Source of the Guadalquivir at the Cañada de las Fuentes

What It Is

The Guadalquivir does not rise from a single spring: the water emerges over some fifteen hectares of the Cañada de las Fuentes, at 1,360 m, in the municipality of Quesada, where several mountain streams meet. It is rainwater filtered through limestone ten to fifteen million years old. A pine clearing with a picnic area marks the spot that everyone comes to see. It is a short walk, more symbolic than spectacular: what impresses is the journey there.

Getting There

There are two ways. Independently, by car: the Vadillo-Castril road and the 15th-century Puente de las Herrerías, and from there a forest track to the Cañada de las Fuentes. Cazorla Town Council proposes the Vuelta al Nacimiento, a 58 km circuit designed for mountain bikes that can also be done by car, stopping at the stretches with views. The track is dirt: go slowly and do not attempt it in snow.

The other is with a guide, in the TurisNat 4x4. Its route 4 leaves Cazorla, passes the Cerrada del Utrero and the Puente de las Herrerías, stops beside a laricio pine more than 450 years old, reaches the source and returns by the Puerto Lorente, at almost 1,800 m, and the Chorro cliffs, where griffon vultures are watched through a telescope. It takes 4 h 30 to 5 h and covers about 90 km, 65 of them on tracks. It costs €39 per person in 2026, and €20 for children aged 4 to 12. With the walking extension to the thousand-year-old yews of the Cañada del Travino, about 4.5 km there and back, it is €42.

What You Will See

Deer and Spanish ibex are common in the pine forest, and on the rocks lives Valverde's lizard, which exists only in these sierras. In spring the cañada carries more water.