We’ve been busy! For the first time, I don’t feel like we are on vacation. We are housesitting where we have been before. Do you remember my postcards from Andalucía? With pictures of the castle above the white village? And the beautiful lurchers (one with light blue-violet eyes)? It was the most fantastic house, most fantastic dogs, chickens, cats and horses. As a bonus, the place comes with friends and contacts, and a car. And we know our way around. So, it is the closest we have had to home in a long while. So what do we do? Ordinary stuff. I got a haircut and highlights. I was so overdue for a haircut, I almost did it myself. Check. Then blood test, full gyno exam, with mammogram. Check. We both saw a dentist. Check. Then we fixed a few household things around the house. Check. And horseback riding, and landscape consulting.
One of the neighbors is just finishing a remodel/rebuild of their new home. An English/Australian couple that lives most of the time in Hong Kong, also has homes in Lake District (England) and Jackson Hole. They have become our friends here. So I am helping with the landscaping. It’s been many trips to the viveros (nurseries) a favorite pastime. Mark is getting time to watch the World Series and watch his friend Steven Strausburg keep the Nationals out of trouble.
Horseback Riding Andalucía Style
The neighbors have horses, and this homeowner has three that need exercise. So I have been getting some time in the saddle and my seat is coming back (that is horseman speak for the ability to stay seated on a horse). Trail riding here is like it was in the US 100 years ago. You can ride for miles and miles, through gates and cattle herds, across rivers down streets and highways. People stay overnight in Ventas (inns) with accommodation for horses. I got to assist in the 60 km trek from Jimena to Ronda. One lady was delivering a horse there and she lined up other riders to accompany her for parts of the trip. We accompanied her for the first half day, and turned around and returned to Jimena while she trekked on toward Ronda. Her horse was losing a shoe so we stopped at a cafe and called every farrier they knew. One showed up, on a Saturday, drove from a distant town, and fixed the loose shoe. And we were able to carry on. Can’t imagine that happening in the States.
Pet Rescue
Then we rescued a lost dog…This is a bad habit we have developed: picking up pets in need and bringing them back to the houses that are not ours. Last time it was a kitten that was already at the house and determined to be made welcome. This time, we took another step. We found a stray dog that had been abandoned at a trailhead in the middle of nowhere. Someone had cutoff a water bottle and was using that as a water dish. She was very friendly, although a little timid. My guess was she is under a year old (she’s never had puppies and her teeth are fantastic, and she was playful like a puppy). We gave her all the water we had and left. Neither of us slept very well that night and the next morning we mulled it over with the neighbors. They found someone, that knew someone, that maybe would be interested, but he was leaving tonight, so it had to be today… So we went back out to the trail to find her. She had deteriorated a lot overnight. Not physically, but mentally. It took a long time to coax her out of the bush she was hiding in. And a lot more time before we got her on leash, and more time to get her in the car. We took her to the vet to see if she had a chip, and what do we find: a poster of her picture from a rescue organization trying to find her a home
It turns out that the few rescuers that are here have the strategy to maintain the animals where they find them until they can find homes. That was where the water came from. She had been there for over a week. But we felt that she was declining rapidly and do not regret taking her away from the site. Now we just have to deal with the fact that we brought a dog (stray, unknown pit bull) home to a house we don’t own (and we would like to return to this house again). We called her Penny; she reminded us of a little copper version of Peggy the Bull Mastiff we took care of in England. The acquaintance of the acquaintance of the neighbor did not pan out. None of the few people we know here wanted her and we contacted every rescue for 100 miles around. There weren’t many.
Finally we got a woman that is a one-woman show. It wasn’t easy to get her to take Penny on, but she picked her up, has a foster home lined up and promises to work on her fear issues and find her a home. Whew! It will be a long road, but Penny has a chance to end up in a good home. Animal abuse is rampant in many, if not most parts of the world. Spaying and neutering is still rare, so surplus animals abound. In Greece and Morocco you could trip over feral cats in the cities. In Morocco we saw feral dogs out the train windows running or sleeping in the desert. And even animals with homes are often kept dangerously thin and in terrible conditions. Part of this is economic, and part of it is cultural. Either way, it is a hard adjustment for us.
Flamenco
I don’t want to end this letter on a depressing note, so I’ll tell you about a flamenco show we went to last Saturday. It was held at the local hotel on the roof terrace. A very intimate area and our party had front row seats. Singer, guitar player and one dancer; all very talented doing traditional flamenco. The castle lit up at night was the backdrop, as well as a dog incessant barking. The barking dog just added to the realness of this experience. It certainly was not a tourist flamenco show.
After this event, and a nice dinner in the restaurant with our friends, we stopped by a house party on our hill. We were not going to be able to sleep anyway with the party going on, and I was very keen to see what a typical Spanish birthday party looked like. Well it is exactly the same as any party held by young people in the US. The four of us increased the average age at this party by decades. They also had some flamenco entertainment (we could have saved a bundle going straight there).
We have about 2 more weeks here in Andalucia and we are already talking about coming back again. Especially now that I am horseback riding, it is my favorite gig.
Hasta luego