subduction zones where the African plate slid beneath the European plate, causing the release of lava, pyroclastic debris, and volcanic ash. The violent episodes ultimately shaped the submerged relief of Alborán. The nearly 70 kilometers of coastline within the Natural Park—irregular and labyrinthine, with its hidden coves, cliffs, and sandy beaches—are a continuation of a landscape that emerged from the sea amid volcanic convulsions, forming part of an underwater region extending to North Africa, where it surfaces again.

Like a movie.

The scene looks like a movie —it could be a paragraph straight out of a movie. But beware, cinema has also landed on these beaches, which have been used as film sets since the 1960s. A quick look through the bibliography reveals well-known titles such as The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Exodus (2014), The Wind and the Lion (1975), Lawrence of Arabia (1962), and the ever-famous Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989). Truly cinematic.

Flâneur memories.

Before descending, I take a look at the scenic backdrop inland—toward the pure desert and then toward the sea and Africa, from where small boats set out to reach this coast. They too are part of the landscape, a landscape of water barrels, of abandoned and saturated clothes of cold and salt-laden breeze, replaced by dry ones; of plastic bags for cell phones, the only connection between despair and hope.

We arrive at 1987. Cabo de Gata, Europe’s “arid pole,” is declared a Natural Park and thus a protected area. A desert that bears memory of adaptation, of the history of the land and its people, deserving of further recognitions such as Biosphere Reserve and Geopark.

Los Genoveses Beach is part of this journey—a kilometer of history.

Bibliography.

• Parque Natural de Cabo de Gata y su entorno. Agustin García.
• Almería: hecha a mano. Juan García Latorre / Jesús García La Torre. 
• Mapa Geológico del Geoparque Cabo de Gata-Nijar. Almería. Junta de Andalucía.
• Geolodía 12. Cabo de Gata: Un mar de Volcanes.
• Lepanto. La mar roja de sangre. Àlex Claramunt Soto.
• La Conquista de Almeria / Comedia C2. Antonio Serrano Agullo 
• Almería, Tierra de Frontera. M.A. Desamparados Martinez San Pedro.

Essential Facts.