18.06.2012
Back at
work, felt like a zombie to start with and a stiff neck from couch but white
washing soon turned the pain from my neck to my arms.
A new woofer
arrived today, Pier from Norway, he has spent the past few weeks traveling
around Morocco and is going to be here for a week before going off traveling
through Andalusia again.
The water in
the pool is now luke warm to get into, this country is really starting to heat
up!
19.06.2012
Finally
finished white washing! Thank god for that! Am now onto painting the bars on
the windows black, which is mainly in the shade so I’m happy.
Fi left
today on a family holiday to Cadiz, was sad to say goodbye to them all, didn’t
expect to be there as long as I did. Little Daisy told me how much she loved me
and that she hoped to see me again soon.
Headed back
down to the farm soon after lunch cause the net stopped working at the house
and was desperate for a swim, tried my hand at the guitar and found that I
might actually be able to learn an instrument after thinking that I am
musically retarded until now.
Pier has
been learning the guitar just since the start of the year and unfortunately he
is just terrible! He hasn’t learnt any songs at all, he just tries to make all
his own stuff up and it’s just painful to listen to, especially as he plays for
hours and hours trying to figure out the same awful song and gets up early in
the morning and starts playing straight away. Then he puts lyrics to it that
you can’t really understand through his Elvis style voice, so yea a few times I
was nearly driven crazy.
Pier also
has an attitude where if you aren’t hitch-hiking everywhere, sleeping with
homeless and not eating then you aren’t a REAL traveler. He seemed to have the
attitude that because I have been staying in hostels and catching trains and
buses that he was better than me, and said a few times how he would hate to
travel with me cause I do that and tried to put me down for it.
20.06.2012
Worst job
ever – moving a horse paddock when the field you are moving them to one that has
no grass and instead thistles and thorns long enough to puncture through my
crocs and rip open my legs, I bitterly hated todays job with a passion and in
the end I gave up with an hour to go and went back to my painting.
With Fi
being away I just stayed at the farm and we cooked lunch there, later in the
day we went for a walk up the hill and to the castle on top of it, was an
awesome view of the valley and the towns below.
Frizzle
followed us from the farm the whole way, but we had to drop her off at the
house so we could go up to the castle.
Still going
through my Italian CD’s, I’m totally determined to learn the language, everyone
I meet can speak multiple languages and I feel bad for only knowing English.
21.06.2012
Last day of
wwoofing here, cant believe I have been here for nearly 4 weeks! Didn’t expect
that!
Super late
start to the day, didn’t get out of bed until after 9am and just pottered around
the house for a couple of hours packing my pack again and realising how much
stuff I have that I just can’t wear anymore cause it’s so hot, but that I am
going to need to keep with me if I’m still in the Northern Hemisphere through
winter.
Cleaned a couple
of the houses next door to mine as they are getting guests in them the next few
days and then painted one lot of black bars and it was 2pm, so went and sat by
the pool for about 4 hours baking in the sun trying to get my last bit of tanning
in before traveling again.
Fi’s
daughter and her friend was there and they gave me some tips on how to get even
more brown
-
Pour beer all over you
-
Pour sea water all over
-
Jump in and out of the pool and dry in the sun
as much as possible
Do any of
these and apparently you go browner quicker.
22.06.2012
Spent the
morning repacking my pack, had a taxi ordered for 11.45am so was a pretty
chilled out morning.
Pier came
with me to the train station and caught the train to Ronda while I continued on
to Granada. A few stops later, some people got on the train and were asking
each other where they were from, one couple said NZ then the other couple said
they were kiwis too. I kept listening to the standard next question of where in
NZ they were from, one couple from somewhere in the North Island and the other
couple said Nelson!
I piped up
at this stage and said I was from there too, was so great to hear super strong
NZ accents.
They asked
me who my parents were and I said, then they looked at me and said ‘Are you
Samantha?’
Was weird
for people to know who I am on a train from Jimena de la Frontera in Spain.
Got off the
train in Granada and found the bus to the city easily enough, but the right
stop to get off at I couldn’t find so easily, eventually tried to ask the driver
where Gran via 1 stop was and he pointed back the way we had come.
I jumped off
and with it being about 40 degrees and me not knowing anything about where I
was and without the ability to really ask anyone I just jumped in a taxi, turns
out I wasn’t very far from the hostel and it only cost a few euro so was all
good.
Walked past
all these amazing middle eastern shops on the way to the hostel, was looking
forward to checking them out later on.
The hostel
was great, completely filled to the brim with Aussies, can’t get over how many
Australians are traveling around Europe and hardly any kiwis, probably cause
they can save a lot faster and better than kiwis can and their dollar is
stronger.
It was happy
hour and was dying for a drink so grabbed myself a mojito and met some girls
from Oz, they were heading out for dinner at a Moroccan restaurant down the
road so I went along with them. A guy from Holland called Thomas also came with
us, not sure where to begin in explaining Thomas.
He is one of
those intellectual guys who is very socially awkward, he studied physics at
university and is a maths teacher too. When learning everyones names, I usually
shorten them to make it easier and when he said Thomas I replied ‘Ok Tom cool’,
and he stopped me and seriously looked at me and said ‘No, not Tom, it is
Thomas, with an H’. There was a real awkward silence across the courtyard, with
everyone swiveling their eyes around to one an other, then I broke it with a
giggle, I couldn’t help it.
Dinner was
so nice, we all got a dish each then just tucked into each others stuff, so
yum.
Afterwards
there was a flamenco show, the girls were pretty tired so bailed but I was keen
and Thomas wanted to go so off we went.
Wasn’t as
good as the they flamenco I saw in regards to the music but the dancer was
amazing.
23.06.2012
Had a wicked
sleep in then headed out in the scorching heat with the free walking tour, love
this about hostels, I’ve been on a few of these free tours now and they are
always an awesome way to see the city.
The tour
guide had a very thick accent and didn’t speak great English though which made
listening to what she was trying to say very difficult, but it was great to
have someone lead us around the city, its really beautiful here.
Went back to
the hostel in preparation for the night ahead as it was to be a massive one,
catching a bus at 7.30pm and not getting back to the hostel till 8am the next
morning.
After a wee
siesta I went down to the shops to buy more kohl as you cant get it in NZ and
its just so amazing to use, they also have it in colours so I got pink and grey
aswell as black. Its funny though, I hardly ever wear makeup over here and I’m
so used to looking at myself without any makeup that now when I do wear it I
feel like I look weird, I actually prefer how I look without it for the first
time in my life which is really nice.
Decided that
I had better get some cash out so went to the bank and tried my Loaded for
Travel card, I knew it didn’t have much left on it and it didn’t have enough to
get out anything, but wanted to run it dry anyway so I can use my new bank
cards that were sent to me.
The banks
told me that the cards were activated and would work exactly like the old ones
with the same PIN etc, turns out they are not activated and don’t have a PIN
set up on them, so I had no way of getting any cash out and I only had 30 Euros
left in my pocket of which I had to use 15 euro the next day for my bus.
Gutted I
figured I just wouldn’t drink and I didn’t really need to spend anything, knew
I’d still have a good time, but wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the next
few days while I waited for my money to transfer! I figured I’d worry about
that the next day.
I packed my
little backpack with a change of clothes, water, red bull and other bits and pieces,
also tried my waterproof pack cover doubled up over my bag and it fit it
perfectly. I went and waited out in the bar for everyone and Thomas came and
sat down, I asked him what he was taking with him and he opened his bag and
started telling me what he was taking.
I laughed
when he pulled a novel out, I was like ‘Ha you better take that out, no point
taking that’, assuming that it wasn’t meant to be there, but when he looked at
me seriously and was like ‘oh really, you don’t think I should take it?’, I
awkwardly giggled and then continued to make fun of the fact he was bringing a
novel with him, thinking that surely he would lighten up about it at some
stage. He didn’t take it too well, he was very serious about taking his book
with him but eventually removed it from his bag.
Tonight we
were going to Lanjaron fiesta del agua (massive water fight) then to San Juan on
the beach(fire festival). For the water fight they close off the streets and
everyone goes mental for 1 hour between 12 and 1am, its meant to be cleansing
of your sins and you are meant to choose 3 things to get rid of and 3 things to
gain in your life, I’m still trying to figure mine out ha.
There were
about 17 of us from the hostel that all went, nearly all of them Aussies, I was the
token kiwi and then there was Thomas and Brian from Holland. We all walked to
the bus station together and everyone had brought with them water pistols and
buckets, the water pistols were already loaded which was great seeing as we had
to sit on the bus with no air-conditioning for ages before it finally left so
the water fight started a bit earlier with us.
Before the
bus left lady organising our bus did a roll call of everyone who has booked to
be on the bus, she was Spanish and couldn’t speak a word of English and everyone
on the bus were English speakers. It was hilarious her trying to pronounce
everyones names and knew my name would get a pretty funny reaction from
everyone, as for some reason in Europe they cannot pronounce the H at the start
of Hitchcock. But with this lady’s accent, she said it like itchacocka,
needless to say it got a great reaction.
The bus
dropped us off in the tiny town in the mountains, it was roasting hot in
Granada when we left, close to 40 degrees so we were looking forward to the
waterfight. It started with a parade that went down the main street of the
town, and they had a band like Samba De Sol in Nelson, it was amazing.
They were
all dressed in ripped clothing, covered in mud and had ears like elves. They
played for about an hour slowly travelling down the road with a few hundred
people dancing like crazy behind them including me J
Anyone that
threw water at anyone before 12am was told off by either the locals or people
in high vis jackets, was so funny how serious they were about it.
The girls
and I queued for this one toilet for about 30 mins, during which time I went
and bought some chicken on a stick for 1.50, which I had to take back 3 times
to get cooked as it was raw, so I ate nearly a whole stick of raw chicken,
wasn’t really the most ideal place to potentially get food poisoning but I was
all good.
Getting
close to 12am everyone was getting really excited, the streets were filled with
people armed with buckets and water pistols, it looked like a civil war with
fluoro guns.
Then the
cannon fired and it was all on! The fires hoses began drenching everyone and
there was water everywhere, complete strangers throwing water over each other
and going mental. It was the most amazing sight to see a whole town in a water
fight, they had about 7-8 fire hoses lining the main street taking people out
left right and centre. There were witches on balconies that had hoses coming
out of their broomsticks for people to fill their buckets from, and it was a
battle to try and fight everyone for space in the fountains to fill their guns.
It was
significantly cooler in the mountains that in Granada, so after an hour things
were starting to get a little chilly, but in the main square they started
pumping loud music so everyone was dancing and keeping warm that way. The
cannon went off again at 1am and the crowd just went wild in applause for that
epic fight.
We headed
back to the bus for it to take us to the beach for the fire festival, which we
were all really looking forward to so we could warm up and dry off. All of us
had this image in our heads of what we thought the fire festival was going to
be like, myself I envisaged huge bonfires, music, partying, people with fire
pois and sticks etc.
We got to
the beach and we weren’t sure if we were in the right place, all we saw in
front of us was a few small fires with families around them with their gazebos
and chilly bins, nothing really festive about it.
We got there
at about 2.30am and we weren’t getting picked up again till 6.30am, so that’s 4
hours on a beach with nothing happening on it, there was no wood to feed the
fires so the fire we managed to get ourselves around was very quickly dying.
We all tried
to lie down and get some sleep, but the beach was real stony and wasn’t really
sandy it was more like dirt, so it was a long 4 hours.
Then we has
trouble finding the bus at 6.30am, our bus was letter F, all other lettered
buses started to pick people up on the main beach road so some of us waited
there thinking that logically our bus would also go there if A, B, C, D & E
were all there. Turns out that wasn’t the case and they were picking us up a
few streets away, but we found it in the end.
Everyone
crashed out on the bus back to Granada, and we were all exhausted from the
amazing water fight and then the anti-climax of the fire ‘festival’.
At least we
weren’t hung over, just tired, so it was manageable.
I was hoping
to get a few hours sleep before I checking out, but we got back to the hostel
around 8.30am and I had a bus to catch to Jaen at 10.30am, so I had breakfast
packed my bags, said goodbye to everyone and headed off.
Needless to
say I crashed out on the bus.
24.06.2012
In Jaen I
was picked up by Kadija & Jave and we went for breakfast before heading off to
Cordoba, again I crashed out in the car as soon as we started moving, however
had explained my night before and that I probably wouldn’t be the greatest
company.
In Cordoba
we went to the Old Mosque which was then converted into a catholic church, it
is one of the most stunning buildings I have been inside.
Muslims
definitely know how to decorate that’s for sure, Catholics however I don’t
really have the same taste. The mosque is huge then smack bang in the middle of
it, the Catholics built a cathedral, so you have all this beautiful Muslim
architecture then in the middle is all this typical catholic cathedral style
architecture and lots of awful gold plated stuff.
We then
continued to walk through the city, it was so hot, we knew it was definitely
above 40. I brushed against a wall to take a picture and my leg got burnt by the
stone, then walking down the street, the heat from the footpath was burning my
calves!
We got back
to the car and the thermometer read that it was 49 degrees!
Got the air
con cranking and eventually found some relief from it, it was a nearly 4 hour
drive to Madrid from there and I pretty much slept the whole way, I woke up now
and then and saw that the scenery had not changed at all at any point, it was
like a desert.
We had
dinner when we got back and then I crashed out yet again, guess that’s what not
sleeping for 36 hours does to you.
