paco's retreat.

We've been at the little farm of Cathy and James (from Blackpool, near Liverpool and Manchester, so they speak English- yay!) for almost three weeks now...and we haven't even noticed the time slip by. Clearly we are feeling very at home here.

The farm...

It's a little hobby farm in a valley between two mountains- both of which we've climbed, of course- surrounded by olive trees. Also some carob trees (carob is the stuff that health food shops try to sell as 'healthy chocolate'), which we have relieved of all their fruit in order to feed it to the livestock. It's a little hobby farm; it's also a little zoo...there are six dogs (there were 5 when we arrived but another has joined the gang since), around 30 cats, 8 sheep, 4 pigs, chickens, a goat, a pony and a donkey called Paco.

A selfie with Paco

For the past (almost) 3 weeks we have been learning a little about running a tiny farm in the Spanish countryside- everything from building shelves, pruning olive trees and repairing terrace walls to how to go about fixing mechanical problems with machinery when you can't trust the local mechanics not to rip you off horrendously because you are a foreigner (this bit involves not a small amount of swearing)- and immersing ourselves in the layers of history that are everywhere. Those terrace walls we were repairing? About two hundred years old. A patch of olive trees down the valley? One thousand years old. As we walked up one of the surrounding hills today we passed trees and walls that were (speculatively) hundreds of years old and discovered fossilized sea shells from when this valley was the domain of the creatures of the deep. On top of one of the mountains we so effortlessly scaled with all our climbing know-how and general excellence, we found the remains of a village that looks as though it has been abandoned well over 100 years ago but was in fact inhabited until the 1950's, when Franco decided he didn't like the idea of people living in inaccessible communities. There is history in these here hills.

As well as beach visits, a kayaking trip down the river, an ill-fated bike ride during which one of the tyres on Will's bike popped and I spent the majority of the time sulkily walking my bike up and down hills (I love to ride a bike...my only non-negotiable condition is that the terrain be flat), a trip to a beautiful and huge lake where we jumped off a bridge and did a spot more kayaking and lots of baked goods- I have been binging on baking while I have the chance-, we have also had a lot of long discussions with James about the state of politics, capitalism, immigration, clean energy, the running of Spain and England and just the world in general, which inevitably end up with us all sitting there shaking our heads and saying "But why? WHY?". Then we usually change the subject to our favourite books or movies or stories from ill-spent youth.

In our spare time we have visited the nearby town of Tortosa, which has seen both Roman and Muslim rule and still has some Roman ruins dotted about. Unfortunately the day we visited was one of the only 2 days it has rained since we've been here so we spent most of our time sitting at a café...but that was also nice. The other day we ventured further afield and caught the train up to Tarragona (just quickly, I know we told everyone we were at a farm in Tarragona- we aren't actually. We are an hour south by train and the nearest useful town is called Amposta) and had a lovely day wandering around more Roman ruins and Roman still-standing buildings. The city itself was founded in the 5th century BC and the ruins have been world heritage listed, so it was well worth a good wander around. We were a little disappointed that we didn't get to visit the market though- when we arrived at 9.30 (am) it wasn't open yet and when we came back at 2.30 it was already closed...I suppose you can't stay open too long otherwise how would you fit in your afternoon nap?

Snapshots of Tarragona.

Sleepy, empty Tortosa

Out of everything we've seen and done since we've been here there is still one thing that stand out as the most amazing...during our first week here Cathy and James had some friends from England over and we all went out for dinner...to an all you can eat, seafood buffet for 9 euro each (it's sounding bad, isn't it?)...and as well as none of us getting food poisoning, the food was delicious! The things you see eh?

Will let me cut his hair...also amazing.

Son of a bee sting...Will got stung in the eye by a bee

 Anyway, as I said, we've been here nearly 3 weeks and are reluctantly coming to terms with the fact that soon we will have to move on. Next week some time I think we will be in Morocco- not that we have really done anything towards getting there apart from decide that's what we might like to do-, enjoying tagine and baklava and lots of glasses of mint tea. But for now there are 6 dogs to pat and a few episodes of Black Books to watch. And some dressing up to do...

and the winner of the best city ever award....

Our brief stint living it up in the coolest city I've ever been to is over now, we are back in the country working on a farm, but this post is all about Barcelona. I promise you will all want to go there, after a week of tramping around its cafes, bars and neighbourhoods, we were all smitten.

You can walk in pretty much any direction from the horribly touristy central street called La Rambla and you will find something interesting to look at. There was the neighbourhood directly behind our hostel, of which the outskirts were the domain of homeless crazies and prostitutes but which became considerably cooler the further in you explored. Full of little bars and cafes and a big concrete square home to skaters and people practising break-dancing...one night, at about midnight, after a beer we sat and watched them...they were pretty good. Though not as good as the Jamaican dance-fighting troupe we saw at another square on another night...they were awesome, triple back flips and jumping over each other's heads. We even threw some euros into their hat after only seeing them perform for about a minute and a half, that's how good they were!

A bar we found and ate the worst nachos ever, microwaved, with packet cheese...but the beer was cheap and the music was good.

If we walked up the hill from our hostel we ended up the in fancy area, the Calvin Klein kind of shops area, where there are numerous Gaudi buildings to admire and wonder about. And that's the thing about Barcelona, you can just be walking up a shopping road and all of a sudden, amongst all the old European buildings, there is this crazy, odd shaped, colourful thing to make you stop and look. And then you walk on- or if you are rich go inside and admire anew- and find something else to look at.

One day we walked up to Park Guel, another of Gaudi's creations, about an hour and a half from our hostel. It was worth the walk though, to see more of his unreal buildings and also to listen to the band we chanced upon as we were wandering around...they were very good and very entertaining and they had decided to spend their Sunday afternoon entertaining tourists at the park, much to our delight.

The gingerbread house of Park Guel (sorry, I don't know how to rotate it)

Another Gaudi building we discovered on our walking...this one used to be apartments, now it's a gift shop and tourist destination as well as being a performance space sometimes.

I forgot to say, we also visited the Sagrada Familia, Gaudi's most famous building (and most expensive to visit I imagine), which has been under construction for over 100 years and still isn't finished.

We spent a lot of time in Barcelona just wandering around, discovering places and cafes and bars. Luckily coffee and beer is pretty cheap, even in the city, so these many halts didn't break the bank. Although towards the end of our stay we did discover an awesome tapas bar where you sat down and just grabbed whatever looked delicious from the bar and even though each piece was only 1.65 each, we ended up spending around twenty euro each time...oops. But when you are sitting there with a beer and looking at little pieces of bread topped with things like jamon, goat cheese and berries, or the best Spanish omelette ever, or salmon, or even a piece of blood sausage- which sounds disgusting but is actually delicious-, you can't really stop yourself from reaching for more. We even convinced Iz to come with us on our last night and spend her last 3 euros on tapas. She was very pleased with her decision. (She was less pleased when we insisted on stopping for a drink at every reasonably priced place we came across...but after I bought her a custard filled churro she humoured us a little longer).

We had our first (and our last, now we know what to expect) European pickpocket experience in Barcelona. Just as I was beginning to think all those stories people bring home from Europe about being so quickly and unexpectedly robbed were unsubstantiated, we got robbed. Quickly and unexpectedly. More precisely, Iz got robbed. We were in the park, in a little circle, playing cards and these men kept wandering past, trying to sell beer or water or whatever. One must have noticed her phone poking out of her bag and so he bent down next to us and tried to convince us to buy hash which he used one hand to distract us with while he took her phone with the other...we didn't notice until about 20 minutes later when he was long gone. So now we can join camp 'seriously, don't leave anything anywhere obvious in Europe, it will get stolen', and I hold my bag much closer to my chest at all times now.



After the pickpocket...no iphone so she had to resort to her actual camera. Oh life!

As well as that, Barcelona also taught us some other lessons...it taught us that vermouth is delicious, especially when it is only 1 euro a glass, it taught us that public squares and parks and general areas mean life is lived outdoors and the city instantly becomes more vibrant, it taught us that a good way to get people to ride bikes around the city is to put racks of them everywhere that you can pick up and use and drop back somewhere else when you are done.

A bar with jamon. And delicious sangria. And a photo-shy Isabelle.

We had a fantastic time there. Visiting the beach occasionally- it was always packed though, we aren't quite used to that yet, pedalling out to visit other areas, buying ridiculously cheap baguettes and picnicking on jamon sandwiches for lunch, visiting shops we couldn't afford and looking wistfully at the products. We visited one tea shop at least 5 times to get tiny free sample cups of ice tea. Iz and I sprayed ourselves with what we thought was peach perfume in another shop, then realised it was actually toilet spray and left the shop laughing hysterically, under the unimpressed gazes of the salespeople. It was also good wandering around the tiny, winding streets of the old town and ending up in little tree strewn squares, home to cafes and, more often than not, some type of sculpture. These walks would have been better, of course, if there weren't a billion other tourists there too. The good thing about  most tourists though is that they rarely wander too far from the hordes, so all we had to do to escape them was walk for 15 minutes in another direction. Usually then the coffee and beer got at least 25% cheaper as well.

La Rambla and the famous mural by Miro.

Us being the wicked-sick dudes we are in graff central.

A little alleyway and some cool cats.

But the time came to leave- money allowing I could have stayed there at least a month, unfortunately it wasn't allowing- so we ate our last tapa and gelati and custard filled churro, drank our last café and beer and woke up horridly early to accompany Iz to the train station from where she was headed to the airport. And we were headed south, to a farm, to see what was going on there.

Just one of the many plazas of Barcelona.

round two.

These photos will about bring you up to speed with where we are...from India, via Sri Lanka, and onto Spain. 

This is the huge temple that dominated the Indian town that, if anyone can remember my post, I was very sick in and quite frankly, didn't enjoy at all. I do like this photo though.

This is from that same town; while I was sick in bed Will went to conquer the big hill, as is his way, and found these monkeys at the top.

Pondicherry...the first time we've had cheese since Nepal and the first time we've had jam that didn't make us feel ill from chemicals since we left home...we are understandably excited about our picnic (even if we did have to have it on a hill to avoid all the poop on the grass...ahhh, India).

The town policemen doing the town policemen dance in Mamallapuram, the town we spent our last week of India in. P.s. they aren't really dancing, Will just happened to catch them in this hilarious pose.

The big rock! We summited this in Sigirya, Sri Lanka. There were some ruins on top and an excellent view.

Also at the big rock. Apparently there were hornets- we didn't see any but this sign is hilarious.

The tea fields of Sri Lanka- this is where your morning cuppa comes from (most probably).

Will dangling precariously on the edge of another big rock we climbed. This one was called Ella's Rock in the town of, strangely enough, Ella.

Tropical paradise. I think that is all that needs to be said.

Learning to surf in Basque Country. One half of the couple that were our first wwoofing hosts in Spain was a very keen surfer and Will took every opportunity to practise, even though the water was freezing (I know, I swum without a wetsuit...I'm real tough).

Tourists in San Sebastian. As well as taking this very posed photo we also paid way too much for some tapas, before finding the much cheaper and more delicious tapas laden bar in some side street. This city is also home to the most crowded beach I have ever seen. Ever. We considered ourselves lucky to find one square metre of human-free sand.

The Casa de Paja; our first wwoofing project in Spain, helping some hippies build a house of straw. See that smooth, smooth concrete? Smoothing that onto the wall was basically our job for the whole two weeks...we became very, very good. 

The morning view of the village we stayed in while wwoofing...there was no more than a couple of bars and a squash court. Very Spanish country-side.

Back into the city now. This is one of the sculptures outside the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, which we visited on our very rainy last day in the city before heading south. The sack underneath the spider's belly is full of eggs; it is a sculpture to celebrate motherhood.

And this is the river-side facade of the Guggenheim. I like it because you can admire- for free- the sculptures and building itself without needing to part with hard-earned cash to go inside...it's bringing art to the people.

A big, building-side gecko made out of CDs in Madrid.

So that ends the photo journal post. Stay tuned for a Barcelona (aka coolest city we've all ever been to) update.