A month in Mojacar

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When I first arrive in Mojacar, I wasn’t quite sure what to think. I had just left Iceland and the UK and arrived in a resorty little town on the Mediterranean coast of Spain in the middle of summer. It was quite a change.

At first I didn’t really like it. Big rows of sparkly new hotels line the main road, built high for a view of the beach. Bars spill onto the sand and a lot of retired English people lay in the boiling sun, accompanied by Spanish young families and their shrieking children. Everything seems a little swish and new and overdone.

This is one element of this town, but after living there for a month, my opinion changed. I had moved there to start a month internship with Costa Almeria News, an English speaking newspaper that covered the whole Almeria region.

I was to be the feature writer for the month, submitting one article a week. My editor, Richard, and I would determine the subject the week before and then I would go about my way putting something together.

My life was pretty idyllic and picturesque for my month in Mojacar, and I was soon happy to be there.

I was renting a little apartment about a 20 minute walk from the town centre, where the glitz and glamour of the resorts was given up for quiet, charming residential streets. The houses were all whitewashed with vibrant pink bouganvillea draping the fences and the ‘Indalo’, an ancient Almerian symbol for wealth and protection, hanging over every door. The streets were calm and quiet in the middle of the day, when people retreated to cool patios to escape the heat.

My routine was pretty wholesome and lovely. I would wake in the morning and do yoga in my spacious lounge room. It would already be hot, so I would cool off from the activity in my apartment block’s swimming pool. I would eat breakfast on my terrace, which was still in the shade in the morning, looking out over palm trees and the bald, dusty mountains rising in the distance. Sometimes I would work from home, but I liked to go into the office if I could. After a 20 minute walk in the sun, I would arrive a little sweaty to work, but would cool off in front of the fan, looking out my office window at the glistening blue body of the Mediterranean. Richard and I would sometimes get lunch in one of the cafes downstairs, and I chatted while working with Emma and Adele, the other journalists working there. After work I would head to the gym, which was right next-door and try to drown out the Spanish pop music by listening to podcasts. Sweaty and hot after the gym I would walk across the road to the ocean, where I would have a dip in the cool water. If I was feeling energetic I would walk to my favourite stretch of beach a little out of town, Rio Abajo, which is unadorned by bars or hotels and for some reason was never crowded. The sand sloped into smooth pebbles that rustle as the waves pull back and forth over them. I lay in the evening sun, now bearable to stay in.

Once the sun went down, my terrace would be cool enough to sit on, and I would eat my dinner breathing the fresh sea air, listening to cicadas or the babbling of my two year old neighbour who always liked to say ‘Hola’ whenever you passed her terrace.

This routine changed a little depending on what I was writing about that week.

Week 1: A perfect introduction to the area, on this week I was a tourist. The Almeria region is full of things to see, but notorious for it’s lack of tourist infrastructure, making it very difficult to see the sights without a car. I spent the week trying to explore the region without a car and reported on it. I went into Almeria city where I saw the Alcazaba, an incredible Moroccan style fort which was very similar to the Alhambra in Granada, but smaller and empty of crows. I also visited the famous underground bomb shelters, which are 4km long and were dug by hand by the citizens of Almeria during the Spanish Civil War, complete with food storage and a hospital to serve the citizens of the city in case of emergency. I also visited the gorgeous Cabo de Gata National Park. I took a bus and then hired a bike to ride out to the notoriously beautiful beaches in the park. After a sweltering and hair raising ride along a horribly bumpy road frequented by streams of buses and cars, I discovered that there was a bike path. But despite this frustration, the beaches were gorgeous and a relief from the desperately hot sun.

Week 2: An amusing second week, exploring the naturist community of Vera, one town over from Mojacar. While there I discovered that the naturist (no clothes) community would be holding a Guinness World Record Attempt for the Worlds Largest Skinny Dip. After a little deliberation and much encouragement from Pete, I decided to participate. It was roasting hot on the day and my colleague from work was there to take photos (!!!!) so I was a little reluctant to take my clothes off. But eventually I did and I sat with the others in our marshalling area, waiting for us to be counted. The record to beat was 460 and we had 729 people!!!!!! Elated (and nude) we all ran into the water at the same time, cheering while a helicopter flew overhead and took photos. We were all officially Guinness World Record Holders!

Week 3: This week was a little more sombre, where I looked at the water crisis in Almeria and the pretty absolute failure to deal with it properly. Almeria has the only desert in Europe and because of climate change is only getting hotter. It’s undergoing something called ‘desertification’. And yet sprinklers run all day, in 37 degree heat, to keep the lawns in the town centre green. Also a burgeoning green-house farming industry has popped up in the region. This innovation is bringing in lots of money for the region but is putting strain on an already struggling water supply.

Week 4: For my final week I participated in Equine Psycotherapy. This is a really interesting branch of therapy that is often used with prison inmates and children with learning disabilities or behavioural issues. I went along for a session assuming it would be easy. But after 15 minutes of trying to get a horse to move, I just wanted to cry. I was totally incapable of doing it! But when I did get the strength and confidence to make it follow me, it was pretty amazing. I felt elated and then could make it go over jumps and run in circles. When it rolled on its back in the dirt, a sign of trust in horses, I wanted to cry again but with happiness.

I left soon before this article was published. On my last afternoon I handed in the keys for my sweet little yellow apartment, had cheesy tapas and strong Sangria with Richard and his wife and then waved goodbye to the beautiful Mediterranean on my 14 hour bus to Barcelona, where I was to meet my sisters.

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