The spice of life

A quiet, uneventful start to the week apart from visits to the bridge over the charco, spotting a couple of herons, well they may be a pair, but they tend to stay well apart from each other once breeding is over. There's just one egret out there again, the other two I saw seem to have quit. What's happened to the hundreds I saw last year? I wonder.

Today I phoned Fr Miguel the local parish priest, to confirm with him a date for the ecumenical carol service which happens a week after I leave here. I'll go to the Wednesday evening Mass in the parish church at Mojácar pueblo this week, and meet him properly. It'll give me an opportunity to exercise my Duo Lingo Spanish.

I had an email confirming an earlier request to do locum duty in Málaga during Lent and Holy Week. So that's January in Montreux, home for February, then Málaga for March and April. It will mean living there for the period of remarkable religious processional events, not just commuting in for a few hours at a time, as I did in 2014 from Fuengirola. It interests me greatly to see how the city continues to go about daily life, welcoming hosts of tourists as well as those who make what is in effect a pilgrimage there to participate in the cermonies. For balancing normality, I'll have the variety of three Anglican Chaplaincy congregations to minister to, at what is my favourite season of the Christian year.

When I think of the places I've done locum duties in Spain, what makes this enjoyable is that within a chaplaincy, congregations aren't clones of each other. Each has a different history as well as different context. Liturgy used will be much the same, but each gathering for worship expresses itself uniquely, and as a priest one has to develop a particular relationship with each. Variety is the spice of life!

Another walk to Garrucha this evening. A new large bulk carrier is loading in port, called Yeoman Bank, registered in Liberia. It's unusual among big ships I've noticed here, described by the Marine Traffic ship database as a 'Self Discharging Bulk Carrier' which explains the distinctive superstructure attached to its bow section. As it's currently loading, this is not in use, and is displaced high above the water, away from the loading quay.

For reasons unknown, the ship database shows correctly that it is currently berthed in Garrucha, but the Garrucha Port section of the Marine Traffic website shows no trace of its visit. This website is vast and complex. Keeping it up to date must be a nightmare, and not everything can be automatically sync'd. It's amazing we have such information resources anyway.

    

Liturgical karaoke

A warm and bright Sunday for the twenty minute drive to the Ermita de San Pascual de Baylon to celebrate the Eucharist and preach for a congregation of four dozen. We had no organist, but for the first time a new digital hymn reproduction system to use. I would have preferred to lead singing unaccompanied, being aware of the many pitfalls of recorded music, but agreed to go along with the proposal, having made a few adjustments to some hymn settings before we began. I guess people have to learn for themselves the challenge they take on, when they let themselves be led by a machine, however thoughtfully designed.

Instead of an organist accompanying a congregation, and adjusting to the variable pace of singing, a congregation must follow the music if they can. One can vary the speed and the pitch on modern equipment, use a musical introduction or not, but it's not straightforward. It works best with simple metrical hymns. Anything syncopated is a nightmare. In any singing group, people will have different ideas of rhythm and phrasing. Singing together coherently in a congregation can be learned with even modest musical leadership. Doing so from scratch, as happened this morning, was a hit and miss affair. Singing together with recorded music needs to be taught. It doesn't help if the music isn't audible to singers at the back. Operating the device, and how adjustments can be made to fit the natural pace of the congregation needs to be learned. It's not the quick easy solution I imagine it's marketed to be. But, with good will and good humour, we survived.

After lunch and a siesta, I walked along the coast road, eight kilometres to Garrucha and back. I needed the exercise after several days of relative inertia. On the way out from the charco bridge, I saw three egrets, two more than last Tuesday's sighting. I wonder if more will return, or if this is a stray family separated from the huge flock which was roosting here at night this time last year? 

I enjoyed the convivial buzz of people out walking along the Paseo de Malecon, as the sun was setting. It's a more compact town than Mojácar, and the walk along the sea front promenade is the most natural one to take for socialising during the paseo. 

Rivers and the sea

I didn't do much today, though I didn't have much to do, apart from an afternoon walk to the far end of Garrucha Puerto for exercise, and on to Vera Playa. Vera is 10km from here, but I guess the area the Municipality covers stretches down to the sea because the course of the rio Antas touches the town. Come to think of it, a few centuries back a river like this would have been navigable, making up-river trading possible for small coastal trading boats. Only when there's a massive sudden sudden deluge of rain nowadays is there any water above ground in rivers of this kind. Perhaps if I'd walked a few more kilometres I would have come to the river mouth, and who knows maybe discovered a pool of surface water near the beach, like the rio Aguas.

Over the weeks of my stay here I have been obsessing over a suitable word in Spanish that describes the rio Aguas coastal wetland. River water locked in by a sandbar, seeping away to the sea beneath the surface. I wouldn't use the word 'pool' in English, as it translates as piscina, swimming pool. No good. David kindly loaned me for a quick speed read 'Flamingos in the Desert', a book by Kevin Borman, local naturalist, and explorer of trails throughout Almeria Province. A few samples of his narration and I was hooked by his sympathetic style of descriptive writing, with lovingly described detail of the landscape, its history and stories about people and the byways of the region.

Inevitably, I had to select passages, with just an evening's reading before returning the book to him. So naturally I looked for Borman's account of the area I have been exploring during my time here, and in particular his account of following the rio Aguas from source to shore. I learned that as he had passed along the north side of the arroyo, from below Mijas Pueblo within the last few years, he'd been taken with the sight of a flock of serin rising from the bushes along the road. He mentions this once in just the same location where I'd been surprised by the sudden flight of a large flock of very small birds which I didn't recognise. Birds, like humans, are very territorial creatures, so I reckon the flock I saw was most likely another generation of the flock he reported. One more sighting identified!

The Spanish word Borman uses for this sand bar enclosed body of water is 'charco', which translates as 'pond' in English, although it's bigger than what one would usually describe as a pond and smaller than what one would call a lake. He mentions several other similar river outlets along the coast in the vicinity of Carboneras, as all rich in flora and fauna as the one I have come to know the past six weeks.

Word play is such fun in English. Across languages, one might never grow old again. It's nearly fifty years since I last tried to read Joyce's 'Finnegan's Wake'. Perhaps it's time I tried again, during the coming cold and overcast winter months in Cardiff, when it's almost painful to look at the sky.

   

Garrucha exploration continued

Awake again at first light, and unable to doze off again, so I got up and took my camera down to the beach to get some photos of the sunrise, as the skies were reasonably clear. This was one that gave me pleasure to look at later.

Apart from uploading photos, the rest of the morning was once more devoted to CBS office affairs and a long phone call to Ashley. After lunch I walked once more to Garrucha and walked on further than the port and the promenade along the Calle Malecon. Most of Garrucha is on an undulating ridge, right above the beach. There are some steep streets ascending, but if you look left or right at any junction, you see how streets ar right angles go up and downhill along the contours as well. 

I found the Parish Church of San Joachin (father of Blessed Mary in Christian tradition), tucked into a rather inconspicuous plaza, a few streets along from the food market, with a statue of Maria Immaculata on a pillar in front of the church, looking out to sea. It looked as if it could do with a coat of paint, in contrast to an unusually modern design of building attached at the rear of the church, with tall bronze doors, decorated with bas relief images of suffering Jesus and Mary, announced itself to the home of a local cofradia. 

From there I walked to the top of the town. Above the uppermost street, the ridge rises sharply to a peak on which sits a monument to the town's industrial past in the form of a tall chimney. As there's nothing to tell you why it's there, and the only sign identifying the place has been smashed, it stands mysteriously in isolation, approached by a spiral ramp, at the end of an approach road flanked by street lamps, some broken. The site breathes an air of neglect, with sunken floodlight housings smashed. It's hard to tell if this is a genuine industrial remnant or a modern homage to past smelters that brought wealth to this small fishing port. Either way it's a cultural project which wasn't followed through with a sustainable budget for maintenance. Not unusual, but nevertheless a pity.

On the way back, I revisited the site of the town's lead ore furnace and walked right around the area this time in the hope of gaining more clues about the industry which once dominated this place. I gained no new insight from this, only a few more photos from different angles. Having walked to the top of the hillside on which the enterprise was located, I continued walking along the contour back to Mojacar, above a full sized golf course, surrounded on all sides by modern luxury hotel and apartment complexes. I spotted just one man on the course driving range, but nobody out of the course itself. But then, at time of year, visitor numbers are drastically diminished. I hope they do better in high season, to justify the phenomenal investment made in transforming this coastal area into a high class holiday resort.

I got back as the sun was setting, and went straight out again down to the beach, intent on taking some photos of the nearly full moon rising over the waters. I had much difficulty in making the necessary camera setting adjustments to enable the Sony HX300 to work at its best. I spent much of the rest of the evening reading the on-line manual and trying to figure out how. My best photos was taken on enhanced auto settings, and I still can figure out how to get what I want, despite an hour or more of playing about with it.

Garrucha walk

This afternoon, I walked along the coast road to Garrucha. It was warm, sunny and clear with a wind that drew away some of the intensity of the heat, and made it pleasant to be out on that rather exposed road, with no shade from trees, as is the case along much of this coastline. Near the point where Mojacar and Garrucha municipalities meet, the sandy beach gives way to low lying rocky shoreline. There's a 20th century war time relic in the form of a small 'pill box' gun emplacement facing the sea. Given that Puerto Garrucha has been a place from which minerals and building materials have been shipped over the past century, it had strategic importance, and would have needed its observation posts and defensive installations.

A few hundred metres further along, just where the sandy beach resumes, is Garrucha's 18th century castle, built as a defence against Berber pirates raiding from North Africa. It's called El Castillo de Jesu Nazareno, but is also known as El Castilllo de San Ramon, and El Castillo de Escobetas. Each of these names tells part of the story of the place, but there's no information about the building in the public domain. It now serves as a museum of maritime history, but Tuesday is the one day it's closed, so I'll have to make a special expedition there, and hopefully find out more.

There's a kilometre long promenade called El Paseo de Malecon, with palm trees, children's play areas, attractive paving and white balustrades overlooking the beach, a couple of metres below. On the opposite side of the street, a line of bars and restaurants and some low rise hotels. There seem to be few visitors now, and the beach was almost deserted. A few hundred metres beyond a rocky breakwater is the south pointing port wall with a quay where a procession of delivery lorries deposit what I presume to be road stone, for loading into bulk carrying ships for transport.

I watched several small trawlers arrive, belonging to the fleet harboured here. The port has its own modern wholesale fish market, where catches are auctioned daily. There's also a marina for private leisure craft. The place is an interesting mixture of traditional and modern enterprise. Thankfully the industrial dimension of the port doesn't dominate and overshadow the beaches with ugly structures, as I have seen at Playa de la Araña near Malaga, or at the aptly named Playa Cementera, near Les Cases d'Alcanar in Catalunya.

Close to the port there's a Casa Consistorial (Law Court), which looks like a nineteenth century building and an Ajuntamiento (Town Hall), looking decidedly modern, next door. There's a large rather bare modern plaza with few trees. Beneath is an underground car park. May be this public space is still a work in progress. I also found nearby, with a remarkable gateway with a coloured tile roof at the top of a flight of steps, a Mercado de Abastos. This translates as 'supplies market'. I guess 'supplies' means meat, fish and vegetables are retailed here. But, on second thoughts, the word 'provisions' does better in English, as it's used in relation to food stuffs, whereas 'supplies' is used in a non-specific way. Other kinds of shops are advertised within, suggesting market use has been diversified. I couldn't find a church or an Ermita, but these may be further up the hill than I ventured on this occasion.

According to Google Maps, the round trip was 8.5km, five miles. It took me two hours and twenty minutes, but this includes stops for photography en route. At the first roundabout on the approach to Garrucha, there's a large wall which looks like the gable end of a big building, except that it isn't.

Behind it is a hundred metre long stone structure, twenty metres wide, which looks as if it might be the exterior of a roof vault, although at first it could be mistaken for a pile of rubble with vegetation growing from it, and on its north side runs a deep ditch. The site has no identity on the map, no name plate or interpretation panel in the real world. It's been there a long while, but what purpose it serves is a complete mystery. Must find out!

Saturday shopping

I got in late last night, then talked until even later to Ashley, who was still in the office in between making another walk around Cardiff city centre's night time economy to check that all's well with CBS radio users. As a result I got up late, did some writing after breakfast, then cooked a chicken and chick pea curry, making use of a couple of chicken legs I came home with from last night's social evening and the remainder of last week's veg purchases. That made a pleasant change. 

Then I drove to Garrucha to do the week's shopping for supplies at the bright shiny new Lidl's, one of the largest I've been in anywhere, either in Spain or Britain. I didn't notice much more of a variety of products on sale, but it seems to be able to accommodate more shoppers. However, mid-afternoon only one till was open and the queue was long. 

Garrucha is my next walking destination. It's a small town with around 8,500 inhabitants, plus holidaymakers. It has an industrial history as a mineral exporting port. Nowadays it is visited only by bulk carriers exporting building plaster, manufactured inland. It has a small fishing fleet, and a leisure marina. There's an 18th century castle to discover and on the road into town from Mojacar what looks like another of those fortified mansions, like one I saw last month outside Benajarafe near Velez Malaga.

It's good to get stocked up, so that if I run out of anything it's easier to walk to the shops and carry back a few items, with no need to use the car. In fact that's exactly what happened next. I realised as soon as I got back that I'd forgotten to buy milk. So, my evening paseo was a brisk 50 minute round trip walk to the Mercadona under an overcast sky containing some dark storm clouds. No sign of rain so far however. The evening is still warm (19C) and fragrant, with tree frogs chirruping not too far away and a few dried up leaves dropping. It's dark now by eight o'clock. The only thing missing to complete the autumnal feel is a whiff of wood smoke in the air.

Heavens, I've been here a week already! Time passes quickly with so many new places to explore.