When Juan Goytisolo finally arrived in Rodalquilar, in Sanlucar's truck, he didn't think much of it. Besides the sea of mud made by the toxic waste from the mine that surrounded the village, his description of Rodalquilar was not flattering: "It's a small, asymmetrical town that at first sight seems to have no centre of gravity. The streets are unpaved and the truck jolts and bumps along. The houses are ugly and squat." (All quotations taken from Peter Bush's translation of Goytisolo's text).

Here is an old photo of Rodalquilar showing the mine in operation, a truck in the foreground and Rodalquilar in the background.  The photo is part of a project, Rodalquilarte, transforming the village into a vast art installation (more of that another time!).  At the back of the photo, in the far right, you can see the rows of miner's houses - all lived-in then, of course:

When S and I first visited Rodalquilar some years ago, it struck us, too, as having no centre - it wasn't until our third visit that we discovered the main street and central square. However, Rodalquilar today is a pretty place. The old houses along the main street which are just one storey high, built along the common traditional pattern of the Cabo, are well kept up with pots of flowering plants and cacti, brightly painted shutters and doors. The shops and bars are all scattered along this main street.
A lot of new houses have been built recently, spreading out from the centre of the town, some of them more attractive than others.  One block of these new houses was awarded a prize for architecture.  S and I amuse ourselves trying to guess which it was.

 For me, the chief glory of Rodalquilar today is the botanic gardens, El Abardinal, which has been planted on land where once the miners had their vegetable gardens and kept pigs and chickens. Since the waste from the mine, highly toxic, first with mercury, then with arsenic, was dumped not that far from the area, I'm not sure how healthy the vegetables, eggs and meat would have been!
Here are a couple of photos of the ruins of the pig sties, in the first you can still see a trough for animal feed or water:

Now a couple of photos of the botanic gardens seen from the Hill of the Cross above it:

The first photo shows the new houses of Rodalquilar in the distance beyond the gardens, in the second photo you can see the church in the background behind the building that houses the offices and exhibition centre of the botanic gardens. This building was originally the barracks of the Civil Guard.
Juan did not think much of either building: "The church, school, and barracks-cum-house of the Civil Guard are new, jerry-built, and non-descript."
I don't agree with him, finding both buildings attractive, although the barracks have been renovated and restored in a way that makes them far more beautiful than they were when first built in 1935, when the Civil Guard were moved there in strength to guard the mine and keep order among the growing population of workers.
I like the church; the back section of it reminds me of Van Gogh's painting of the church at Auvers. However, it certainly isn't well-built and tiles from the roof seem to regularly fall off onto the pavement below which is quite alarming - S and I always cross the road when we pass it, to avoid being hit on the head.

The back view of the church:

Here is the church from the front, at the end of a road lined with some of the abandoned miners' houses (presumably the church was built in order to help keep the miners pious and well-behaved!):