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In the town of Calders, in Moianès, we find the Cova called del Cargolaire, which was inhabited by a popular character known as Miquel Muro, a man from Terres de l’Ebre who was built here around the 1940s his shack. He is a legend of the place and what he did for the people of the town.
As we see in the Photos of the Readers of La Vanguardia, it is a balma, which is located in the area known as the “roques dels Gitanos”. It still preserves some elements of some old closures with walls made of stone and bricks.
The cave was inhabited by Miquel Muro, known as the Cargolaire (the Snail Man), who turned it into a carved cavity of which few remains remain today.
As Miquel, who came from a town in the north of Castellón, settled in this cave of “roques dels Gitanos” when he arrived, some residents of the area called him Miquelet de les Roques.
A house was built inside with very diverse materials that he was finding (stones, bricks, reeds, old iron…). And an orchard was made, which was irrigated with water collected from the Torrent spring.
He worked for a while breaking stones on the Monistrol highway, but basically he dedicated himself to looking for snails that later came to the nearby markets. He lived some twenty years in the cave, until his death.
