Era de antiguo. De antiguo cuando esta franja de arena móvil, dúctil, caprichosa abarcaba el horizonte desde Punta Ladrones en Cabopino hasta San Pedro Alcántara. Silenciosa en apariencia, ser vivo, natural, que lamía el borde del mar y se retrepaba hacia la montaña. Cincelada por las querencias del viento, modelada por efecto de la suave erosión del empuje mediterráneo, formada and amended return to form in the sea breezes. Junipers engulfed by sand reborn here and there pine trees that fell 
its branches to rub on their hands to the ground. It was a long way. When the Barbary pirates have decimated the Mediterranean coast and the people were behind the parapet of the mountains. As a vestige of the raids and robberies, the Tower of Thieves, the highest in the Malaga coastline, stunning. More come later demanded the tourist tide other pleasures, other needs, and that enormous dune, long and wide, was declining to fill the current field 192,715 meters 
square. Thieves and Punta Río Real, those are your current references, milestones, including moves, silky and alive. Protected Natural Area is declared by the Regional Government as Natural Monument since September 2003. Still retains some aspect wild, untamed. Walk. Feet sinking in this piece essentially Mediterranean, the warm sand, warm sun by the first, the soundtrack composed by the beating of the waves, the cry of a bird, the awakening of the buzzer. We walked and we enter the labyrinth of the Dunas de Artola. Torre Ladrones 
Here begins our walk, shaded proposed tower to the west. Shadow seems to indicate the way forward, the direction to take. You do not have Artola Dunes follow a fixed itinerary. A maze of paths open between the bush more or less strong run throughout its route. Roads open to change from one summer to another, from one spring to another and to discover or uncover depending on the wind. Some of these paths cross the dune complex from east to west and 
other from north to south, from the pine trees that hide the main earthen road until reaching the sea. It is not unusual during the summer to contemplate the wobbles of the tourists as they step on this beach full of umbrellas and ancient hats and beach balls and ice, like rare birds in a paradise that does not seem to locate them. We looked up, Torre Ladrones, is awesome. 15 meters are watching. It is the highest in the Malaga coast and part 
a maritime defense complex designed by Ferdinand and Isabella after the conquest of the Kingdom of Granada in order to protect the shore of the issues of the pirates, especially Turkish navy and the Barbary piracy. The name of the tower corresponds to ladronera term drift, a defensive resource consisting of the existence of a superior or a cantilever brocket barricaded by which one could observe and harass the attackers. It is estimated Torre Ladrones was built in 1497. The beacon tower name comes from the Arabic Almanara can be translated as a beacon, because the system of signals used for communication towers together and that was the ignition of fires on top of them. Las Dunas
We enter. A tricolor flag on the horizon is painted in the colors of water, sea and dune vegetation. Green, blue and steel gray. The soundtrack of waves gently breaking on the sand, the chirping of birds, reptiles meandering of the bushes to keep pace slow dune appears to have its own life. The perfume parched coastline, where the heat sifting sand off the salt from the sea. We have prepared before the trip a natural binder and floral species 
outstanding fauna of this environment. We soon Silene littorea distinguish splashing with purple here and there in smaller or larger groups, in some individuals on the green as a castaway. On the ground, fragmented, broken, mismatched, the remains of shells, pearly, large and small travel the winding road until it became part of the beach, a treasure of childhoods that children have collected fruition. Colorful plants are combinations where the lilies burst beach white contrast. As we move away from the sea and our steps astray by 
trails farther, the vegetation becomes stronger and stronger, protected by the sand bar. This is where the mastic trees and pines embrace and form a dense network that protects plants from the ravages of the sea wind. Pine trees, low, skimming the ground 
branches, protecting the trunk with its package of shifting sands. Rooted in the ground, extending as nerves in the volatile area, and come to the surface here and there a solitary branch and wiry, twisted. Hide again. Pines are authentic vegetable caves accessed by sealed walkways. Hidden inside sanctuaries where the dune vegetation breathes and rests. Closed and hovels that leverage some birds to nest 
. The beaten path, away from vegetation, leading directly into the sea, beaches, flowing over the Mediterranean as looking for an escape route to the blue. And is that the dune environment is dense and intense, heavy gait, lush fragrance and sturdy, old perfumes. Thus, their color press a pure natural camouflage and including the light dab of the sea. Twisted junipers also look, you see drawn, shaped, sculpted by 
the vagaries of the wind. And he is protected by adopting impossible shapes, with their cups dragging on the ground. This is a diverse and constantly changing landscape. Join forces as one pines, mastic, the Sabine to the point of not knowing where to start 
about and where the other ends. Artola Dunes play to be a kaleidoscope of colors and contrasts. We look to the ground and discovered traces 
birds, elusive. We listen, its chirping, its song, its cry, but I do not see them that raising grams flight, by swings in the air. We see how their legs are delicate footprints in the sand. Designs seem unnatural, geometric, perfect. Two or three triangular shapes, a thin squiggly line. Herring gulls, blackbirds, hoopoe, owls, kestrels, Kentish Plover ... all dodged the camera lens. We listen to your 
movements, their voices loud, their chants light, their flapping behind a bush, like a ghostly presence that lurks in our apparent stealth. Trails are only verifiable information of their existence. Artola dunes change. They move. Mutate. Transform. Regenerate. Moving. Vegetation cover with green plumes, the yellow body herculean, powerful and fragile sandy and subtle that beats within. The salty sea breeze breaks the surface. Lizards bask in the sun. prowl 
beetles as a black diamond and mobile. The beach grass sways to the rhythm marked by the breeze, his body seems to hold fine, filamentous weight shifting sands, like the wheatgrass junceum, a wheat grass that seems to beach. The perfume of the dunes is so intensely Mediterranean that is part of the essence of this land, next to the skin will Levan bathers terraced visitors in the bars, tourists seeking a different beach ... To facilitate preservation and improvement his visit, the Ministry of Environment is preparing a project that includes the perimeter fence of the landscape and the placement of wooden walkways for the transit of persons and the disappearance of the middle lane which gives access to the dunes or the relocation of the only beach bar that is still within the monument. Farewell 
inhale the fragrance of the pines, the warm sand, flowers. Hear the birds chirping, a dog barking in the background. Perceive the warm rays of sunlight on the skin. We see the blue sea before us, the morning walkers on the shore licking their feet. A gull is cast on the water. We sat down among the bushes, ripple on a somewhat larger and inevitably we punctured the rear Eryngium maritimum, a shrub with sharp thorns. Only this we needed to see. links and tips
Links: We take as reference the website Tourist Board of the Costa del Sol and the website of the Government of Andalusia, Visitor Window . To learn more about the municipality in which it is located, you can visit the link in the blue sky for Marbella.
Photo: shown in this section the complete collection photographs of the post.
Location: This Google map can reference the exact location of this natural area, located between Rio Real and Cabopino urbanization and belongs entirely to the municipality of Marbella.
View Blue Sky Color "Natural de Málaga" in a larger map
