A new life in Andalucía

Home is where the heart is

We took a trip to the north-east to Portugal last week to visit one of my university chums whom we hadn´t seen for about five years.  I´ve been keeping in touch with her on a regular basis though, especially ever since we´ve both discovered the wonders of Skype.  Still, nothing beats seeing one another in the flesh.  When we finally met up last Saturday afternoon in a car park on the edge of town, which had seemed a convenient place for us to stop and phone my friend, her opening words were: “I´ve lived in Évora all my life but I´ve never been in this car park before.”  “Hi Noca, good to see you too!” 

We had a fantastic time with our friend and her family and were shown round Évora which we liked very much.  Noca took us to the Capela dos Ossos (literally the Chapel of Bones) which allegedly contains over 5000 human skeletons.  As you enter, an inscription in the marble above the doorway greets you: “Nós ossos que aqui estamos, pelos vossos esperamos.” (Our bones that are here, are awaiting yours.) Inside, various parts of skeletons cover the walls and even the central pillars are decorated with skulls.  Hanging from the wall at the far end of the chapel were two mummified corpses.  Classical music and subdued lighting created a very sombre and gloomy atmosphere and I had to nod in agreement when I overheard a group of German tourists whisper to one another: “Lets get the hell out of here!”

I really did like Portugal and I hope that this first visit won´t be my last.  The people were very friendly and helpful and it would have been even more enjoyable if I had been able to communicate a little more even though you can easily get by with Spanish and English.  Portuguese is a strange language though.  Lots of ´sh` sounds and every word seems to melt into the next.  After a very pleasant weekend we waved goodbye to Noca, in the hope that we won´t have to wait another five years until we see one another again. 

Instead of returning to the Málaga province straight away though, we made our way across the border to Extremadura which Ian wanted to explore with the possibility of relocating there, should we like what we saw.  The region covers a vast area, so we only really managed to scratch the surface in the time we had available by looking at the historic towns of Cáceres and Trujillo and especially took to the latter which is well worth a visit.  We stayed a total of two nights: the first at a newly refurbished little hostal in the town centre and the second in a beautifully converted former olive mill, tucked away in the countryside, just outside Trujillo.  A fantastic place and definitely an unforgettable experience for us. (For more information, see: www.fincasantamarta.com)

Driving back to the Sierra de las Nieves, we felt quite relieved that we had finally (after an entire year of searching and wondering) decided on the area where we wanted to settle down.  All we have to do now is find a suitable house and then we can start to put down some proper roots.  As far as Extremadura is concerned, we´ll definitely go back for a visit but as they say ´home is where the heart is` and our hearts are definitely here in the Sierra de las Nieves.

Capela dos Ossos in Évora - human skulls decorate pillars

Gloomy: two hanging mummified corpses in the Capela dos Ossos

Plaza Mayor in Trujillo, Extremadura

Finca Santa Marta

Olive Ha! Ha! Harvest

Last Friday we had a drink with some friends after we´d all been to the weekly market in the village and everybody seemed to be talking about the fact that they were getting ready for a weekend´s olive picking.  It sounded interesting: all you had to do was pick a few crates full of big green eating olives and take them down to the local olive factory where, last year, they paid out something like €1.20 per kilo (depending on the size and quality of the olives of course).  The important thing was, we were told, that there shouldn´t be a single mark on any of the olives and we learned that the so-called olive fly was responsible for ruining a lot of the crops by leaving holes and brown specks behind which made the olives unsuitable for being processed as eating olives.

As there are lots of olive trees around ´our` finca, we thought we might as well pick their fruit and put it to good use, rather than letting it fall off the trees and  leave it to rot.  On the way home from the village, we stopped at our local supermaket, borrowed some sturdy crates and set about picking the olives early on Saturday morning.  It was a cool and cloudy day - ideal weather for some physical labour.  It didn´t take us very long to discover that even though there were lots of olive trees around, only a few boasted biggish olives and merely a handful of those remained untarnished by the dreaded olive fly.  Some trees were more or less bare and others only had tiny olives which can eventually be used for pressing in a few month´s time.  (Not surprising really, as the landlord really has neglected his trees over the past years.)  We decided nevertheless to pick all the olives we could get our hands on (even those with blemishes) and just have a few bottles of our own olive oil pressed.  After a short tea break at midday, we worked until about 3pm without a further break and found we had almost filled two crates (probably about 40 kg).  Exhausted but happy, we decided to call it a day and continue fresh and early on Sunday. 

The next morning came but we did NOT continue with our picking campaign.  Firstly, we could hardly move (we had obviously used muscles we had forgotten about whilst picking the olives) and secondly we had, in the meantime, found out that,  whilst you can take just a few crate fulls of eating olives to the plant, you have to have a minimum quantity of … wait for it … 600 kg for them to get the press going (which apparently costs you €90).  Well, the two crates of olives are now stored in a shady place and are up for grabs if anyone is a few kilos short of the minimum pressing quantity.  We were certainly a few olives short of a crate when we decided to pick them. 

As for the figs I´ve dried, they´ve turned out to be riddled with tiny maggots, so I have since donated them to some needy horses who wolfed them down with gusto.  (Don´t worry if ever you are offered some of my fig jam or chutney, as I have cut those figs into little pieces before cooking them, so no extra protein – fear not.)  The only produce we haven´t had any problems with, have been the almonds.  Saying that, I did burn the first lot that I roasted in the oven – for twenty minutes instead of five – with olive oil, garlic and chilli pepper, so they went straight in the bin.

Loads of olives, but - alas - not enough :(

The rain in Spain