Holes

After six days of playing the city tourist again - it takes a while to get back in that mode, and never feels natural for us - we are back in comfortable territory. For us this means being in the middle of nowhere at someone else's house, who we did not know, and had no idea where they were taking us to when they picked us up from the bus station at 1pm. This is our way of travelling.

In this case it was a lovely Dutch couple who were taking us to their cave house in the south east of Spain, about an hour and a half away from Granada.

It is our second workaway for this trip. We are helping them convert some caves into a home. Sounds bizarre, but is a common type of housing in this neck of the woods. In fact, when I asked one woman if she lived in a cave house she simply replied "of course". The massive benefit; they stay relatively cool in summer, and relatively warm in winter. An interesting concept though; instead of adding on to the  landscape, as a 'normal' house would, this is taking away from the landscape. In a reasonably unimposing way. Brilliant. Those cave men (and women) sure knew a thing or two.

Our days mainly consist of painting, with David every now and again asked to bash away some more at a space. It turns out I really love painting, and am happily spending hours of my day in front of a door or window, turning it lavender, or blue. The hardware store in the tiny village only stocks white, grey or blue paint, so options are limited. Ide, the man who lives here, rather creatively made a lavender colour. He's currently in the process of trying to make a blue/green/grey colour. All he's discovered so far is that adding cement to paint doesn't add that colour, it just turns it to glue.

Another five days here, then we are off to Barcelona and then onwards to Nice where we are meeting David's family.

- Hana

The Rest is Noise

Spending time in Spain is teaching me to slow down and appreciate the rhythm of daily life. Because that's the thing with Spain; it has a rhythm, and once you start to hear it, you begin to dance along to it.

There's rhythm in the daily siesta when the entire town shuts down for a good four hours mid afternoon. There's rythmn when it comes back to life at 10pm at night. There's the beat of families standing at the base of their almond trees, shaking them free of their yearly harvest. And the gentle hum of families as they sit around with a cerveza in one hand, and good food in the other. There's the music of the shepherd who spends each day moving his flock around in search of food, only returning late at night. Bells adorn the necks of many in the herd, their discordant tune bouncing around the hillsides.

Which brings me to this story. A couple of days ago we were taken to a local stream at the end of a gravel road (a road we would then walk back up to return to the workaway we are at at the moment).  When we arrived, there was an incredible amount of action going on on the other side of the stream. Two shepherds had arrived with their herd of sheep and goats, on the daily move around the area. Only, the day prior a tree had fallen down and blocked the bridge across the stream and the sheep were not interested in crossing the knee-deep water. So everyone got involved - David included - in trying to move the hundred or so animals across a body of water they were constantly trying to escape. One would eventually fall in the water, another would run free of the herd, then another, and before long the entire herd was running in the opposite direction. So out come the waving arms of the ten people who were just hoping to cool down in the water. Back to the stream's edge the sheep are again moved, for the same scenario to play out again and again. Four poor sheep were physically dragged across the stream. 45 minutes went by, before eventually the tree blocking the bridge was smashed down. Initial hesitation by the already frazzled animals quickly turned into a stampede as they all ran across the bridge (some falling off the bridge and into the water). And then it was all over. The Sheppard's had their sheep on this side of the water, and off they travelled. Swimmers went back to swimming, streams went back to flowing. The rhythm went back to normal.
Only it wasn't all over. Five minutes later one of the Sheppard's returned, with a bleating goat in his arms. A gift for those who helped get his herd home. A live goat.
Only in Spain; where every now and again the rhythm slightly changes beat, and a family is left with a goat to foster.