My time at Hornudden ended quite pleasantly. Judith and I became quite close with three English girls who came for two weeks, and ended up going to the Popaganda music festival in Stockholm with them. This was my first music festival and I had a blast. I had only heard of two bands that were performing before, Belle and Sebastian and Robyn, but pretty much every other act was really fun and entertaining and played really great music. If you like Indie/folk music I really recommend First Aid Kit, which is made up of two Swedish sisters with really nice voices. The Hurt and Hot Chip are also fun, but both more dancey. The whole trip was quite an adventure which involved getting rather lost, sneaking into hostels, and being stunned at how attractive and well dressed the Swedes are. I am sure that I will never again be surrounded by so many high cheek bones and blonde hair.
After Hornudden I took four days to take trains down to Spain. While this was certainly neither the most cost or time efficient means to make that journey, it meant that I got to spend the night in Hamburg, a day and night in Paris, take my first night train, and see the beautiful country side of Sweden, Germany, France and Spain which I otherwise would have missed. Spending the day wandering the streets of Paris, eating unreal cake and reading in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower more than justified any other inconvenience associated with that trip.
But on to Spain. I am loving my time here, though I cannot fool myself and say that I am getting the opportunity to immerse myself in Spanish culture. Unbeknownst to me when I made plans to come here, Nerja is a very popular place for British vacationers and has a very significant British ex-pat community. Thus the people I work with and for at the Sanctuary as well as most of the people who visit are British. My day begins at 9 AM by putting all of the donkeys, goats, and horses back in their proper pens after having let out to wander at night. We then feed and water them, and I usually take care of the making sure that the animals that need medication get it. At this point we begin the process of mucking out which usually takes about an hour or an hour and a half. It is more tedious than gross, I am happy to report. Once that is done we take a coffee break, and woven throughout this time we are helping visitors and telling them about the donkeys. At 1 the donkeys get fed again, and then we close (like everything else in Spain) from 2 until 5, during which time I usually eat lunch and nap. We open again from 5-6, which is just enough time to feed everyone once more and let them out for the night. From then on I am free for the evening.
During the evenings I have been exploring Nerja with Kerry, a 19 year old English girl. We have been having quite a ball discovering and sampling many of the tapas bars in town, which are wonderfully inexpensive and tasty. We can get a glass of wine and a tapas for about $2. The town itself is really cute and the right size to go exploring in. However, it has not seduced me in the way that a village about 10 miles away in the mountains has. I visited the village of Frigliana on one of my days off and was breathless. It is a white village, which means that all of the houses are white plaster, but the doors and shutters are brilliant turquoise-blue. Because the village is in the mountains, everything is very vertical and there are steps everywhere which are paved with beautiful tiles. The colors of the flowers against the white houses make them seem brighter and more vibrant, and combine this with the delicate scent of those flowers and rifts of Spanish guitar blowing on the breeze and wandering around this village really feels like falling in love.
My other big day off adventures have been a day trip to Malaga to the Castillo de Gibralfaro and a hike up the Rio Chillar in search of a waterfall. The trip to Malaga was wonderful. The Castillo was an old Moorish fortress initially built in the 800 high above the city, so walking around the walls gives impressive views of the city, mountains, and ocean. We also wandered around the old part of Malaga which has some beautiful churches and adorable backstreets. I am finding more and more that my favorite thing to do in a new city is simply wander the little streets and let it reveal all of its secrets to me. The hike to the waterfall was unsuccessful in terms of finding the waterfall, but we did have a really lovely hike up into the mountains and in a crystal clear stream through beautiful gorges. The river was never more than shin deep, and it was a really neat way to adventure into the mountains. Well, unfortunately my time here in Nerja is coming to an end. I will be leaving here on Friday morning to travel to Vic, which is about an hour north of Barcelona, and the location of the last farm on my adventure. It’s hard to believe it is already come to that, and I will let you know how it is!
One of the outer walls of Castillo de Gibralfaro
A view of Malaga and the interior of the Castillo
A tree in the courtyard of the Castillo which I thought was really really awesome
A view of Malaga and the port from the Castillo
The river we chased waterfalls up
Me, Lola (the goat) and David Villa (the donkey, not the footballer)
Kerri and I with Chica and David
Me and Conan, our resident BFG Andalucian Donkey
Me, Lola, and the teenage boy donkeys, who acted exactly as you would expect teenage male donkeys to act.
Shearing Chuletta, our very shy, but now very stylish sheep
Feliz, with a view of the mountains in the background. Ironically, this is the spot with the best view on the property, and also home to the manure pile.
The beach, about a 10 minute walk from work. I don´t know how I manage.
Frigliana
More of Frigliana, viewed from the rose garden
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