A photo from almost 70 years ago reunites the Mateos family in the cave houses of El Palancar

The interpretive route through El Palancar, in Los Alcornocales, organised by the tourism department of Los Barrios as part of its autumn-winter programme, was guided by the Mateos family, who lived in the cave houses of this spot until the 1960s. The most moving moment came when an old photograph of the four eldest siblings, those who lived there, was recreated. This time those posing were Davinia, daughter of Andrés, the eldest, now deceased; Pepe, the second, and Antonia, the third, who was born in El Palancar. The fourth sister could not attend. The family had seven children. Pepe, Antonia, Davinia, Jessica, Pepe's daughter, and other relatives told how they lived off goats and sheep, raised pigs and farmed small plots; how they made their cheeses and preserved food with salt and lard, without a refrigerator, and how they made use of water for drinking, watering and washing. They recalled trades such as cork harvesting and charcoal burning, which they saw the elders do, and Fernando Mariscal, a resin collector and later a ditero, who travelled the countryside selling what the families could not obtain. And they told how the teacher went once a week to a neighbouring house, about two kilometres away, where the two eldest siblings walked to receive the few lessons they were able to have.