Nature

Camilo’s picnic area (Berenador de Camilo) was built around 1950, when Camilo Gómez Mateu and Nelo Pardo Pascual, owners of two olive groves in the Sotos ravine, decided to build a picnic area. Their purpose was to be able to enjoy the mountains with their families.

At first, Camilo and Nelo built it out of reeds, but with the passage of time, they realized that the reeds had to be continually rebuilt due to the wind or rain. Thus, in 1952 they made a picnic area and to ensure that it would resist the wind and rain, they decided to do it at its highest point on the mound where the Sotos ravine begins.

And so that the rains were evacuated quickly, they mounted four pillars inclined towards the vertices, which makes the picnic area have a Chinese appearance.

Around the seventies, the two owners widened the road to the picnic area without any bulldozer. Currently, the owner of the picnic area is María Gómez, Camilo Gómez’s niece.

Photography: J. A. Tovar