Bandoleros in the mountains – El Bizco de El Borge and the bandits on the royal roads

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Who were the bandoleros?

The word comes from bandola, the strap over the shoulder from which the gun hung. A bandolero was an armed man who lived by robbery in the mountains, often in a gang, a partida. According to Spanish Wikipedia, Andalusia was one of five regions in Spain where bandits were a constant problem, and the peak came in the 19th century after the war against Napoleon (1808–1814), under King Ferdinand VII.

The causes were the same time after time: poverty, large estates and landless day labourers, civil wars and political unrest, and a state that could not keep order in the countryside. The mountains offered hiding places, and many farmers helped the bandits with food and warnings – out of fear, for payment or because they were family. The line between banditry and smuggling was blurred (read more in The smugglers on the coast).

The phenomenon is older than the 19th century. In the 16th century the Moorish monfíes lived in the mountains of the Kingdom of Granada. According to the historian Francisco Andújar Castillo (Universidad de Sevilla), they kept mainly to the main roads – "above all the one that linked Motril with the city of Granada" – and in 1507 they attacked the town council in Motril. To the Muslims they were not criminals but resistance fighters.

The romance – and the reality

Foreign travellers in the 19th century loved the bandits. The Englishmen Richard Ford and George Borrow, the Frenchmen Prosper Mérimée and Théophile Gautier and the artist Gustave Doré wrote about and drew them as proud, free men in short jackets with gun and knife. About the most famous of them, José María "El Tempranillo" (born c. 1800–1805 near Lucena, died 1833), Mérimée is credited with the line: "In Spain the king reigns, but in the Sierra Morena El Tempranillo reigns." In August 1832 he and his men were pardoned by the king in return for hunting other bandits. A year later he was killed in an ambush in Alameda in the province of Málaga.

The myth of the noble robber who took from the rich and gave to the poor was attached above all to Diego Corrientes from Utrera (1757–1781), who stole horses from the large estates. He was hanged in Seville on 30 March 1781, and his body was cut into pieces and sent round the provinces where he had robbed. Only 67 years later, in 1848, did he become the hero of the play "Diego Corrientes, or the generous bandit".

The reality was less charming. The gangs' business was kidnapping for ransom, threatening letters to landowners and robbery on the roads – and those who informed could be killed. That was true of our area too, as the story of El Bizco below shows.

Hold-ups on the royal roads

Before the railway, trade between the coast and Granada went along narrow mule tracks and a few roads passable by cart. The most important in the Axarquía was the royal road (camino real) between Málaga and Granada over Alfarnate. The old inn Venta de Alfarnate still stands by the road. According to andalucia.com, the oldest written source for the inn is a deed from 1691, and a tile panel outside tells how an armed gang of 12 men robbed the mail coach from Málaga here on 21 April 1850. In March 1824 the well-known Madrid bandit Luis Candelas spent the night at the inn under guard on his way to prison in Málaga.

To the east, the road from Motril to Granada through the Lecrín valley was the main link. According to the Revista de Obras Públicas, work on a new road passable by carriage began in April 1839 at Suspiro del Moro south of Granada. According to the local historian Manuel Domínguez García, the last known bandit from Motril was José Terrón, who in 1871 took part in an attack on a merchant family in the town, escaped from prison in 1873, led a gang involved in kidnappings and threatening letters, was caught by the Guardia Civil in 1874 and sentenced to death – and escaped once again from the prison in Granada in September 1875.

El Bizco de El Borge

Luis Muñoz García was born in El Borge on 2 September 1837, the only child of poor farm labourers. He was cross-eyed from birth, and so he was called El Bizco, "the cross-eyed one". According to Spanish Wikipedia he was an unusually good shot with both rifle and pistol.

Together with Manuel Melgares (born near Torrox, later living in Algarrobo) and Frasco Antonio from Vélez-Málaga he formed the gang that terrorised the whole of the Axarquía in the 1870s and 1880s. Others joined later. According to a local history article (Legajos Sueltos, 2025), on 17 April 1877 the gang kidnapped a young landowner from Zahara de la Sierra and demanded a ransom of 10,000 duros. At a court martial in January 1879, El Bizco and Melgares were sentenced to death – without having been caught. The gang lived off threatening letters to landowners, and in 1885 it killed two guardias civiles in a clash near Vélez-Málaga.

Between 1886 and 1889 the gang broke up. Frasco Antonio was shot by the Guardia Civil while collecting money from a threatening letter. The sources disagree on whether Melgares died in a fight within the gang or of fever. El Bizco died on 21 May 1889 at Cortijo Grande near Lucena in the province of Córdoba – according to Spanish Wikipedia "apparently poisoned, but finally shot by the Guardia Civil".

Hero or murderer?

In El Borge he was remembered as a bandolero generoso, a generous bandit who helped his fellow villagers. In the book Hechos gloriosos de la Guardia Civil, the Guardia Civil colonel José Osuna Pineda called him both brave and ruthless. According to Spanish Wikipedia, he tells of a sergeant who was stabbed from behind in a café in broad daylight, and a guardia who was shot from a rock above the road. Both pictures of El Bizco may be true in their own way.

According to legend, the two holes in the weathervane on the church in El Borge were made by El Bizco's rifle. No one can prove it. Another legend says he often rode to the Venta de Alfarnate to meet a married woman from Alfarnate.

The Guardia Civil – founded to make the roads safe

On 28 March 1844 the state set up, by royal decree, a new police force on foot and on horseback: the Guardia Civil. On 13 May the same year it was reorganised by the Duke of Ahumada, Francisco Javier Girón y Ezpeleta, the force's first director general. Its task was order and security in the countryside – which in practice meant the roads, the fields and the remote areas where the bandits lived. Ahumada's rulebook of 1845 gave the force its motto "El honor es mi divisa" – honour is my emblem.

The methods were harsh. In the 1870s the civil governor of Córdoba, Julián Zugasti, gained a reputation for crushing the gangs, and Spanish Wikipedia mentions that the Guardia Civil used the ley de fugas – prisoners who were "shot while trying to escape". The final end of the bandits came with the telegraph, the railway and better roads around 1900. The man known as "the last bandolero", Pasos Largos from the Serranía de Ronda, died on 18 March 1934.

Timeline

What you can see today

Galería del Bandolero in El Borge

The private Museo del Bandolero in Ronda opened in 1995 and for 25 years was the town's well-known bandit museum. In September 2020 the municipality of El Borge bought the entire collection, and in February 2023 it opened as the Galería del Bandolero in a converted building on the way out of El Borge towards Cútar. According to the museum there are around 1,400 items: weapons, clothing, documents, newspapers, engravings and paintings about the bandits, the Guardia Civil and the Romantic travellers – and costumes from the TV series Curro Jiménez.

Open Wednesday–Sunday 10–14, closed Monday and Tuesday. Price 5 € (≈ 37.30 kr.), 3 € (≈ 22.38 kr.) for pensioners, students and young people, free under 6, guided tour 15 € (≈ 112 kr.) (all according to museobandolero.com, as of October 2026). Other sources mention afternoon opening and 3 € (≈ 22.38 kr.) admission – check the museum's Google page or call 678 751 653. You do not need to book. The museum has a separate entrance for groups and people with reduced mobility.

The village of El Borge

El Borge has just under 1,000 inhabitants and lies about 250 metres above sea level in the heart of the Axarquía's raisin country. The area is known for its muscatel raisins, and the Día de la Pasa, raisin day, is held in September – on the third Sunday in September according to several sources (Spanish Wikipedia says 16 September). Walk up to the church of Nuestra Señora del Rosario with its octagonal tower and look for the weathervane. Along the streets hang tile pictures about the village's history and customs.

El Bizco's birthplace is now the restaurant and hotel Posada del Bandolero at Calle la Peseta 1. According to El Español, the house later became an oil mill; the chimney, the well and the millstones have been preserved. The restaurant was awarded a "Solete" in the Guía Repsol in 2024 and at that time was only open Thursday–Sunday.

Venta de Alfarnate

The inn stands on the old Málaga–Granada royal road, by the A-4152 a couple of kilometres from the village of Alfarnate, almost 900 metres above sea level. Here you can eat and see a small room with mementoes of the bandits – plus the tiles about the robbery in 1850. The house speciality is huevos a lo bestia. According to andalucia.com it is open Tuesday–Sunday 11–19 (OpenStreetMap says 10–18), telephone 952 759 388. It is hard to tell history from innkeepers' tales: that El Tempranillo ate here is a legend.

Ronda – a full-day trip

The Serranía de Ronda was the bandits' heartland, and El Tempranillo and Pasos Largos lived here. Ronda is about 187 km from Playa Tropical – just under 3 hours' drive each way, so it is a full-day trip. Remember that the bandit museum is no longer in Ronda. If you want to see the collection, drive to El Borge.

How to get there

By car to El Borge: Take the A-7 towards Málaga for about 42 km to Vélez-Málaga, take the A-356 a short way north, and turn off onto the small mountain roads MA-3116 and MA-3112 via Almáchar to El Borge. In total about 66 km and 1 hour 10 minutes. The last 12 km are narrow and winding – drive carefully (see speed checks and car hire).

Parking: Do not drive in through the Arco de la Pasa, the arch at the entrance. Carry on along the road and turn into Calle Guillermo Pérez, where according to a travel blog (August 2026) there is free parking. From the car park it is about 900 metres round past the church and the birthplace to the museum.

The full-day trip El Borge – Venta de Alfarnate – Zafarraya pass – home via the A-402 and A-7 is about 210 km and a good 4 hours of pure driving in the mountains. Start early.

The buttons below the map open the routes from Playa Tropical directly in Google Maps. We have not looked into bus connections – the trip is clearly easiest by car.

Maps and routes

Red star = Playa Tropical. Click on a point for the name and distance. Map data © OpenStreetMap.

Good advice

• Come Wednesday–Sunday morning. The museum closes at 14 and is closed on Monday and Tuesday.
• Combine it with lunch. Posada del Bandolero in El Bizco's birthplace or Cafe Bar Paco on the square. The Posada was only open Thursday–Sunday when El Español wrote about it in 2024.
• Good shoes. El Borge's streets are steep and have steps. The museum has an entrance for people with reduced mobility.
• Fill up and take water. The mountain roads are narrow, and petrol stations are few and far between.
• Avoid the heat. In summer it is scorching inland. Spring and autumn are best.
• Read more. The guerrillas in the Sierra de Almijara continues the story of men in the mountains and the Guardia Civil in the 1940s, and The Barbary pirates and the watchtowers tells of the threat from the sea.

Opening times and prices change. Check the museum's and the restaurants' own websites before you drive 66 km up into the mountains.

Krone amounts are converted at 1 € ≈ 7.46 kr. and rounded.