Turtle Lake
The small and attractive Lago de los Tortugas (Turtle Lake - 4.4. hectares) is hidden away in the northern part of Nueva Andalucia. It a lost world with probably more water birds taking refuge in this small enclave than in the whole of the rest of Marbella. Children swim in the lake in the summer and you can enjoy a picnic there. It is actually not a lake but more of a reservoir. You can walk across the 40-metre long and 20-metre high concrete dam,which was built in 1890. In those days it was called the Embalse Nuevo El Ángel (New El Ángel Dam) as it complemented the earlier 1850 Pantano Viejo (Old Dam) and Embalse Alquiero (Alquiero Reservoir), even more hidden away in Nueva Andalucía. The lake gained its name, rather obviously, from the turtles that are now found there.
Other irrigation reservoirs in the area are Pantano Las Medranas, in San Pedro and since 1993 better known for its Cable Ski and now Wakeboarding Centre; La Lechebuilt in 1905 and located in Benahavís municipality just north of the San Pedro motorway toll booths; and the Embalse de Cancelada or Embalse de Arroyo del Taraje (1886), now part of Los Flamingos Golf in Estepona. The interconnecting aqueduct system that united all these was the most innovative in Spain at the time, driven by agrarian reform measures to irrigate the orange groves and sugar cane plantations of La Colonia - the San Pedro farming colony. (see San Pedro History)
