Working the Land

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Well with another busy week of work done and dusted, we headed out to a little farm North of Malaga, where we were to live and work with a nice Spanish family for two weeks.

Or so we thought.

Upon arriving in the town of Colmenar we were greeted by our gracious host, Adam. Adam, although being a very inviting and interesting person, could not be less Spanish. In fact our Spanish was probably on par with his. Not to be deterred we decided that if couldn´t learn Spanish then we´d learn about organic farming.

Lesson 1: S*¡t happens

2 days of shovelling, bagging, moving, rolling and unloading rancid, flea ridden animal pheacal matter. (Although I was somewhat accustomed to this with my time in the Army, Alison had to ´warm´ to it)

Lesson 2: Organic means no chemicals. No chemicals means fleas.

Staying outside in the caravan next the the flea infested garden was never goin to be easy, but spending 2 days knee deep in it was like an open invitation.

Well we decided to move on from the farm but it wasn´t all doom and gloom. We did actually learn a lot about farming (and ourselves) and Adam was a pretty cool guy. We also met another WWOOFer (people who stay and work on organic farms), Rory, who had ridden his motorbike from Mongolia to London. Way before Ewan.

But there is much in Southern Spain yet unseen to us, so we planned a big loop around Andalucia. First stop is East to a town called Almeria, where the sorrounding countryside has been used as sets for many Spaghetti westerns (including The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) and apparently has some sets still set up (yes this was Stuart´s idea).

So the tired and itchy Hombre loaded up with his Gal and headed into the sunset...

Next Blog... The Wild West!!!

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Photos

Stu in the olive orchard
This may look cruisy, but we can assure you that it was anything but! We were working on a very steep slope cutting wild seeds for the sheep to feed on through the winter.

Exploring the farm
We took a walk when we finished shoveling sh%t for the day, up to an old mill.