A View to Gibraltar

October 29, 2009

A few trips ago we got lost driving off the motorway headed towards Gibraltar. Which was fortunate because we ended up on an unspoiled beach, abutting a nature reserve and with few buildings to be seen, save for the largely new town of Sotogrande shimmering white in the distance.



So hardly an hour after leaving Malaga we're back again sitting on the beach in the sun, looking down to the south where the rock of Gibraltar rises stark and sharply out of the sea.

There have been a few changes - the small hut from which you can look out at the birds nesting in the reeds in the nature reserve is still there, but locked.

The beach has been built up to correct the erosion that was threatening to sweep away a line of white, two-storey terraced houses, and a long walkway alongside the reserve parallel to the beach has been dismantled, sadly. On the other hand this means there is an unimpeded view across the marshlands of the nature reserve, as I show here in this photo:




We are surprised again at how few people seem to come to spend time on what is one of the few largely unspoiled stretches of coastline on the Costa del Sol.

My wife swam, the sea was warm and I took a few classy photos and lots of trashy snaps. A woman sunbathed topless nearby, a small family strolled and played further away down the beach, and we sat eating our sandwiches as the sun began to set, looking at Gibraltar. The sky began to turn pink and blue as evening came, and the coastline and hills of Morocco began to form in the faint distance as we watched. Near heaven.




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Hostal el Anon

October 29, 2009

But it's all worth it for a stay in the Hostal del Anon. Built by Suzanna, an attractive American/Austrian ex-hippy and her Spanish husband (sadly passed away), its layout of winding passages, small Moorish-style courtyards and hidden nooks and crannies mirrors precisely the chaos of the town itself.



On this, what was in essence the seventh day including our previous stays in this hotel, we still find ourselves opening wrong doors, walking up and down confusing small flights of red-tiled courtyard stairways as in an Escher drawing, some built around a tall and majestic banana tree, only to realise we are back at the beginning - and scratching our heads, slightly puzzled.



But being able to get lost among the plants and the terracotta is just one of the quirky things about the place that makes it so special, and gives it such a cosy feeling.




And this trip we have the additional adventure of climbing through a low window to sit on our balcony in the warm evening breeze - there is no door. Life is an adventure...




Ok, maybe I didn't smile so much when I discovered a pair of dirty socks left by a previous occupant of our room, and half-hidden among the newspapers under the table, but this is the sort of place where you can forgive almost any minor sin.



The staff are friendly and ever-helpful, and the restaurant a good standard, with a wide range of dishes. It can be hard to leave.

And so to bed - it's been a knackering day, and I had only slept a few hours the night before as we had to get up for the flight at 10 am. Cheek.

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The Sound of Spain

October 30, 2009

We ate breakfast on the veranda and had toast, jam, strong coffee (not a molecule of instant powder was to be seen), and orange juice, muffins and (we supplied our own) bananas. My wife contributed the yogurt we bought just before closing last night at a small store that was indistinguishable from the private homes in the row of whitewashed terraces. I had bought two bulky 5-litre bottles of water and would have managed them on my own (a manly challenge) but my wife insisted she knew a shortcut. She didn't, and my arms are still hanging uselessly from their sockets this morning.

She is reading a student's phd thesis, I am typing on my Blackberry. We were interrupted by a young man's voice, singing a Spanish ballad in the bar. Good voice, and we think he's preparing for a carnival. He's practising the lyrics and different phrasing. I sauntered in, ostensibly to take photos of the model trains that are arranged carefully in custom-designed walnut cupboards built across arches in the walls. Really I wanted to video the man singing. Is he practising for the Spanish X-Factor? A funeral? A private function? "Una bella voz", I wanted to say - patronising, I know, but I meant well. But he was already speaking on his mobile and I exited stage left after taking a few snaps of the train sets.



Overhead, flying high above the whitewashed buildings and framed by a deep blue sky large birds were flying - we identified them as Griffon Vultures. How come I never have Griffon Vultures flying overhead while I have my cornflakes in Birmingham? Why lord, oh why?



Photo by Calo Bescós (19/10/05)
This file is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0 License


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Dining Among Exp-Pats

October 30, 2009

Well, don't think I was exaggerating about the funnel web spiders in this part of Andalusia (see first blog entry "A Noisy Start"). You know, the big and aggressive ones? So, what's the first thing we find on the hike down by the Rio Horganza this afternoon? A bloody great funnel web spider .... well, at least, its web. That means it was there in the funnel, coiled ready to leap at our throats. In the vegetation by the side of the hill. I crept by quietly, but my stomach was turning. What if ...? Sometimes it's good to remain blissfully ignorant, but now I know, and I didn't want to.

The hike down from Jimena de la Frontera into the river valley of the Rio Hozgarganta was largely familiar to us from previous trips, and the route through the Nature Reserve offers great swimming in the river.



But not this year - the river is basically dried out, the last rain being March, and even then there was just a couple of days' rainfall. And that was it for the entire year. Still, we got to hike along the river bed, and saw a dead snake.

The hike, though not particularly demanding, was adventurous in a "small risk-taker" sort of way - it has often seemed to be that way on our walks in Andalusia, One reason is the barking, crazed dogs that many households and farmers keep. Jesus. And yet not one has ever bitten us -just frightened the life out of us. And to prove it here is a photo of a typical path just below the castle walls, unfortunately showing not one savage beast, not even one timid lapdog, either. But the photograph is beautiful, nonetheless:



Then there are the bulls which are a feature of every hike here. And where would a hike in Andalusia be without a horse in every field, around every turn in the path, walking down the street unaccompanied, hanging out at the doorways of terraced houses in the villages?



For no reason other than the incongruence of the situation, we were a little surprised to be met on the path by two well-groomed Siamese cats - mother and kitten, I suppose - that were hanging out on a hippy-style farm next the route. Here is a photo of the cutely dilapidated building, more of a hugely elaborate outhouse, really:



The cats had azure-blue eyes, a friendly attitude and a commanding manner when demanding food - just like, well, cats everywhere. This video clip shows the hypnotic power of their eyes - no small wonder we paid them their due tribute in food morsels as Guardians of the Path:

:






The sun set over the hills, the sky was a deep evening red, and it would have been hard to wish for more. Except "un zumo de naranja natural", natural squeezed orange juice made from the oranges that we all associate with Spain, and which were available in all the bars and restaurant on the last trips, but were nowhere to be had this time. I'll forgive them their trespass against me, but they'd better get it sorted by the next visit.

My wife went for a swim in the small outdoor pool on the upper terrace of the hotel in the pitch black of night, and I videoed her bravery (I used a hand-held torch to pick her out of the darkness).



In the evening we went out into the small town looking for a restaurant, and were virtually seized and seated at the Pastor 2 on the village square by the rotund and jovial owner - a great salesman, very cheery, very chatty, and we ate fish and prawns and omelet and watched the kids playing in the square. Many English expats live here, and their kids have all probably grown up in this town - I observed continental European hand gestures being given by kids with blond hair. The adults were not tourists, and we asked ourselves how we could sense this so easily, without hearing whether they spoke Spanish.

Well, the answer is pretty clear: they were eating out late. Full stop. Their tans seemed to have been acquired over months or years, with no lobster-red burned skin on show. And they were sprawled out lazily at their tables, eating unhurriedly rather than sitting upright and over-worrying about the menu and how to behave. Above all, they were drinking wine in moderation, with their kids at the table. Simply put - they were not totally pissed.

I wonder what they do here, how they earn their living, why here, did they come after seeing the endless tv programs called "Living in the Sun" and similar? Do they love it here, or are they stuck here (perhaps as they no longer have a job or house back in the UK)? There are a million Brits living in Spain, most on the coast. That's quite an impressive statistic. I wonder how the locals view it? Angry that house prices rose as a result? Happy for the business? It might well be a successful mix, but I have read that Brits in Spain have their own separate economy and not a lot of money filters back into the Spanish system.

And now we have ended up spending much of the evening just hanging out on the village square at the restaurant, in the warm breeze, dinner long finished, just watching people. A great pastime!

The bar owner goes from table to table, chatting, joking, patting the customers on the back - a truly natural salesman, and we enjoyed the show. I made my wife waylay him as he headed back in to the restaurant and interrogate him as to the lifestyle of villagers and expats.



He asked us to wait a moment, took some dishes back to the kitchen, and came back to give us full account, sitting down at our table with a lighted cigarette he never got to smoke. Each time he finished explaining something to us he made as if to walk away, only to turn round and sit back down again to start a new reply. But in sum, he claims that villagers have been hit hard by the recession, and restaurant owners are experiencing this in the sense that people are eating out less, ordering only one dish and watching tv more. The expats are doctors, they run companies and are generally doing ok, as are the hotels where the English come to stay. Curious.

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No hurry, really...

October 31, 2009

We're having a big breakfast served by a slightly hurried Suzanna, the owner of the hostal, who says she needs to be out by 11 to go hiking. I sympathise - we need to come to breakfast before the 11 o'clock cut-off point, but have managed just twice, at five minutes to the hour.

As a background to drinking coffee on the dappled sun terrace under the palms there is ethereal music playing, the sort of soft electronic stuff you might do yoga to, with a bit of Enya added, and some Chinese gongs and soft piano. Nice in the evening, but maybe not the music that will get us off our arses and into the hot hills and valleys. Now it's Indian sitar and tabla drums. Very, very sleep-inducing, lovely .... must fight back to stand up ... slipping away ... and if you click on the video below, and turn the volume up loud, you'll start to drift away too...




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Call of the wild

October 31, 2009

I decided to spend a day on my own in the hills and valleys. It would be my manly adventure. Leaving the hostal I jutted my chin forward, set my mouth in a tough guy expression, narrowed my eyes and set forth up the almost impossibly steep incline of the village street, working my way between the whitewashed houses, up to the path below the castle and down into the valley below.
Not that I covered a lot of ground - with no-one waiting impatiently for me to compose my photographs I just snapped away at everything - under-exposing here, over-exposing there, zooming in and out, experimenting with every possible permutation of F-stop, speed and ISO, - As a result I probably hiked no more than a couple of kilometres in total.



Cut along the left bank of the Hozgarganta River here is the the water channel that was used to provide water to the Royal Artillery Factory, built in 1777, for the manufacture of cannonballs and bombs. I hopped and leaped and balanced with deliberate carelessness along the narrow edge of the deep and now dry channel. This small adventure piqued my hunger, so I fussed around trying to choose a suitable place to eat my lunch.



I climbed about 10 metres up into the rocks off to the path on the left, from where I could look out over the river to the hillside beyond. I sat on a small crag and ate slices of red pepper, carrots and fennel and chewed on chunky wholemeal bread and cheese sandwiches. I watched a procession of ochre-coloured cattle plod their way out of the trees on the hillside high up above the river on the other bank, moving up along a narrow path and beyond into a field in the distance. The sun silhouetted their shapes, and a farmer followed up from the rear, walking in a casual, slow and relaxed way, calling up ahead for them to move on. It was like watching a cheap version of Rawhide in slow motion.



But it was quite hot, and now the sun was starting to fry me slowly. There would be a price to pay. Towards early evening I began to relax into the calm of the present moment, stretched out on a rock in the shade by the river and took a a bite of the sandwich I had been looking forward to, and quite frankly deserved. I anticipated how I would frame the next few photos to take best advantage of the evening light that almost by default makes even our worst shots memorable.



And then I began to drift off as I lay there on the rock ...hearing the call of the wild ... getting sleepier ....

And suddenly a call on my mobile startled me out of a daydream. It was my wife, pointing out that this would be our last opportunity to watch the sunset from the castle, and that I had about ten minutes to meet her there. In an instant I dumped the unhurried, laid-back persona that just isn't me anyway, and switched back into frantic mode. I stuffed partly eaten food and camera into my backpack, abandoned all the photo opportunities that I had been waiting for and made a mad dash up the side of the hill up to the castle. It totally and utterly knackered me, and my legs were to suffer for days.

However, I did interrupt the painful climb to take a photo that seems to illustrate the easy-going manner in which horses, donkeys, asses and mules are integrated into the lives of the villagers, and I thought it was kind of the family not to chase me away for being too nosey.



I found my wife waiting along the ramparts of the castle, but had to ignore her for a while as the sun was setting fast and I wanted to photograph as much as possible of the surrounding landscape in the evening light.



Looking down on the village from the castle in the fading light we could see the town square where children were playing, and pick out the sun beds on the top terrace of the hostal. Slowly we realised, with some satisfaction I suppose, that we were able to identify so many of the buildings with small adventures we had had on this trip and on past trips - places where we had met interesting and friendly people and streets where we had got lost driving so often. It all looks so easy from here. But it isn't.




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Too authentic, perhaps.

October 31, 2009

My testosterone-releasing adventure during the day has become this evening's testing irritation, due to an overdose of sun. I am blond and light-skinned, and now I felt basically crap. And here's a lesson to learn: befriend the owner of the restaurant who has the prime real estate on the village square one evening and you'll find yourself skulking past him the next as you cross the same square in search of a different ambiance and menu choice. And fail, because after you sneak guiltily into the other restaurant he appears smiling and sits you down - he owns both places. He is Antonio, and is quite a handsome devil (as you can see from the photograph in my previous posting).

As an aside, I note how wonderful it is to have a partner who speaks Spanish. So when I am grumpy in restaurants I can keep up running arguments that put me on an even playing field with stroppy waiters: "Tell him that's the last time..." "Tell him I know my oyster mushrooms and there's no way that they were ...." "Tell him if he thinks we're going to sit near the smokers ..." etc. etc.

This time there is not an ex-pat in sight, and we are, at my choosing, in is a full-on, in-your-face authentic bar/restaurant in a village in Spain, La Bodega - no concessions to namby-pamby EU or national regulations about alcohol, smoking and children. In this restaurant kids of eight or so were sitting at the bar drinking coke alongside their adult relatives who set a none-too-wonderful example by smoking and drinking next to them. I felt my goody-two shoes heckles rising to the bait. I found the meal rather greasy and the fish too battered, but after an initial huffing and grumping I settled down, adjusted a bit and started to notice how young and old seem to find a common ground in these places - more mutual respect and a lot less binge-drinking, (actually none) compared to the UK. I was also surprised earlier to see kids just hanging around playing games with skipping ropes or clapping hands together in rhythmic routines, late at night. I can't remember when I last noticed kids playing together outdoors this way. It almost seemed quaint. There was even a kid of about two playing alone, happily filling the cracks in a pavement with sand in a street just off the square, but no adults in obvious sight. Yet you knew he was ok, that he was within some hidden orbit of care. People seemed quite at ease with the loud kids and barking dogs, and we didn't hear or see anyone tutting or complaining. The barking dog I would personally have appreciated seeing relocated to a distant part of Spain, far from earshot, so piercing were its yelps.

Later that evening we were approached by kids in Halloween outfits, saying "Happy Halloween" and "truc or trato" - a funny and, I believe, meaningless transliteration of "trick or treat". A few just wished us " Happy Halloween'.



Wanting to get a much better photo of the kids in Spain celebrating Halloween in their own way, we wandered the back streets hoping to be scared by kids in Scream masks but were disappointed. However, we discovered how beautiful the church of San Fransisco looks at night, illuminated so that it shines white against the black of the sky.

More adjusted to the way of life now, and slowly recovering from the effects of too much sun, I managed to stop moaning about smoke and greasy food and sit in the hotel bar, sipping strong coffee and browsing the internet from my Blackberry. Juan is the ever-friendly, super hard-working bar man, and just one more reason I'm happy to be in this hotel in this town.



We decide to stay yet another night.

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Lost. Well, nearly ...

November 1, 2009

Late for breakfast again. I asked Suzanna, the owner of the hostal, if she was thinking of installing a wireless internet router so that guests could get internet access in their rooms. She told us that many guests wouldn't want wireless access to the internet in their rooms because the walls are too thick (true) and because of "electro-smog"... This must be German guests who have claimed this as a threat, because it's not generally something I notice the British talking about. But I wonder how many people really don't want internet access on holiday nowadays?

My wife was feeling top-class today, back to form and pushing us ever forward, out the room and off into the deep hot valleys to hike. But that didn't stop me forgetting to screw up the lid on my water bottle that I lay on the bed ready to pack. The water poured out before I could notice, soaking the duvet and mattress. Should we even bother to protest to the cleaning lady and manager "it's not pee, I promise"? They'll never believe us. I wouldn't. Our patio is slowly lowering the whole tone of the place, with plastic bags full of food scattered around, clothes hanging out over chairs and a mattress, sheets and duvet all drying on the terrace.

The hike was one of the best to be had in this area, and we were quickly in "Ooh, look at that view!" territory. Stunning.



The photos here are a feeble attempt to capture the grandeur of craggy cliffs, deep blue skies, cork trees and winding rivers extending off to a horizon of sun-drenched mountains (keep going, Ed.)



Yet around 5 pm we realised we were starting to get lost as we crossed the dried river bed but failed to reconcile the long path up through the pines with what the map clearly stated. So let me warn future hikers : don't trust these Topografico maps. They don't offer the same precision as good old Ordnance Survey maps - hiking obviously doesn't have as strong a tradition as in the UK, but more to the point - the military in Spain apparently dug their heels in when it came to letting its citizens know where they were walking. Sod the military, they are nothing but trouble in any country. Maybe not Denmark and Sweden, where I saw the conscripts wearing hairnets in the hippy days. That's how we like our soldiers to look - soft. Down with macho unless it's an image I am cultivating, in which case: "Hi, tough guy!"



We were running out of daylight fast. And the map we were clinging onto was less map, more map-ish. This put a dampener on our adventure. If we took time out now to eat our sandwiches we could be stuck in the forest, while still close enough to civilisation for a rescue team to be justified in laughing in our faces. So we stuffed the food down and retraced our steps at a steady clip. Then as over-confidence set in I started yakking, told a funny story and promptly slipped between two rocks and it bloody hurt. I was that close to breaking my right arm. That close. And I got a lump come up that grew to the size of a homunculus. I watched it nervously as it swelled and thought "this is it - helicopter rescue and amputation." I soldiered bravely on (with hairnet, of course) and made it back to the village just as darkness threatened to leave us stranded amidst the nocturnal funnel web spiders. Yes, them again.



I interrupt to sing a song of praise for Spanish food - not because it's particularly good, it's far too greasy, battered this, battered that, and non-fried vegetables a rarity) - but because it's always piping hot and the plates and bowls are heated. Hats off to burnt tongues.

Tomorrow we are off to Tarifa, but only if we can get that great Moorish-style room with its high ceilings at the Casa Amarilla opposite the groovy cafe. The town has a beatnik feel to it, and the views over the Straits of Gibraltar to Africa are beautiful. Nay, breath-taking.

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Kite Surfers

November 2, 2009

Dark clouds are moving across the sky this morning. As we ate breakfast on the terrace we decided they were headed for the Costa de la Luz, our destination for this evening. We ask the owner, Suzanna, if she has heard any adverse weather reports from the area and she tells us that if the wind is coming from the west, the weather will be fine over on the Costa de la Luz and in Tarifa. If it's from the East then the wind will be hellish. We ignore the obvious, that the wind is definitely coming from the east, and press on regardless. We experienced these strong winds three years ago - small wonder that the tourist industry hasn't flourished there. We are grateful for that.




After visiting the castle again, this time to look at the Latin inscriptions in the Arab gate, and make what I felt was a rather depressing visit to the cemetery opposite the castle (the photos of people who died young are heart-breaking), we set off to Zahara de los Atunes.



We pulled over at the side of the road outside Jimena to take a last look, wondering if next time we came this beautiful wide vista would be ruined by a proposed airport.



Driving into some light rain near Gibraltar and wondering if we had made the right decision to head west, our worries were calmed by a most jaw-droppingly perfectly clear view from high across the Straits down on to Morocco - each town along the north African coast highlighted by shafts of sun, and seemingly within touching distance, a view spreading across maybe a 100 miles or so. Our photos had to be taken from the car as we found no places to pull over. Very frustrating, but even so ...



The views got better and better. We passed Tarifa and drove on along the coast road to the beach at Punta de la Pena.

There are several access points along this stretch of the coastline, each path leading to beautiful white beaches through the pine tree plantations left and right. These were clearly designed to hold back the incursion of the sand.



As we walked onto the broad, white sands the clouds started to thicken. We watched kite surfers being lifted up at high speed by the strong buffeting winds, their kites brightly lit by sunbeams and all set against a dark sky - a real treat. I ran around excited like a mad dog on the beach, taking scores of photos with my Canon G10. My wife moved at a more leisurely pace, mainly because she still uses a film camera. Or maybe because she is simply not a mad dog.



We cooled down too quickly as the wind blew hard onto us, but as we sat shivering, eating our sandwiches, the sky opened from the west, the sun shone through and within half an hour we were in warm sunshine, watching the whole show now against a blue sky. Great, and even better, we'll go back in a day or so.




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