San Pedro- an Oasis

by annie

From Purchena, we took a bus to Almeria and then another bus to Las Negras. We had to stock up on food, because the beach of San Pedro is only accessible by boat or long hike. We waited out the siesta until the stores opened back up and were pleased to find.... peanut butter!!!! It's really hard to find in Spain and normally expensive when you do, so I was happy to find it affordable. After packing the food, we heaved our heavy packs or 40 or 50 pounds on to our backs for a hike that would last over an hour. Brian was generous enough to carry the food bag as we made our way up into the hills along the coast for a gorgeous and strenuous hike. We arrived in San Pedro long before the sun went down and found the water spring, a place to camp and the beach of course!

San Pedro is a tucked away cove of quiet and beauty. For such an amazing place, we found surprisingly few people, mostly hippies, all enjoying themselves on the beach. Some people camped right on the beach, but we opted for a small cubbie in the valley where we improvised with dried grass to serve as bedding. We don't have a tent, so we slept under the stars on the hard earth, waking early with the sun.

It's clothing optional at San Pedro, so we exposed our parts that haven't seen the sun in quiet some time. Although we've developed nice tans over the last two months in all the usual places, the underexposed bits burned quickly and quietly. We are hurting for it now (when you burn your butt, it's kind of hard to sit down anywhere). Nevertheless, we soaked up the sun, played and laughed in the wondrous waves and lunched in the cave of an ancient ruined castle. Red rocks dotted the blue, blue water, and at times the undertow tried to keep us in the sea. At one point, Brian kept falling back in the water, unable to get out, until finally the waves pushed him, sideways, to shore.
We stayed two nights and didn't want to leave, but we had to catch an early bus on Saturday back to Almeria. We lost our alarm clock, and felt wary of hiking back to Las Negras before the sun, so we opted to stay the night in Las Negras instead of hiking back early morning. On our return hike, we faced incredible winds, pushing us backwards and sideways, but never forwards. The winds pummeled us the entire way, throwing pieces and pebbles powerfully towards our pinkest parts. At times I had to hunker down so as not to be blown over or off a cliff. The wind also had quite the sense of humor, evidenced by the many times that it blew the drool out of my mouth and onto my face. Back in Las Negras, we were able to score a reasonable deal on an apartment for the night- the first night so far that we have paid for accommodation. It felt luxurious to have a shower, a kitchen, electrical plugs and our own space for the night. We used ¨fairy¨brand dish detergent as shampoo, because that's all there was. The basics two months ago have become the luxuries today. We made a stew of garbanzos, pasta bits, tomato frito, mushrooms, onions and beets and stored the leftovers for the next day, when we travel to a new continent. Tonight, it's a midnight ferry ride and tomorrow we'll be in Morocco!

a week in Purchena

by annie

We took a 2 and a half hour bus ride from Valor to Almeria, where we would finally meet our British hosts Sandy and Phil. It was about 7pm when we arrived and were approached by Sandy, a self-described hippy. She's a lovely lady who loves living in nature and has done quite a bit of traveling herself- taking along two of her children when they were young. She's been living in Spain for 9 years, and she and Phil just in March bought a new property. Her youngest children, Rosie and Marley live there with her, while Phil is still living and running his solar/wind power business out of their old house. Everyone is anxious for him to move to the new place and we were sorry not to get to spend more time with him.

The drive from Almeria took over an hour and we were grateful to have dinner waiting for us, prepared by Bobby and Becca, a sibling helper duo from Scotland. We stayed in a lovely caravan and felt lucky that our legs could stretch out all the way! Phil and Sandy's home is always full of people, whether it's neighbors, family or friends visiting. Bobby and Becca were their first helpers, so they haven't established many systems for helpers, yet we felt extremely welcome and comfortable. Their property spans many hectares and overlooks a serene valley and surrounding mountains. The land is home to many fruit trees, including a fruit I've never heard of. They call it "nipolese" fruits. They are small orange fruits, with a juicy, tangy flavor. The texture is similar to a nectarine with thicker skin. Truly delicious. I saved some of the seeds to plant after travel. They also have almond, olive, fig, pear and apple trees and are starting on their garden. They plan to harvest the wild oats and wheat that grow around. The hope is that they will be able to eat mostly off the land. The water comes from a natural spring, flowing at about 1 litre per minute. It has a distinct taste and must be collected frequently because the water held in big barrels tends to attract mosquito larvae. We used this water for washing up rather than drinking. During our stay, we enjoyed oil from olives that their family picked and pressed at a local co-op (it's very common in Spain for even the tiniest of towns to have olive and grape co-ops where locals can turn their grapes into wine and their olives into oil). Meals were communal affairs, sometimes with 12 or 13 people present. We ate a lot of fresh veggies, olive oil and traditional Spanish bread. I was introduced to my first barley cup- a dissoluble cereal mixture that kind of tastes like coffee. We all drank loads of tea and played cards almost every day. One night, the weather treated us to a fantastic thunder and lightening storm. We could see the lightening all across the valley and surrounding hills. Unfortunately, we woke the next morning to see a fire on the neighbor's property, started by the lightening. The local fire crew promptly extinguished the fire, to the relief of everyone.

We helped on various projects such as painting the caravans, varnishing wood, digging, raking, etc. Brian designed a "piss catcher" for the compost toilet so that the urine can be used to feed the trees and won't interfere with the composting poo. The design process included a one-hour consult with the local hardware store owner. The final product turned out quite nice and can be moved from one toilet to the other. The compost toilet will have two stalls: one for pee and one for poo. Becca and I made signs to indicate which is which. After two years, the stalls will switch so that the poo can compost for two years prior to use. At that point, it should be safe for growing food.

We would wake around 8am (inevitably due to a persistent fly continually landing on our faces) and the heat would have us sweating by 9am. We'd work until it got too hot and then we'd lounge around, swing on the swings, or hide inside until it cooled off. We'd do a bit more work and then have dinner.

Brian hasn't had a haircut in a while, so I took his beard trimmer and made him a Mohawk with it. The six year old neighbor, Alejandro, told him he looks like a rooster. Point taken. But I still think it's quite charming.

The shower provided some hilarity for us- it's a metal bucket strung in a tree. One must boil water, mix with cold water, pour in the bucket above head-level, and stand underneath in a larger metal bucket. The bottom of the water bucket has little holes, like a shower head and the water comes out when the lever is pulled (and sometimes the water keeps flowing even when you stop pulling the lever). We had to help each other with the shower, and it started to rain mid-way through. We laughed the whole time and decided that it would be our only shower that week. We didn't mind because showers on fincas feel nice, but don't last. Dirt is everywhere.

They had two kittens scampering around, that Bobby and Becca named Bob and Bob ("the Bob sisters"). Sandy's 14 year old daughter, Rosie, was fighting against the rest of us for different names, but in the end, the kittens come when called "bobobobobobobobob" in a high-pitched voice.














We really enjoyed our time in Purchena, with so many lovely people. We might have stayed longer, but we needed to keep moving onwards towards the beach.


The neighbor's baby wild boar:

The Hardest Hike

by annie

Sunday at Fuente del Espino means pancakes and cava for breakfast and a day off from work. The Scottish apparently eat their pancakes rolled up like burritos with lemon juice and sugar or nutella or honey spread inside. And so we did, while sipping on cava with strawberries from their garden.

Then we set off on the hardest hike I've ever done. Fuente del Espino sits at 1800 meters (5900 feet) and we were about to climb a mountain whose peak reaches 2,750 meters (9,000 feet). It probably wasn't the best idea to have the cava before such a hike, not to mention I was already panting before we reached the end of their steep driveway. The entire way to the top was obviously uphill and the dog, Jimmy, kept coming back to check on Tomas and I, who climbed considerably slower than Brian. We wound our way past abandoned ruins and stunning views until we reached the mountainside. The trees stopped growing there, so we could see the top. Or so we thought.

The incline became suddenly much steeper and we decided to make our way up to a ridge (the path had ended by this point) to better plan our route. My eyes played tricks on me when it came to distance, but I soon understood how far the top of the ridge was by measuring against Brian's tiny figure marching upwards ahead. From the top of the ridge, the top of the mountain seemed pretty close. Not so.

The climb was full of frustrating false peaks and such steep inclines that I paused for a rest frequently, sometimes every five or six steps. To complicate matters further, my bowels were distressed and required a couple of awkward bathroom breaks. Luckily, I was alone for most of the mountain, sandwiched between Brian ahead of me and Tomas behind me. For the long, last stretch of the climb, I couldn't see either of them as I cursed, panted and whined my way through aromatic wild thyme, scotchbroom, thistles and rocks. When I finally reached the top, I burst into tears, yelling to Brian about how I never wanted to do another hike like that again (like it was somehow his fault). The raw emotion of exhaustion, cramping legs and bowels, and a lonely harsh climb flooded into intense tears and quickly turned into deep laughter. As we laughed and wiped my tears, I glanced around to find spectacular landscape on all sides. To our left, there were tall snowy mountains. In front, one of the largest solar and wind farms in Spain. Behind us, we saw the waves of the Mediterranean Ocean. And on our right were the same mountains that had accompanied us the entire way. The wind blew fiercely, so we didn't stay long before finding cover below behind some rocks, where we ate sandwiches of Karen's homemade bread, green tomato chutney and avocado. We waited there for Tomas and then made our way back down. The way up took about 4 hours and the way down 2.

I was delighted to arrive back at the finca, especially since Karen greeted us with lentil soup. We finished the night with chocolate and a game of cards before a nice, hard sleep.

Fuente del Espino- a finca in the Sierra Nevadas

by annie

We arrived in Valor around noon after a windy three-hour bus ride from Granada. The bus dropped us off at a bar called ¨el Puente.¨ We sat on the terrace and had a beer while we waited for our hosts to pick us up. We thought we were waiting for a British couple called Phil and Sandy, so imagine our surprise when a guy called Ian approached us with a thick Scottish accent. We had gotten a week ahead of ourselves- Phil and Sandy were the following week (awkward!). Ian left to run some more errands, and we waited more until Karen stopped by after yoga class. We then joined Karen and two other helpers in a whirlwind of errands and visits to friends. We met some other helpers at a different host site, one of which used to live two blocks from us in Portland! We drank a few tinto de veranos for the free tapas (calamari salad and seafood paella) before finally heading up the hill to their finca, called Fuente del Espino.

Valor sits in the Sierra Nevada mountain range at 900 meters. We climbed another 800 meters to reach the finca. Upon arrival, we were quite shocked by our home for the next week. Set on a steep hill, Karen and Ian's home is surrounded by peaks and valleys and solitude, perched in a perfect spot in a natural forest. On a clear day, we could sit on their terrace and see the Mediteranean Sea behind gorgeous mountains. Not many live in the natural forests because they are protected- one can only build upon already existing structures, often stone ruins of cortijos several hundred years old. They renovated on such a ruin to be their primary home. It has a small kitchen, bedroom and terraced ¨hang-out¨space, decked out with plenty of color, books, drums and cushions.

We stayed in a large van with a bed, peed in the grass and used the long drop toilet, aka ¨a loo with a view.¨They use all solar and wind power and collect drinking water once a week from a natural spring in town. They keep four chickens and a dog named Jimmy. Karen made us really good food- often using arugula and herbs from her garden. They were extremely generous with alcohol, almost insisting that we drink tinto de veranos and such from their massive selection that rivals that of a well-stocked bar. They taught us a Spanish game called mentirosa and we played lots of other games as well. One afternoon, I caught Brian staring, fully entertained, by a flock of flies swarming around our van. Once I joined him, I understood why they held his attention. They were all competing over airspace, dancing in rhythm with each other, faster and slower, attacking each other and then relaxing. Karen says ¨who needs tv?¨and she's right. There were always chickens clucking about, Jimmy eating rocks or stunning vistas to keep us entertained.

We would work for 2 or 3 hours in the morning, stopping for siesta during the hottest part of the day, and then one or two hours in the evening as well. Our work mainly consisted of throwing heavy stones uphill to use for building, cutting grass with a scithe or weeding. With that kind of work, it doesn't take long before the dirt coats your clothes and your teeth and the hairs in your nose!

We enjoyed are time at Fuente del Espino, but felt slightly as if our American roots were held against us. It was a surprise and a disappointment, and left us feeling not quite welcome. We stayed a week before moving on to another finca near Almeria.

Granada

by annie

After two short days in Madrid, we hoped on a bus for a 5 hour journey to Granada, where we would stay with Brian's friend Juan. Juan greeted us at the city bus stop and walked us to his flat- a three bedroom apartment on the third floor, just near the center of town. Brian and I walked around a steep residential community before making our way to a quaint neighborhood that houses most of the city's 'teterias'- Moroccan influenced tea houses. There we had a late dinner of Moroccan food.

The next day held lots of walking in store. We accidentally took the long, car route to la Alhambra, an ancient fortress first occupied by Moorish rulers before falling into the hands of Spanish rule in 1492. Admission into the palace was steep, so we opted instead for a free walk around the grounds. The architecture is impressive:
Afterward, we walked up to the mirador in the Albaicin, where we could view la Alhambra and much of the city. After more walking, we stumbled upon a cafe with a 5 euro 'menu del dia'- a three course meal consisting of 'salmorejo' -a type of gazpacho, or 'migas'- fried bread crumbs, fish & salad and dessert. Then we relaxed in a teteria, sipping tea and nibbling on free crepes. We walked back to Juan's stopping on the way for groceries and swim trunks for Brian.
The next day, we opted for more walking and tapas. Granada is renowned for free tapas at bars, so we had a beer at a few bars just so we could try the tapas. They varied from cheese sandwiches with chips and olives, pork sandwiches or patatas bravas. We walked back up to la Alhambra to go to a nearby garden. Unfortunately, it was closed for siesta until 6pm, so we passed our time in la Alhambra. The garden was undergoing lots of construction, so when it did open, we didn't end up staying long before heading back down the hill. We then walked to the neighorhood where Brian used to work and saw the outside of the bar! Granada is a beautiful city with a heavy Moroccan influence and hot, hot climate. I was really glad to finally see where Brian used to live after hearing so many stories. It was a short but well spent time in Granada.