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Published: January 30th 2008
Five years ago, a family journeyed from England to a hovel in Ronda in Andalucia in the south of Spain for Christmas. There they battled condensation, mould, a gas system constantly threatening the risks of an explosion and/or a cold water blast for anyone in the shower, temperatures low enough for indoor conversations to be conducted in a mist of steaming breath, and an oven seemingly operating on candle power, in order to celebrate the festive season. The venue was my sister C's house. It took me half a decade to summon up the necessary psychological strength to return again.
There were several reasons drawing me back, ranging from helping C with some DIY tasks, to practising a smidgin of Spanish in advance of my trip to South America, to simply feeling a visit to my elder sibling was long overdue. A flight from Teesside took us to Malaga, and a snack in a greasy spoon at Malaga bus station brought back memories of similar establishments in China - cheap food with no-nonsense service at easy-clean tables amidst cigarette-puffing locals who'd apparently taken root. The difference was I was actually in a country whose alphabet was my own, whose words
often bore more than a passing resemblance to those in my native tongue, where my countrymen had visited in such numbers that a menu without an English section was the exception rather than the norm, and where physically I was little different to the natives. I was unsure how Europe would feel to me after some of the exotica I'd encountered elsewhere in the last couple of years.
Ronda lies in the hills just over 110 km north of Malaga, and the bus journey took us through green countryside lit by an incandescent sun that made up in brightness what it may have lacked in temperature. Griffin vultures soared silently over the many olive groves that are a feature of the land. The town has experienced an enormous amount of construction this millenium, but its heart is still that of a market town. The small whitewashed houses clustered on the hillsides were designed to cope with the excesses of the summer heat (temperatures over 35C are not uncommon), meaning winter days are better spent outside than in their chilly interiors. The house is sandwiched between an empty plot that the owners are seeking some unrealistic amount of money for,
and the home of 2 dogs that clearly sensed the presence of an Englishman and barked rabidly whenever I appeared on their radar.
C is a tour manager for SAGA, a company specialising in holidays for the older generation. Her job has taken her all over the world, handling burst colostomy bags, mislaid prosthetic limbs, and assorted cuts/scrapes/sprains/breaks/deaths, from Bariloche to Beijing, Nordkapp to Tierra del Fuego. The tales of drunkenness, lechery, and general bacchanalian behaviour she has acquired would throw down the gauntlet to any Club 18-30 holiday. However she has also picked up more tangible items, which now made the house of my last visit feel more like a home. Walking around the building is to take a trip around the globe. As I padded across Moroccan carpets, peering at Australian Aboriginal artwork, Cuban toothpaste paintings, and wooden butterflies from Ecuador, I took care not to impale myself on the reindeer antlers from Finland. My morning milk was drunk from a German gluhwein mug that I rested on a guinea fowl tablecloth from South Africa. At night, a mirrored Indian bedspread covered me and a good luck charm from China ensured I had only the sweetest of
dreams.
C is 5'4" and has a liking for mobiles, large lampshades, and other pendulous ornaments that fill up the large space between her head and the ceiling. I am 6'3" and not used to dealing with an aerial obstacle course. My progress around the house could be mapped by the bouts of cursing that indicated collisions with various items - headbutts of the spiked metal lampshade in my bedroom caused the loudest outbursts. I'd like to think that breaking the shower on my second day there was a sheer coincidence and that the thing was on the verge of collapse anyway.
Moorish influences such as a town bathhouse derive from Ronda's proximity to North Africa, but traditions such as endless lunch-breaks and a 3 hour siesta period in the afternoon when all the shops shut are most definitely European. Under a daily deep blue sky, tourists amble the cobbled streets admiring the bullring in which unmounted bullfighting was first popularised, and gawping at the bridge spanning the trademark gorge that splits the town. I was charmed anew by it all, with no decisions more pressing each day than which cafe in which to enjoy the menu del
dia over a large glass of wine and a musical backdrop of Julio Iglesias.
I was less impressed by Spanish TV - even without the language barrier, the CSI marathons and interminable Simpsons reruns would not have appealed. I also saw adverts for a show called "Without tits there's no heaven", whose subject matter I can only guess at (plastic surgery?) It was also amusing to hear, in the context of laptops, wi-fi pronounced "whiffy", though Ronda itself is by no means a whiffy hot spot hot spot.
I'm sure the main character in "The Alchemist" must have been slightly cheesed off that his destiny had him spending the rest of his days in the desert rather than Andalucia (though it's entirely possible I missed the point of the book). If I hadn't already pledged my retirement years to Bali, Andalucia would be a strong contender.
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Kristen
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Great photos!
I love the bulls-eye window, have never seen anything like that before. I aspire to take better architectural photographs, so looking at photos like yours gives me ideas.