Cortijada Los Gazquez - Vida en 1000m. Parque Natural Sierra Maria Los Velez. Andalucia.

… for we have a new road across this alpine desert from Vélez Blanco to Cortijada Los Gázquez. (Not all the way mind, we don’t want to be too close to civilization)

It’s eight in the evening and it’s hot, humid hot. The world cup final is about to commence and everyone is running around in preparation despite the humidity. The sun lies low beyond the Sierra del Oso and the approaching storm cloud forks the earth with lightning. We pray for a Spanish victory, we pray for rain. An aljibe, (the underground rain water collection tank) that is full is like money in the bank and we want Spain to celebrate. Viva España as we English like to say.

To the left El Gabar, to the right Las Almohallas, in the distance La Sagra and in the middle in the Hoya de Carrascal, Cortijada Los Gázquez.

This was the view at 8.45 this morning having crossed the Sierra Larga through the crunching snow. I guess last night was around -8. Not too cold. We have a client coming from Canada who tells me Edmonton was -30 but then I have a cousin in Deluth, Minnesota who tells me -30 is more comfortable than 0 as there is no moisture in the air. Her husband did his national service in the south of England in the fifties and he says he was never so cold as he was at about 2 degrees.

The return journey at 2.30 was a little different. A warm front passed by bringing heavy showers and some sun. We caught some wet vultures in this rainbow but they will be too small for you to see. Now, once more the sky is clear, the stars are out and a strong wind is pushing 30 amps from the wind turbine, gusting up to 50 or 60 putting on the brakes. A solar powered house needs winter wind. Days are short at about 7 hours (considering the sun has to get over the mountains) for photo voltaic panels alone. The house is running at about 50% in terms of it’s power consumption and the wind will keep us running comfortably through the night.

The school run was aborted this morning. It’s not that we couldn’t get out it’s more about not guaranteeing to be able to go back and collect them. Hey, let’s go sledging instead….

I called today, Saturday, at the cortijo of Tomas, brother of Pepe. Cortijo Pozo Moreno, it translates as dark well. He and his family no longer live here, they have modern houses in Velez Blanco with bathrooms and T.V.s.

Cortijo Pozo Moreno leans against the ruin of it’s former bread oven and folds backwards into the hill side it is built upon. Tomas extols it’s virtues. Cold and quiet. The two virtues most rare in modern Spain. Originally the cortijo of their uncle, Pozo Moreno is used as a refuge to the old ways of life. With his sons they now hunt wild boar from here and red legged partridge. When autumn comes they cook chorizo on the embers of the open fire whilst drinking a beer or a glass or two of wine. Tomas rocks the cradle in the corner, ‘my cradle’ he says with pride.

A definitive ‘no thank you’ from me is my practiced way of politely declining a cold beer at eleven in the morning. Sure I want to integrate, but I can’t go that far. Instead I enquire why and when were all these farms abandoned. ‘Sometime in the eighties’, came the reply.

Now I always assumed that it was the fascist dictator Franco and his evil suppression of dissident views, his use of coercion and censorship, torture and prison camps that was responsible for this empty countryside. After all where is one most likely to find the ferment of unrest but in the poor and left wing inclined campo. So if these people wanted to go to France, as many did, and work in the vineyards that’s fine. If they wanted to find work in the factories of the industrialised Barcelona or Zaragoza that’s OK too. How better could a de facto regent control his subjects other than to let them voluntarily expel themselves or willingly enter themselves to a bonded and non unionised labour force.

But hang on, Franco died in 1975 and they re-wrote the constitution in 1978 bringing democracy. This is possibly four or five years before the granjeros upped sticks from here. Obviously the lure of greater financial rewards from working elsewhere proved too much for many here. Yet Tomas and most of the other residents of the Comarca de Los Velez are so proud of their region, it’s culture and traditions, why were they so keen to go?

Tomas and I surveyed the barranco (small fluvial system or brook) in front of the cortijo. We examined the ruins of the balsa (irrigation tank) and we traced the ruins of the acequia (irrigation canal). Through the terraced and contoured hill side Tomas spoke of the potatoes they used to grow. Tomatoes, salad, vegetables. The pigs they kept, the sheep and goats, the rabbits for the pot. Pomegranate, chestnut, quince, olives, apricots and pears. Grapes for the table and grapes for the wine. Grain from the fields to bake the bread. Strong and straight white beams of the poplar for building their houses and the houses of their sons when they brought a young wife back up the mountain.

We walked back to the cortijo, I chewing on a dry blackberry, to the the cool of it’s interior away from the hot sun. ‘So what happened here’, I asked, ‘why did everyone leave these mountains?’

‘It stopped raining’ came the reply. Tomas went on, ‘the dark well, the Pozo Moreno, could fill a 20,000 litre balsa in 24 hours. Summers are always hot and dry here but the winter brought snow and the spring plenty of rain. But now, although it still snows and rains, there is not enough to keep these wells productive not enough to feed a family. The climate changed and it’s getting drier’.

‘Here’ he says ‘this bottle of wine is for you. It’s from Cordoba’.

‘Thank you’ I reply, ‘White wine, is it sweet or dry?’

‘Try it’ he replies instantly pouring me a glass. I have no choice. He has got me. No matter how strong my resolve was not to waste the day induced by the sleepiness of alcohol (a lifelong rule on my part) he had got me. It’s fortified too.