July 19th 2008
Written by Geoff Forster
Saturday July 19th 2008
Jane's off today and we're going to have another fun day in beautiful Benarrabá.
The weather continues to be perfect. Clear blue skies and high temperatures but the mountain breeeze helps make the hot Spanish summer less fierce than in flatter areas.
Benarrabá has a number of bars (4) and a restaurante with a bar. Soon a new bar will open too!!
You can do a traditional English 'Pub Crawl' and visit each in turn. The Spanish call this a ruta del tapeo. (Tapas Route).
We set off on the 'ruta del tapeo', not for the first time recently, but practice makes perfect ...
Outside the house our neighbour Cristobal's daughter, Sara, has a boyfriend who occasionally turns up in this Camara. The engine sounds amazing. It probably uses a litre of petrol everytime he revs it up.
Sam our male Siamese checks it out.
Figs are ripening on the tree. The leaves light up with the strong sunshine. Figs must have really deep roots and water reserves, they stay so green.
Jane looking very bright and beautiful ...
I like this shot.
Our first port of call is the Café Bar Guayácan. A game of dominoes is underway.
A few familiar faces and a few weekend visitors.
Next stop is the Restaurante Kabilas.
On the way we take a few more photo's of plants & windows.
These lads were having a boys weekend in the mountains.
Salud!
This lady is called Paz. Spanish for 'Peace'. She's from a nearby village, Atajate.
Jane with Pepa.
Toni.
We left Toni by the pool and headed down into the lower part of the village.
We went into Bar Barroso This is Vincente our village postman with his wife.
Our good friend Sebastián
Antonio the 'Sheep' man.
Curro the butcher, bar owner ... delivery driver, pig farmer, busy man. He loves his horses too.
This guy visits the village from time to time. He and his friend enjoy more than a few laps of the ruta del tapeo.
We leave Bar Barroso only to find Bar Andrés Sánchez closed!! On a Saturday too!!! We hope everything is alright. He does stay open very late during July and August so perhaps they're sleeping.
So on to Pub Bar Dami.
This is Dami. Big congratulations to Dami and his wife Susanna on the birth of their first baby, a fit and healthy girl called Lucia.
As we were one bar short of a full lap we decided to call in Café Bar Guayácan on the way home. This old house is still one of quite a few traditional houses still remaining in Benarrabá. Around six a year get reformed so mathematically in only a few years they'll all be gone and more modern homes with flatter, smoother walls and sealed windows will be the norm. It would be good to save one and keep it as an example of how life was in the villages. A sort of museum house with old furniture, kitchen equipment and tools.
This is Jesús, Yolanda's brother. He and his brother Bernardo run the village builder's yard, selling bricks, blocks sand & cement etc. He drives a huge aggregates lorry.
These lovely ladies were enjoying a coffee.
We met up with some old friends.
A good day out, with some great people, in the best village in Spain !
Hi Geoff
Have you stopped doing the blog or moved it elsewhere?
regards
Chris
Hi Geoff & Jane
Wondering the same here.
Hope everything is fine with you guys.
regards
Carol
I hope all is well and you are just working hard on the Gib site.
Will be up in your area in about 10 days.
Adrian & Norma
We’re fine thanks, just taking a blog break and as Adrian says I’m working on the Gibraltar site as well as designing a few new websites.
It’s a multi-author website so you can publish on it too, if you’ve got an interesting hobby, job or if you’ve got something to say.
Football, Health, Diet, Space, Music, Dance … anything you are interested in publishing … sign up. Freelance Contributors
Dogs, Cats and Donkeys well.
Amelia one of our adopted Spanish cats has had five healthy kittens.
Hopefully they’ll stay ‘flu’ free and survive.
Rosie is about to burst. She’s had us expecting the birth for a week or two. Her ‘udders’ filled a fortnight ago, usually a sign of fairly imminent birth. A full moon has passed too (Spanish folklore). We think she’s due on September 2nd. As that’s exactly nine days + 1 year and a day (376 days) since she lost last year's baby. Donkeys ovulate nine days after giving birth. The gestation period is a year and a day.
love the blog, check it about once every month. All the best and keep up the great pics .
dave