No more Mediterranean

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Today we left the villa and headed back to Castile- La Mancha in central Spain. I was a bit sad to leave the water, but ready for a drier (less humid) climate and to feel like we are in Spain again. We spent a week in a community of rich Northern European and British ex-pats who have done wonders in creating an environment that, except for the climate, does not resemble Spain at all! We kept wondering if we were in Hawaii or Florida or another place. I guess, to be fair, everyone starts out with "hola," but after that it is all English, and the local market has imported everything British, etc. But we really did enjoy the week of sun and beach and relaxing. I loved the beach - much of the time we were the youngest people there, but the beach in Europe is so refreshing compared to Hawaii or California. No one seems to care about whether or not their body is ok - they are just happy to be in the sun and they expose as much of themselves as they want. At times one might say they expose a bit too much, but mostly I just enjoyed the fact that everyone feels ok just as they are rather than seeing women walking around in the near-pain of self-consciousness.

We had a six hour drive to our current location. We are in a remote casa rural just outside of Hontanar (I challenge you to even find it on the map) just south of Toledo in the Cabaneros National Park. We are surrounded by mountains and trees and olive trees and range land. When we first looked out of our room we saw a herd of goats on a nearby hill and watched a woman banging the branches of the olive tree she was harvesting. Our accommodations are wonderful! This place has been awarded "3 ears of wheat," the maximum category for rural houses in Castile la Mancha. At any rate, it is peaceful and remote and comfortable and we may just stay close by for the next few days. We drove through Toledo and know that we should spend at least a day there, but there were so many people and we are terrible at being normal tourists. We'll see....

So tonight we have dinner here at 10:00. That is the typical time for dinner in Spain, but the first we will actually eat that late. Tomorrow we plan to explore the nearby mountain roads and hope to see wild boar. Stay tuned!

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