Poeple – The Casa Halcon Diary

LOVE & HATE August 2020

6 Nations in one House

The world we live in is divided, and always will be, by nature.

Between the hunters and the hunted, the perpetrators and the victims, people that love Brussels sprouts (I do) and ones that hate them. Some people prefer dogs over cats, or vise versa.

The divisions exist mostly in our brains, through judgments.

We are at present divided by fear and confusion. Fear against a virus, that is part of the ‘flu and cold viruses, but behaves differently, seemingly unpredictable, because we haven’t had time and experience to suss it out yet.

We are unsure whether mask wearing is life saving or nonsense, at least I am, because different so-called experts give diametrically opposed answers.

Our collective governments chose to restrict the most basic of human needs, to socialise, meet our families, carry out our hobbies (singing, playing wind instruments, mens’sheds, dancing) that help our mental well-being, all in the name of trying to save us from a virus, that to date has officially killed just about 0.026 per cent of the world population.

Conspiracy theories don’t help with feeling calm, all of it adds up to feeling completely controlled, by the virus and the governmental restrictions, and at the same time not feeling in control of our life at all.

However, here we are receiving guests.

August has been a very busy months, thankfully, making up for the 4 months of solitude. We had even non-Spanish visitors, from France, Brasil, Holland, Ireland (although living in La Linea) and Portugal. One day we were six nations assembled:

Irish, German, Colombian, Moroccan, Bulgarian, Spanish.

Of course, we both are already two and then four guests make up six.

Guests either love it here, and 90% do, or they hate it.

There is a kind of person that should not be here, should not book here; mainly city-dwellers that need to be right there where the action is and other people; where everything is in walking distance, bars, cafes, restaurants, parks, entertainment. Some people hate to drive over the dusty, bumpy road with their beloved car and yes, the Spanish like to keep their cars shiny and clean.

Most people like a bargain; I do, but read no further than the price and end up here, en el campo.

We had a run of the friendliest people that gave us 10 point reviews on Booking.com but also a few flops, people that were unhappy and gave us bad reviews.

One couple arrived in the afternoon, their faces already not as bright as could be, saw the room and ask if there is a terrace, which I showed them and also the other bedroom upstairs. They favoured it as opposed to the high-quality sofa bed downstairs. Unfortunately it was only available for two nights, not the three nights they had booked. They proceeded to lie down for a rest and after an hour went out, never to be seen again.

An hour later I received the cancellation on my handy. Right, well, I feel it was a bit childish to walk away like that instead of trying to sort something out. I could have given the other room for two nights and then returned the money for the third night. I now get to keep the payment for three days, but they gave us a bad review. It seems to be a recurring theme that the Spanish are too proud to admit they made a mistake and have to find reasons why our place is unacceptable to them.

Another time the guests arrived also in the afternoon, he got out of the car, was shown the room, changed his clothes and drove away. He returned some time later, had a shower and left, again, never to be seen again. His girlfriend didn’t even get out of the car. He also left a bad review, he didn’t even stay overnight. He was not treated any different and everything was the same as for any other guest.

You can’t please everyone, certainly not when the expectations are different from reality.

We go out of our way to please our guests, make up dinners or lunches at the drop of a hat, breakfasts at 7.00am, will accommodate early or late arrivals and Nigel provides most of the entertainment, coaxing Spanish to speak English and most oblige and even get to enjoy practising a long forgotten foreign language.

And then…. there came a knock on our front door on Sunday noon. We did not expect anybody; our last guests were just ready to leave. Upon opening the door I saw two casually dressed men, shorts, sunglasses, t-shirts and a Toyota car. And then they identified themselves as the local police and told me there was a ‘denuncia’, we have been reported. I think our guests were more in shock than we were, because I am duly licenced and have an accountant to show i am willing to pay tax, if I had enough income. So I proceeded to copy the requested documentation and they informed me I had to take details of every guests ID, passport or similar. I was actually waiting for somebody official to tell me what I needed to do. Obviously it is up to the entrepreneur to obtain this information for themselves. That is what I fell down on and my excuse was that Booking.com keeps all that info. Anyway, they said they would email me a program, so I can easily input all the required information, and so I wait… In the meantime I am of course complying, so they won’t pull me up a second time, as they promised to be back.

I first suspected a couple of guests that booked for three days, but disappeared after an hour’s rest without a word and subsequently cancelled the booking. I got in touch with them and they swore it wasn’t them. So who objects to our little business we will probably never know.

Emil

And then there was Emil (not his real name) from Holland, that arrived here with his tent and not much more than stories to his name. With thirty-five years of age, his mother pulled the purse strings because he had lost his passport so many times, that the police thought he sold it off. There is a reason of course for his misfortunes. At fifteen he had a bad car accident which left him in a coma for a week and since then he has trouble focusing, remembering and concentrating. Anytime he needs some funds, he calls his mum to explain how much, what for and she would transfer some to his account.

He, or rather his mother, booked for one night and he stayed six.

We felt sorry for him and brought him along to the beach and to a night out in El Rocio, together with another guest. On her last night, we had a little sun-downer on the upper terrace, Gin&Tonics, music and some Aniseed liquor, Emil’s favourite. He fell for her hook, line and sinker, but she had to return to her friends and job in Malaga.

Guapa & Ingles

We have added to our menagerie of hens, cats and dogs and now have permanently also two horses on loan from Sandrine, the owner of Doñana Horse Adventure. Ingles came first, he is 24 years old and retired. When our neighbours horses were still around, he was happy having the odd chat with them. But they went home, having eaten everything available, and so he went in search of company, jumping the fence and breaking a few posts in the process. To alleviate his loneliness Sandrine brought along Guapo, a white temperamental seven-year old. Now they are happy together, although Guapo is a little bully, trying to get his fair share of oats and more.

Isla Cristina, Huelva FISHING PORT

The harbour on Isla Cristina, just after Huelva town, is one of the most important fishing ports in Spain, so a guest told us. So we went to visit some Saturday evening. It took us one hour to get there. Isla Cristina is also one of the summer hotspots for life on the beach with numerous holiday apartments, hotels and holiday homes.

Here we see the gritty, dirty side of the sea, although in the evening all is quiet, the fishermen still resting from the early morning return with their big catches, which are being sold in the market hall and now in the many restaurants scattered throughout the town.

We select a quiet restaurant, Bar Escobalin (you can download their menu) directly at the harbour which sits relatively forlorn on Calle Muelle Marina, where the working boats are anchored. At half past eight we are, as usual, too early and have to go for another little stroll to watch the crabs slowly walking sideways away from the incoming tide.

At nine o’clock the owner proceeds to take out more tables and chairs and the small restaurant grows into a rather large affair, it seems it is a well-known place to eat away from the restaurants opposite the Lonja de Isla Cristina, the seafood market, where you find later on the crowds eating the fish and seafood caught in the night.

In fact, this seafood market functions like an auction house, where all the fish is coming along a conveyor belt and is being sold off to the traders and restaurants. It opens at 3.30am and sells its wares until 8pm.

Here is a video clip from facebook, which makes dead fish seem sexy https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=925781284180693

Of course the Gamba Blanca de Huelva are famous all over Spain and command a price, depending on their size, from €25/kilo to up 125€/kg.

And ordering a small dish of Huelva gambas in garlic and olive oil in a restaurant will set you back around €14.00.

We ate well for €32.00 with two tapas as starters and two racíon medio and one plato, a good slice of pez espada, swordfish. Yes, we were hungry and enjoyed our night out, because with so many guests we seldom have time to go out in the evenings.

A lot can happen in a small space of time……

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Gibraltar

view of the Rock

view of the harbour, Bay of Algeciras

view of the harbour at night

As a treat for the New Year, seeing that it is the big 2020, we wanted to celebrate in style the incoming new decade, or at least that was my wish.

After considering Seville, Huelva or even Almonte, we agreed to check out Gibraltar, as we had omitted this English enclave on our Grand Tour in 2017. We booked the very nice four-star Rock Hotel for two nights, which would bring us nicely into the new year maybe with a bit of a party. The line up on the Casemates Square wasn’t exciting but at least some fireworks were promised, which turned out to be lovely. It’s been a long time since I, a Berliner, have seen fireworks. And we Berliners always put on a stunning amount of exploding stars, sparks in all colours and fire showers and going on for an hour all over the city, with thousands of parties and live music events. I miss that, being out in the sticks on a farm in the middle of Ireland for 25 years and now living in the Pampa near the National Park. My wish was fulfilled in Gibraltar, we had fireworks, music and I did a bit of dancing, too, just me. Gibraltarians don’t seem very enthusiastic when it comes to abandonment, must be the stiff upper lip syndrome.

burst

I can recommend ‘The Rock Hotel’, the lounge and food are really enjoyable, but don’t expect too much of the bar. There was only one draught beer. They also could not mix me an Aperol Spritz, which is Aperol, Prosecco and orange (they did not have Aperol), I took a Martini instead of the Aperol, which also worked well; but their Gin selection is very good! The service was rather slow and reminded us a bit of ‘Faulty Towers’, the bar man equally as enjoyable as Manuel. The staff is mainly Moroccan, but very friendly and obliging. Breakfast is a steep £17.95 per person, of course it is good quality and they even cater for gluten-intolerant guests, which is a bonus. One excellent breakfast at that price was enough for us, so after check-out the next morning we wandered into town for a pub breakfast in ‘The Horseshoe’, which was a third of the price and also good and quick.

The Rock Hotel

WWindsor Suspension Bridge

Windsor Suspension Bridge

view of the Bay of Algeciras

So what is Gibraltar like? It’s basically just a rock with a skirt of land, where all the houses sit and then further up is the Gibraltar Nature Reserve with a lot of historical military batteries and the monkeys of course! In fact they belong to the species of apes, which means they do not have tails and a bigger brain. On Gibraltar live the Barbary Macaques, which were introduced to the area of Gibraltar by the Moors from the Atlas Mountains who lived there between 700 and 1492, Wikipedia tells us. There are about 300 of them in groups and you can watch their antics, especially lousing each other. They ignore people, as you are not allowed to feed them. They are fed peanuts from what we could see.

Barbery apes

up the tree

young and last years baby

curious baby monkey

‘lousing’

eating the nectar

The views from up the rock are stunning, the mainland of Spain, the strait of Gibraltar and of course Morocco, especially Ceuta, which is a Spanish enclave and ferry go there daily, and another trip to make on our list.

Apart from that it hasn’t got a lot going for it, we think. It is, no surprise, very British, all the shops are your usual stores you find in England. Unfortunately the architecture is not very appealing, a mix of Spanish, military and utilitarian. It misses the cute English cottage style. Even though there is no tax, we don’t think it makes that much difference, as prices are steep lending to its place as tourist destination. Of course cigarettes and booze, alcohol, are really cheaper. So we got cigarettes for friends and I stocked up on Gin, it is still even cheaper than in Spain.

Brexit information?

post box

Parson’s Lodge

view of the rock & mosque

stocking up on the good stuff

Brexit information?

post box

stocking up on the good stuff

On the way to Gibraltar we dropped off a guest with his bicycle at he bike shop in Cadiz, our last good deed in 2019. On the way home we looked at the surfing capitol Tavira.

CADIZ IMPRESSIONS

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TAVIRA

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dig

Getting Your Car through the NCT Spanish Style

Our little Toyota Auris has done a good many journeys to and from Ireland and brought us around Spain, reliable and economic, packed to the hilt and bicycles on top. So we cherish her. That’s why we went through the procedure to import her to Spain. We engaged a ‘gestor’, an agent that knew about the complicated way to do that and all went well, eventually. Two years on the Spanish NCT, the ITV (Inspección Técnica de Vehículos), now tells us on the retest date, that we need to replace the entire back lights as the fog light and pilot light are on the wrong side. Why only now? More expenses we grumbled and hoped through our good mechanic to maybe get second-hand lights. But alas, no, they had to be purchased new. So it was done and we went back. Only to be told now we also had to do the entire set of front lights.

This whole episode reminded us of the first private doctor we visited for the annual check-up. It took three visits to finally get a referral for the blood test to be done by a specialised laboratory. Anywhere a professional is involved means several repeat visits so they can get the most out of it.

Glass window for stove

Our cast-iron chimney insert has done us one year of good service. The guests love to come home at night to a blazing fire and a nice warm house. Unfortunately one of the windows cracked when Nigel tightened the screw and we needed a replacement quickly. So I thought the correct way to achieve full satisfaction would be to order one from the very company that manufactures them and we bought it off, Bronpi. So I sent an email with our customer details and photo of both the stove and the catalogue picture, to make sure it would be an exact match. No reply. A week later I phoned them and ordered one window, giving them our customer number, so they had our previous purchase details on file. We actually went the 2 ½ hours drive to their shop in Lucena to collect the pane of glass, only to realise on our return – it didn’t fit, it is too small. This was a week before Christmas, no way would there be one available before the new year. In the end I went to a specialist glass shop 5 minutes from us in the industrial estate, it took 5 minutes to cut the right size. Now, why didn’t we do that before?

My friend Teresa then helped me, in fact she wrote it, to fire off a sharp email to Bronpi complaining about the wrong glass. And lo and behold, the next day I got a phone call from them apologising and asking what I wanted, my money back, of course. Their solution is to send a courier to collect the wrong glass and refund us the money. Right that seems complicated as in fact there is a hardware store in Almonte that sells Bronpi products. That was two weeks ago and I have not heard from them since.

But this is Spain where things seem to take a few turns before coming to an end, satisfactorily or otherwise.

Neighbour Trouble

So you would think, that moving to Spain to the countryside, to a spot that nobody has heard of back home, including ourselves, would make life simpler and less eventful because we have only one direct neighbour, who is Spanish, and further up the road another couple, happen to be German and English.

Apart from the trials and tribulations to set up home, renovate and grow roots, of course a constant stream of strangers, that give us money to stay in our house, gives us enough entertainment and reasons to throw our arms to heaven.

Last week however the drama really came to our doorstep. On the way to the NCT (ITV) our Spanish neighbour called us into his house to view his security camera footage. It showed a guy seemingly dancing, shouting, and taking his shirt off, knocking at the door and acting otherwise quite strange. He wasn’t supposed to be there, the property is fenced, the gate locked and has a bundle of big dogs apart from the cameras, and nobody was at home.

It turned out to be the English guy, in a state of mental confusion. He run away from home, believing his wife wants to kill him. We met her later on and she told us that indeed he has a psychosis brought on by years of drug use and now being on withdrawal, and she was trying to find him. He appeared again in the afternoon on the camino, shouting and calling for Nigel. He briefly came inside the gate, Nigel trying to calm him down. A short while later the police arrived being called by our neighbour, and all went very still. In their presence he took his prescribed medication and everybody went home eventually. We helped out over the next couple of days by letting the wife have our jeep, as theirs was gone and they have no transport other than a bicycle, to be able to attend the clinic, the police station and the court; a long story, a sad story, a common story. He is now in a mental intuition after spending two nights on the streets and she wants to get a divorce, as after 15 years she has enough of trying to keep him out of trouble, always looking after him and realising that it has sapped all her strength and energy.

new achievement

perfection

The Virgen Comes to Almonte

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Our town Almonte has worked itself into a fever pitch preparing for the arrival of the Virgen of El Rocio, La Paloma Blanca, the White Dove how she is called among many other names. And so the decorations include millions of white paper flowers strung over the streets and around poles, at windows and archways. The Virgin herself is a small, 12^th century statue of Mary and the baby Jesus, but here in El Rocio she is the Virgin of the Dew (= Rocio), or the Mother of the Marshes (of the Doñana National Park). A small nugget of useless information: her statuary vestment was designed by no other than Yves Saint Laurent in 1985.

This is a very important occasion which only occurs every seven years and of which the Almonteñas are very proud of. For nine months the much loved statue will reside in the church in Almonte until she is returned to her home in El Rocio.

As with all religious or historical festivities the Spanish put in an enormous amount of work and effort to make this a fiesta to remember.

The whole way along which the Virgen is carried is sumptuously festooned, archways and domes are constructed and decorated by hand with rosemary sprigs and palm fronds, white crepe paper and gold lamé.

Camino de las Llanos

street in Almonte

side street

El Chaparral

But the hardest part is the midnight pilgrimage from the shrine in El Rocio to the church in Almonte. The Virgin is carried in her sedan on the shoulders of the parishioners on a 15 km long fairly rough camino, with no lighting and any amount of dust.

The plan was apparently to leave El Rocio at 20.00 in the evening on the 19th of August, but excitement and sheer exuberance eroded the patience of the participants and so they started moving at half past four in the afternoon. That meant the main road between Matalascanas and Almonte and further to Sevilla was closed; which meant a detour of two hours for us, as I saw fit to spend a few hours at the beach on that very day, knowing full well that the next day that this road would be a no-go because of the returning traffic from El Rocio and Almonte. So we had to divert along a camino that cuts across the National Park from Mazagon to Almonte. A scenic but rather rough drive with about a hundred speed bumps scattered along the way.

Plaza Virgen del Rocio

To us this fanatical veneration of a statue seems strange, particular when most people we ask answer that they are not really religious. The Spanish just like a reason to arrange a fiesta and then be in the midst of it, seen and be seen, they love being part of a crowd. This of course is another reason why Spain is the party destination per se.

Of course having a holy statue also helps to generate income from visitors and a lot of new shops have sprung up selling everything from holy pictures, to plates, t-shirts, bags, medals and other religious paraphernalia. A few new bars and restaurants have opened and every building got a makeover.

For some reason, the virgin seems to be particular poplar with the gay community. We frequently have gay couples staying that plan to go to the shrine in El Rocio. Mind you, there is also a fiesta with food, drink and marihuana to be had in El Rocio. So one goes with the other I presume.

[see also the blog describing the Pentecost pilgrimage: http://christophotto.com/andalucia-the-miracles-of-el-rocio and more http://www.andalucia.com/festival/rocio.htm ]

We were told that up to a million visitors were expected, so we thought we could make a killing. Initially I had my rooms booked out for those three days, only to have all of the reservations cancelled in advance. So I raised the price for the last-minute bookers, only to end up with a nearly empty house. I can only assume that people decided to save the money as they would not have needed a bed being on the camino all night and then afterwards, tanked up on coffee, headed home or to a nearby couch in a friends house. Our experience with renting our rooms now is that up to a certain price people are willing to pay, beyond that they will just find other accommodation, even though we are on the lower price bracket. Of course other providers in El Rocio or Matalascañas are flexible and adjust their prices downwards to attract guests, and if I am not on the ball, I miss out.

Saying that, having the house a few days to ourselves is a welcome break and gives my head peace. It’s not easy for a rather introvert person like myself to continuously welcome strangers into our home, worse when they also want to use my very own sacrosanct kitchen, even if it is only to make coffee, constantly. After all, I want to supplement our income by providing home-cooked meals and hearty breakfasts to our guests.