So it’s the beginning of March and I understand why the English whinge about the weather. I catch myself saying ‘hmmm, 10 degrees tomorrow, that’s not too bad’. Help me.
The Spanish trip was fabulous. After a very early start (we left Brixton at 3am) we picked up a car in Herez and made coastal. We stayed the first night in Cadiz in one of those lovely buildings with the internal courtyard. For some unfathomable reason, they locked the toilet at night and it was an interesting search around the building for one that had been left open at 3am. Our room had floor length windows facing the narrow street with wooden shutters. It was all that those typical Spanish apartment buildings clichés are made of. Just gorgeous, excepting the mattress. Indeed, an uncomfortable nights sleep, especially for Steven, saw us splashing out the next night on a more western style hotel in … in the hope of a better rest.
But oh, the market in Cadiz was amazing and, dare I say it, rivalling even the Central Market in Adelaide for its variety of fresh food and beating it on price. As we were another day away from our little house in mountains we couldn’t indulge in the meat or fish but I’ve not seen so many varieties of prawns – beyond King and tiger prawns, I didn’t know so many other kinds existed. Fresh anchovies and sardines and all the other fish you wish to imagine displayed on ice. Extremely tempting.
But we made do with lots of fresh vegetables, an enormous jar of green olives pickled in anchovy juice, fruit, chorizo, jamon and four different kinds of cheese. Mouth watering just thinking about it! Our major concession to Christmas and English tradition was bringing some mince pies with us.
It was a long days drive to the next coastal town, I think it was Almunecar and it was dark by the time we decided not to drive any further along the unlit highway. The coast, Costa del Sol, is very beautiful but one of those spots that’s very touristy and especially full of English retirees. The breakfast in the hotel was a Spanish version of the full English – sausages, eggs, tomato etc. But all, including the eggs, seemingly poached in a lot of olive oil and I think we would much have preferred whatever the Spanish were having.
We hopped in the car again and decided to take in Gibraltar, mostly to find a Guardian newspaper. If you’re ever in these parts, I wouldn’t bother. You know that big famous rock? Well that’s all there is to Gibraltar, stuck out on a rocky peninsula with not the slightest bit of charm. A long empty road from the border check at the start of the peninsula to the narrow streets of the quasi piece of England at the bottom of Spain. And not a newspaper to be found. That’s just first impressions I guess but they were so favourable we must have stayed a full 45 minutes. And as we left, this photo opportunity just couldn’t be missed:
Unfortunately it’s getting a little hazy remembering quite the order of things but we finally made it to the tiny mountain town of Picena (pronounced Pithena) in the Sierra Nevada mountain range where we spent the next week. Picena has a population of perhaps 200 and there are two bars which are attached to two shops. The house we had hired for the week was bigger than we expected and, being built on the side of the mountain, had an entrance on one street to the kitchen and an entrance three floors down on another street. It had very thick walls which were plastered throughout and ceilings of exposed beams and floors of tile. Oh and a spectacular mountain view.
We settled into village life quite quickly; starting a fire in the enormous fire place in the lounge room each morning, having breakfast, reading and lying about, maybe a walk in the afternoon to the shops for supplies. We met the couple who ran the shop and bar on the village square and indeed Pepe turned out the be a bit of a property magnate, showing us a house in town that was available for rent to “nice couples like us”, a grand house that he was building and a grand house next to it that he and his family lived in when they weren’t living above the bar.
With me being such a sucker for snow, on Christmas Day Steven suggested we go the mountains outside Granada. We got out the maps and started on what looked to be a couple of hours drive north. Six hours of driving around narrow mountain roads, including a hairy meeting on a blind curve with a full sized bus later, we found the snow. So worth it and the drive had afforded some beautiful views. There wasn’t much daylight left but we played in the snow for a couple of hours before heading back down in darkness to Granada itself. We wandered the surprisingly crowded streets, checking out a bar or two and the line ups for nativity scenes. The drive home along the highway was only two hours.
So boxing day became our Christmas day and after much consternation and some phone calls, I managed to get the oven working for the roast chicken. I thought I was in for gutting my first chicken as when we bought it we had to ask for the head and feet to be removed by the butcher; but as it turned out, only the liver had been left inside. Along with some veg and a potato and chirzo (choritho) bake we ate a huge dinner with much red wine and settled in front of the fire to toast our Spanish Christmas.
Ahhh!!! I just looked out the window and it’s lightly snowing!! This is probably only about the third time we’ve had a little snow here in the capital this winter. And damn it, just as I write that, the snow has stopped! Ah well.
So on to New Years’ Eve. We set out from Picena early on the 31st, taking in a few mountain roads on the way to Seville. I had a couple of lovely pissy phone calls from Adelaide where the New Year had already rolled around. It was a bit of a culture shock arriving in a town around the size and population of Adelaide after such quiet living. We stayed in the old Jewish quarter, an easy place to get lost amongst the winding narrow maze of alleyways. After a much needed rest, we set out around 11pm to one of the bridges over the river that runs through the town to partake in the tradition of drinking champagne and eating grapes at midnight. We had a bottle of Bolli we had been given in London and a couple of tins of grapes. Steven accidentally cracked open the bottle 10 minutes early but we toasted the new year alongside the 50 or so other people on our particular bridge and watched the fireworks. Some were clearly organised displays but the majority were being launched from people’s balconies or on the street.
We slowly made our way (read stopping at every bar for a drink along the way) to the part of town where we were meeting up with the group of friends that Steven made when he lived in Seville. We were picked up by Danny’s people mover and taken to a warehouse squat party. The Spanish rules of car parking were in full force; cars were double parked all along the street but with the handbrakes left off so, after rearranging some of the cars, Danny managed to park the van.
It was quite bizarre inside the warehouse, a sort of punk meets goth affair with DJs and VJs. There weren’t that many people around but it was okay. After an hour or so we hopped back into the people mover and started driving out of town, landing eventually at a huge out of the way mansion. And running towards us with arms outstretched as we parked was Carlos in a blue clown wig. What the…?
We were ushered in through the front door to a large room where the crowd was pumping as much as the music; Carlos’ wig now made sense as every one was wearing some kind of wig. The rum and coke was flowing freely, as were the party drugs. At one point in the night I had one of those moments; I was at a wig party in a mansion (apparently hosted by the daughter of a Spanish soap star) fairly out of it, not speaking a word of the language and dancing with the rest of the full dance floor to Love Shack. How the fuck did I get here?
The night ended around 8am as we were exhausted little bunnies who slept much of the next day, venturing out for coffee and not doing much else. The next couple of days were pleasantly spent hanging out in cafes, doing some shopping (patent leather look court heels for six euros!) and visiting some of Steven’s old haunts. Here is a pic of a cafe with every kind of coffee maker imaginable above the bar:
So here’s some pics that I will simply caption:
Hotel balcony in coastal hotel; Picena from an upper hill; at café in Seville
Church in Mariena; friendly dog on our street in Picena; view of our street in Picena
Steven self portrait; at another café in Seville; hill fire lit by farmers in Picena
Outdoor café in Cherin – a five km walk from Picena. We had set off in the afternoon and we returned in absolute darkness up the unlit winding road with the aid of a pen light; snow in Seria Nevada; at the market in Ugljar – we had a sobering time on one visit to this town where we saw a man who had just died in a café and his wife and others were waiting for the ambulance. Half the town was gathered and it was very sad.
Picena town square by night with the Christmas lights; checking out one of Pepe’s houses; our neighbour across the street in Picena.
It was not much fun returning to work the day after we got back – horrid how holidays seem to be relegated to the distant memory within days. But the parts I remember the best have to do with the style of living; the hours after lunch when all the shops are closed for siesta (or phonetically middiadeya [midday]), the tapas meals and the fact that we could not find a bad coffee. Not one, and we had many coffees. Steven had been planning to propose to me in Picena but instead got to proudly explain our happy engagement to the locals who wished us well. At least, that’s what he tells me they said.
