Our Saviour

Our saviour came in the form of a 60 year old British woman (thus the British spelling of savior), with whom we had already made contact through HelpX. We had planned on volunteering with her after 2 weeks with the previous hosts, but the circumstances required a frantic phone call to move our arrival date forward.

She quickly agreed and we took the bus just 20 minutes down the road to a much nicer little spa town, known for its bottled water. We were greeted by a whirlwind of energy, warm kisses on both cheeks and lots of chatter. As she drove us up the winding track to her lodging establishment perched high above the white-washed town, we began to breathe a sigh of relief.

The view

Her compound was an oasis of flowers and green in the desert (we soon learned that this oasis required 1.5 hours per day of watering!!!!) complete with 5 little, stand-alone houses (casitas). Each casita had a small kitchen, a bed and bathroom and a terrace or patio. The real gem of the place was the swimming pool and pool bar, stocked with soft drinks, beer and wine that were completely free for our consumption. Almost every night we ate dinner beneath the grape vines alongside the pool.

She often cooked dinner for her guests, who were mainly clients of local companies offering biking, horse riding or hiking tours and we were always invited to join. We were expected to assist with the prep and cleaning after these meals, but we were always treated like family and were free to enjoy our adult beverages while "working". Our hostess was very fair about the hours so that if we worked with clients at night (for example, Michiel and I cooked a Moroccan meal for her guests one night) then we could have a "lie in" the next morning.

We did a variety of tasks here and learned quite a bit about making and canning jams and chutneys, harvesting almonds and walnuts, and cleaning pools amongst other things. The hours were a bit longer than at other hosts, but the accommodation was great (once we moved out of her back bedroom and into a casita) and our hostess was incredibly generous with food and drink. We had coffee breaks and snack time and she was a big proponent of cooling off with a "tinto de verano" before dinner (chilled red wine mixed with lemon soda and lots of lemon slices).

Not only was our hostess generous with drink, she was also generous with her time. She knew that we were looking for places to live so she took us to look at various properties and land for sale. To top it all off, she took both of us out on our respective birthdays to enjoy the local tradition of free tapas with drink orders. (Do you get the sense that there was a lot of wine drinking here?)

On our two days off per week, we took the bus to the famous white villages in the mountains, did some hiking, explored the the little town, swam in the pool and did a lot of reading. There were other volunteers working here, as well as family and friends of our hostess and guests, so there was no lack of socializing opportunity.

Photos from the White Villages

We had originally planned to stay for 2 weeks, but we ended up returning here after Pueblo Ingles (the English Immersion program for Spaniards that we volunteered for). All together, we ended up staying for nearly 5 weeks and had a hard time leaving. In fact, we were even tempted to lodge-sit over the holidays while our hostess returned to the UK.

What made it possible to leave was the fact that we determined that the area was just too dry and extreme for us. The heat of summer lasted well into October and daytime temperatures could still easily reach into the 90s (35 plus degrees C). When we left, nighttime temperatures were falling below freezing and we could feel the bitter cold air flowing off the mountains.

We also had a hard time seeing ourselves thriving in this very traditional Spanish village. We didn´t see that we had much in common with the other expats (mostly older Brits who were into drinking and socializing and had lots of money) and we didn´t find the locals to be particularly intriguing, so we set off to the western region of Andalucia.

We´re BACK!

Happy Belated New Year!

After a long hiatus, it´s time to get back to telling the rest of the Spain story. For those who´ve lost the thread, here´s a recap:

We spent six months travelling around Spain in 2009 with the hope of finding our "perfect place". We volunteered for two weeks at a time in the homes and lodging establishments of a wide variety of characters, using the HelpX website as our means of making contact.

In our last posting, we were in the south of Spain in the heart of the Alpujarras Mountains (Andalucia) and had just been asked by our host to leave. Please use the Previous Post links to the left to read past postings.

Over the next several weeks, I hope to finish telling that story and will get you back up to date on what´s next for us. Thanks for reading and we love to get comments.

Kicked out

After our first Pueblo Ingles week we headed south to an area that we thought would hold great promise for us called the Alpujarras. In fact, several Pueblo Ingles participants had even suggested that we check out this region as one which might meet many of our criteria. The Alpujarras region is a series of valleys on the south side of the Sierra Nevada range, which is home to the highest mountain peak in Spain, the Mulhacen. The valleys in this region are dotted with small, white villages (pueblos blancos) which are huddled together to protect from the cold winters and painted white to reflect the extreme heat of the summer sun. One village in particular was well-known as being a bit of a haven for alternative expats and our HelpX resource listed dozens of hosts looking for assistance.

We chose a host who offered good food and comfortable, separate accommodation(at least that's what the reviewers said) in this "hippy" white village surrounded by mountains. Upon arrival, our Indian (by way of England) host served us a lovely Indian food lunch and we discussed the importance of "open and honest" communication in order for our host/helper arrangement to work out. She also asked whether we had liability insurance as we would be responsible for paying for any damage we incurred. This was a bit of a surprise as we had not encountered this sort of attitude or comment from any prior hosts. Furthermore, that evening she asked to have our passports so that she would have some "collateral" in the event that any tools go "walkies" (which apparently happened with a new weed-wacker). Aside from the fact that it is apparently illegal for a foreigner to walk around without a passport while in Spain, we were flabbergasted by the total lack of trust.

The next day, we started work on a difficult job doing traditional mud plastering over stone walls. Her generally crotchety husband did all of the training, but he barely spoke any English, so she did the translating and when they disagreed we had to wait for them to work things out. It was extremely hot in this part of Spain in late September but we were working inside a shed so we had some shade. We stopped work to have lunch, which was one and a half white bread sandwiches with a thin layer of tomato, a thick layer of mayo and one slice of meat and some potato chips. At one point during the work day, Michiel asked if we could have a snack of some fruit. She hesitated and said, "well, I guess you haven't had any time to go to town to buy and snacks so I suppose I could give you something" before bringing us some sugary biscuits.

Traditional mud plastering involves flinging trowel-fulls of sand and cement at a wall.


On the third day, the hard work, white bread sandwiches, grumpy interactions with the husband, no-snack policy and the total lack of trust ("you did lock the gate, didn't you?"..."why didn't you put the tools away during lunch. I told you to do that, didn't I?") forced us to test out her desire to have "open and honest communications". We told her that we were very uncomfortable with having our passports taken from us and that every other host had provided us with sufficient food to get through the day. She was pretty taken aback and claimed that none of her other volunteers ever complained about these things. In fact, there was another volunteer (a young British guy) who had no complaints about anything (not surprising, really, as most Brits are not comfortable with confrontation or complaining in person).

We finished our conversation, went to our room and 15 minutes later were visited by her with the message that "we just don't have enough time to sit around and talk about these issues, so we think it would be best if you leave." We were relieved that they had forced our hand and made the decision for us. We had spent both evenings discussing whether we should move on but hadn't made the decision to do so, now we had to get on the phone and make some calls to other hosts.

Luckily, we had already contacted a lady in the next town over and she was able to take us a week and a half early. Even more fortunately, we had decided in our 3 days in this alternative town, that we didn't like the feel of it at all.

The town - it looks nice enough, but we didn't take any photos of the dumpster-divers or the raggedy, skeletal and unwashed people.

English Village

For three weeks in the last couple of months, we have been volunteering for a company called Pueblo Ingles ("English Village" or English Billage, as pronounced by Spaniards). Amongst other services, the company puts on 8 day English immersion programs for Spanish-speaking adults. Most of the Spaniards attend the program at the recommendation of and paid for by their companies. Others choose to attend the training for new job opportunities or general interest. We, the Anglos, volunteer to live in this village and speak only English with the participants. In each program, there are about 21 Spaniards and 21 Anglos from all over the world. After a telephone interview, Michiel's English was deemed native-level and he was permitted to attend as an Anglo.

The backbone of the program are the one-to-one sessions. For the majority of the day, a Spaniard is paired up with a different Anglo for a 50 minute session of conversation. The Anglos are not necessarily teachers, so the discussions are just that - discussions on any and all topics (though we were counselled in advance that we might wish to stay away from potentially inflammable topics like bullfighting and the Civil War). In between one-to-one sessions, the Spaniards are required to give two different 5-minute presentations and participate in two different conference calls with Anglos role-playing business scenarios (sales meetings, team strategy sessions, etc.). We also have group activities involving games, theatre, presentations by Anglos, parties and drinking.

Normal people volunteer for only one one-week session per year, but we participated in three programs. After a tremendous first experience, we were asked back by the company to do two back-to-back programs as they were having difficulties finding Anglos to participate and we are conveniently located in Spain.

We've attended the program in two different locations - once in a restored, formerly abandoned village in the north-central part of the country. It was a very special experience because there were no outside distractions - no mobile phone coverage, no television signal and very few other people around. The feeling in this place was truly one of an English village.

Valdelavilla





The other location was in a spa resort, which was surrounded by mountains and the charming little town of La Alberca. The benefit of the location was that we had the possibility of walking to a shop or pharmacy, but the downside of outside distractions (other hotel guests, traffic, constant mobile phone calls, televisions, email access via iPhones and Blackberries, etc.) far outweighed the benefits.

Town of La Alberca




Tasting ham (jamon) and cheese in a bodega



Side trip to the Pena de Francia





Not only have we gotten to know over 60 Spanish people, we've also had the opportunity to get lots of information about possible "perfect places" to live. During each program, I have given a presentation on what we're doing (our volunteer placements) and have given our audience a list of criteria that we are looking for in a perfect place. Without fail, the Spaniards are at first confused and then blown away but what we're doing. Spanish people are not accustomed to moving and it is difficult for them to leave the town in which they grew up much less move to another country. They are generally quite conservative and not willing to live somewhere where they cannot eat their beloved ham. This lack of adventurous spirit is a bit of a concern for us and the more time we spend meeting Spaniards, even from the most open-minded region of Spain, Madrid, the more we think that we might find it very challenging to find a place that meets our most important criteria of a diverse and open-minded community. So, though the Spaniards we've met are some of the kindest, most generous and fun-loving people we've come across anywhere, we are, at times, put off by their inflexibility and lack of curiosity with regards to food and culture. It is not an exaggeration to say that we've seen grown men nearly come to fisticuffs over whether sweet red peppers are an acceptable ingredient in paella.

That said, if we conform ourselves to their customs, we are fully embraced and can have (and HAVE had) wonderful experiences. We've laughed and cried with them and some of them have become good friends. And every so often, one of them completely blows US away with his or her openness, friendship, generosity and humor. This is why we returned to Pueblo Ingles three times and why, though we are still not completely convinced that Spain is the right place for us, we continue to look for our perfect place...and now, we have a handful of new options to investigate.

Fun in Madrid

We left the nuthouse for three days of playing tourist in Madrid. We were unimpressed by our first impressions. In almost every Spanish city, the late nineties and early 2000’s brought an enormous building frenzy. Immigrants and the newly wealthy middle-class provided a ready market for the greedy building developers who went absolutely gangbusters with ugly and sprawling housing developments (urbanizaciones) ringing the cities. As you enter a Spanish city by car or bus, you find it hard to imagine that there are quaint old quarters or barrios and tasteful, beautiful architecture. This is certainly true of Madrid, which has sprawled outward in all directions for at least an hour.

Upon arrival at our hotel, Mom and I chatted on Yahoo Messenger and my reply to her question, “How’s Madrid? I’ve heard it’s beautiful” was “Hmmm. You heard wrong. It’s sprawling and unattractive.” I feel guilty about bad-mouthing Madrid, because after 4 days (on two separate visits), I am really fond of the city. The city center is chock-full of gorgeous buildings, plazas with elaborate fountains, lots of green park space and one of the cleanest and cheapest metro systems I’ve ever seen.

It’s a big city and exploring it on foot is quite a distance workout, but the streets are a delight to walk down (with the major exception of the fact that it was INCREDIBLY hot!) because of the profusion of attractive buildings and tree-lined promenades. I decided that Madrid seemed like a very livable city, albeit a bit expensive (especially compared to the rest of Spain). We have since been told that there’s a real problem with smog and theft, but that hasn’t diminished our enthusiasm for it (as a major city, anyway.)

We saw much in our time there so I’ll just mention the highlights, all of which were totally free!

The Prado Museum free hours – even though the place was packed, we enjoyed the fact that we had from 6 to 8 pm to roam the collection for free.

The cathedral with its Africanesque ceiling and its modern stained glass designs

The Royal Palace on the left and the Cathedral on the right


The rain forest growing inside the Atocha train station


The 1920’s era buildings, gates and fountains along the Gran Via – especially at night

The Bank of Spain


Puerta de Alcala


Buen Retiro and West parks

The architecture exhibit at the Caixa Forum

Walking around the different neighborhoods, from the hip Huerta area to the swanky Salamanca barrio



The Plaza Mayor



Of course, we did get a rather warped view of the city as it absolutely empties during the month of August. Many of the restaurants were closed for summer vacations and apparently, the traffic was reduced to nothing (at least that's what our Spanish friends said...we thought there was still plenty of car activity).