More about castles!

The ruins of Torre de los Alumbres stand beside the dirt road leading passed the hamlet of La Ermita, from Rodalquilar village to the beach, Playa el Playazo. This tower is the oldest historic monument on the Cabo de Gata but while the region seems proud of it, they don't seem to make much effort to stop it crumbling away!

Rodalquilar lies in a vast valley, the crater of an extinct volcano formed over 1 million years ago. The rich volcanic rocks have given the area an abundance of minerals, precious metals and semiprecious stones (alum, silver, gold, amathyst, agate, and more) that have all been exploited on and off for centuries by men - in the 2nd century A.D. the Romans had a settlement here, mining silver. Ancient wrecks along the rugged coast of the Cabo de Gata have left amphoras and other Roman goods upon the seabed.

The Valle de Rodalquilar:

After the Moors were expelled from Almeria by Ferdinand and Isabella, deposits of alum were discovered in Rodalquilar. An ambitious politician in their court, Francisco de Vargas, was quick to take advantage and he persuaded the king to give him the monopoly to mine all the alum in the whole of Almeria.

De Vargas had the Torre de los Alumbres built in about 1509, he housed a garrison of soldiers in the tower to protect a fortified settlement he founded, where La Ermita now stands, in order to have the alum mined safely, secure from invaders or pirates.
De Vargas brought in cutting edge technology for his enterprise! He contracted Italian technicians, knowing they were the most advanced in the world at that time, and he invested huge amounts of money, wanting to create an industry which would be the most successful and important throughout Europe. He took over the whole valley of Rodalquilar, but it all proved a waste of time.
After the deaths of Ferdinand and Isabella, a Civil War broke out in 1520 - and, of course, the ambitious Francisco de Vargas wanted to take advantage of the conflict for his own advancement.
So he withdrew the garrison he had housed in the tower, leaving the valley of Rodalquilar unprotected.

Soon North African pirates landed there, they captured the village and enslaved the people. As a result, there was no more mining in the area for over 50 years.
El Playazo, the beautiful bay near Rodalquilar where the pirates would have landed:

 It is comforting to consider how wild and beautiful the landscape here at Rodalquilar is today, in spite of all this mining and industry over the centuries.  It gives me some hope - if only a little - that the damage humanity is doing to the planet in our greed and ruthlessness, may not be as lasting as I fear.