Day 11 - Olives, Family Lunch & Another Mosque!

---

Today we bid a sad adios to the Costa Del Sol. Our beach resort day, and the relaxed start this morning gave us time to recharge our batteries and we were ready to hit the road! My cold is going away, and I should be fine in another day or so. Jody’s problems are probably more allergy related, Europe is old and there’s all kinds of new stuff to be allergic to.

We left this morning for Alfarnatejo, a small village in the mountains of about 400 people. This is not a tourist town, there are no souvenir shops. It’s just and actual farming town where people make their living from growing olives and making olive oil. There is also a little wheat farming, and they are experimenting with pistachio and almond trees, but mainly the business is olive oil. The first place we stopped was the olive oil processing plant. We met our local guide John, a displaced Brit who has been living here for the last 25 years. He walked us through the process of making olive oil, which I actually knew nothing about. Olives are grown on olive trees, planted on the side of the mountain. These trees live easily to 800 years old, with some examples being over 3000 years old. Selling olive oil from several hundred year old trees is a great marketing ploy, but the olives from a new tree and a 3000 year old tree are the same. Olives don’t get better based on the year of the tree.

Olives are harvested typically in winter, from October to February, and they are shaken into nets with mechanical shakers. And the load of olives is taken to the processing plant where the olives are floated to separate them from the twigs and leaves before they are weighed. But the farmer is not payed by the weight of the unprocessed olives, because the olives may contain more water if it has been rainy. Instead, a random sample of the batch of olives is sent out for analysis to determine what percentage of a particular batch is actual olive oil. The farmer is paid only for the oil.

This olive oil processing plant only makes extra virgin olive oil. Back in the days when olives were actually pressed to remove the oil, extra virgin oil would be the oil from the first pressing. Virgin olive oild would be from the second pressing and lamp oil would be from the third and any subsequent pressings. But olives are not pressed anymore. They are spun in a horizontal separator where centrifugal force extracts the oil and water from the olives, and then spun in a vertical separator where oil rises to the top, and the water to the botton to separate the oil from the water. Run it through the filter, and you have extra virgin olive oil!

Since this processing plant only makes extra virgin olive oil, the remaining olive pulp is packaged up and sold to commercial olive oil processing factories. These factories have techniques including solvents and other chemicals to extract olive oil from the remaining pulp. They even have ways to isolate the purity of the oil in such a way that it qualifies to still be called extra virgin olive oil. That doesn’t really seem right!

After the tour of the olive oil processing plant, we came to the real highlight of the day. We were split into three groups, and we were taken into the homes of three women who lived in the village and took us into their homes and cooked whatever they wanted for us as long as it traditional Spanish food. Each group got different meals depending what the women felt like cooking. Our cook was Vanessa, and along with her husband Julio, took us into their home and made us a delicious meal. There was apicture on the wall in her living room or her and Julio dancing the tango in full costume when they were young. They were both very nice, and proud of their house and their food.

We started with some kind of salad that also included some sweet fruit, along with pimentos, olives, and onions. Next it was a chickpea soup made with chicken broth and noodles. For the main course we had some kind of spicy meatballs, with potatoes and vegetables. For dessert we has some kind of cinnamon pastry, and a plate of apple and banana slices with whipped cream and a caramel sauce. At the end, there was some local sweet wine, that Jody and I skipped of course, and then a final coffee. It was one of the best meals we have had on this trip, and we could tell that Vanessa was really proud of her house and her cooking.

Now that we were stuffed from our lunch in Alfarnatejo, it was time to head back to the bus and drive over the mountains to Alhambra. The mountains were awesome! The views rivaled anything we saw out west in the USA, and I could only wish I had my Goldwing out cruising these roads. But instead, we had to do it by bus, and we were too soon in Alhambra.

Alhambra is a huge Moorish complex started in the 8^th century and continued to expand until 1492 when all the Moors were thrown out of Spain. Alhambra consists of 7 palaces, some in ruins, one is a hotel, but 3 we were able to visit. It was originally surrounded by both an inner and outer wall, and a lot of these walls are still standing. Unlike the cathedral in Cordoba, this Mosque was only partially converted for use as a Catholic church, with most of the buildings being used as summer palaces by the various royalty over the years. In the 20^th century, there was a more concerted effort to restore the facility to its original beauty, so that now it still has some of the original Moorish beauty, with modern windows and gardens to make it an interesting place to visit.

While Alhambra was interesting, it was really hot today, and people were getting tired of the long walk. So by 6:30, we were done, and ready to head to the hotel in Grenada. Tonight was a free night for dinner, but most of us were still stuffed by our big lunch. Dominic set up a quick drinks and snacks at the bar for Insight past guests, so we headed over for a few snacks and some sparkling water, before heading out for some gelato for dinner. There were a few gelato shops around the hotel, so we picked one and topped off a perfect day.

Tomorrow, we continue up to Valencia and a promised Paella demonstration and dinner in the old city tomorrow night.

---