The Guadalhorce river, after collecting the Antequeran region's water and crossing the Desfiladero de los Gaitanes range, matures and forms its own valley, the Guadalhorce, which is the most important one in Málaga. This valley is both a pathway and fertile corridor for gardens and people and an amphitheatre to the sierras which hold its waters, its shelter and its landscape. The gardens are speckled with work-houses and farm-houses, crossed by roads, pathways, railways and canals. They cover the bottom of the valley and climb in plots over the hillocks. To the east of Coin, the towns approach the mountains and connect the valley with the highland. In Monda and Guaro the garden plots rise up to the edge of the towns, between olive groves and unirrigated land which marks the border between fertile plains and the sierra. Sierra Alpujata in Monda is covered with cork trees. It enters Tolox via Moratán and Gaimón, at the foot of the Sierra Canucha, and mixes with pine trees and chestnuts in the Cerro del Hinojar. Then, the landscape rises among old pines by the tremendous ravines of the Horcajos up to the summit of the highland to reach the shade and plains where fir trees and ancient gall oaks roam. And this, dear friend, is also the Guadalhorce Valley.