Last weekend we stayed with a man called Neil Armstrong! Dad had found him through the help-x website and we arranged to visit him to see if we wanted to take care of and work on his house while he goes back to England in March. We stayed for two nights and also had a look around at the area in the car at properties and land. Also, we met some people who were ,like we wanted to, trying to live cheaply and self-sufficiently.
Neil had a big house and about 2 acres of land. He was a very interesting man with lots of stories to tell and there was a stray tom-cat who had taken a liking to Neil. It (the cat) looked a bit like like a Siamese and was about the same size as Oz which didn’t go down to well with him (Oz). The tom-cat was really beautiful and very friendly.
On the day we arrived at Neil’s house, we went to the local “Rastro” (aka flea market) nearby which happens once a month. Around Orgiva (the town close to Neil’s house and the Rastro) there are lots of New-age travellers and hippies living who came to the area because of a big music festival which used to take place here.There were lots of them at the rastro It was a nice change from the other towns in rural Spain which are gradually dying out because of the lack of young people.
On our car expeditions, we met 2 other groups living in the same area (the western Alpujarras). The first were a couple (names forgotten) who lived in a finka in the same valley as Neil. They had two horses, lots of land and took on people looking to help-x. They were English too and were growing some of their own food. One of the things they advertise that they do on the help-x website is natural horsemanship. This turned out to be a form of controlling their horses which involves replicating what would happen if the horses were in the wild. It was very interesting hearing about all the different gestures which the horses reacted to in different ways and how they corresponded to the wild!
The other people we met were a family who lived near Monchile which is close to Granada but still in the Alpujarras. They were a Scottish family (we didn’t meet the children though) who lived there full time. They made their own wine (!!) and ran a small bicycle tour buisiness from their house which they built themselves. They built the house out of pre-made rammed-earth bricks. They also had three dogs which Oz got on well with. All the dogs were really nice but my favourite was this brown-haired one which, when it wanted you to throw a stick for it, would do a mid-air twirl!!
It was a really interesting weekend and we met some cool people.
We got back on Monday and are now getting near to the end of our house-sit here in La Vinuela. As usual though we’ve no firm plans as to what’s next.
Hasta luego!
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