A threshing circle - our threshing circle - poised on top of the ridge and perfectly placed to catch the mountain breezes that would lift and flick away the unwanted chaff. And this era hadn't been used too long ago; despite the small bushes of thyme and lavender (and a pungent herb I couldn't identify) growing between the flat stones, pillows of downy waste nestled against the low wall of earth where the circle backed into the mountain.

We were now about 20 metres or so below the threshing circle and on our right was a crest of rock about the size of a house that jutted out at an angle up into the sky. In front of the hollow left by the rock exploding out of the slope was a long high dry stone wall making a half-natural, half manmade cave. I ran around to the entrance and saw a crude gate of wooden stakes lashed together; it was a stock pen really, open topped and bleak for the animals but better than spending a wild winter night unprotected on a mountain.

. . . the curious depression on the top face of the overhang, perfectly round and deep like a cup-holder . . . we were standing on a similar rock overlooking Bérchules and saw the phenomenon in the process of being formed - inside the beginnings of a depression, a small stone was being spun on the spot by a tiny whirlwind. An organic physics lesson in friction.

Our section of the Río Mecina is 8ft across at its widest point but shallow, studded with large rocks and strung with a series of pools and little cataracts like a Welsh brook. Overhung by thickets of willow on our side and the barren cliff of the valley wall on the other, the river is easy to walk alongside for a distance of about 120 feet but then it becomes entangled upstream in overgrown alder and brambles, and downstream by a large willow and a series of huge overlapping rocks.

The sweat drips down my back as I grab one more handful of the long grass and swipe with the oath. The serrated edges have dulled with lack of use and the action is more tearing than scything. It is hard work.

Another surprise: the cherry trees are in blossom. It is a staggering sight, the white against the green echoing the fluffs of cloud hanging in the valley beyond.

All extracts from White Mules and Mountains: Snapshots of Alpujarran Life. © Ruth Wade 2004