Blood, sweat and some nice views

I am starting to catch up a little bit now with our travels, but still have a way to go, so please be patient with me. (Carmen always said I was slow!) I will just say now though a Happy Easter to everyone as our easter post will be a bit late!

Today was the day we were going to our first workaway. We were both a bit excited and curious of how the work would be and what we would do in our spare time. Our bus left at 8:30 in the morning and we went on a beautiful route through the Sierra Nevada mountains on winding roads with lovely views. We went all the way to a little village called Yegen, passing through several others along the way, which we will have more to say about in another post.

View from the bus

 We arrived in Yegen just after 11:30 and made our way through the village and along a trail just outside the village that took us down the mountainside a bit (we had been told about this in an email from them). We eventually found the house we were looking for after asking for directions at a couple of the other houses along the trail. We eventually got there about 12:30, just in time to have lunch together.

Carmen outside the house

After lunch we were shown around the land and they explained a bit about what we would be helping  them with. After then helping them to water some of the thorn bushes around the vegetable garden we set up our tent and unpacked our bags and got a bit settled before later enjoying supper inside their house in the evening before heading off for an early night.

The hole in the ground before we started

 Our first day of proper work in Yegen was quite a surprise. We started work at 9am and we worked for 5 hours making cement, pickaxing and shovelling before having lunch at the late hour of 2pm; by which time we were both starving. After a very quick lunch we were back out working at 2:30ish watering and pruning olive trees till about 6pm by which time we were both wilting in the hot temperatures and were ready to collapse. Supper was then at 7. We were then chucked out of the house just before 8 as their child Phileas had to go to bed. We promptly fell asleep before 9pm once in our tent feeling exhausted.

Carmen mixing some cement

This was our work schedule pretty much for the whole of the first week, with additional activities like cutting firewood as well. We also met a couple of their friends from Belgium who came to visit and we had lunch with them one day, but didn't get much of a chance to chat with them.

At the end of the first week we decided to head off of the land for the weekend and explore a bit of the villages around as we didn't have a chance to do anything during the first week due to working all day long. We walked via the road to the village of Ugijar (12km) and passed through another little village called Valor along the way. We found a hostal in Ugijar for the night and had a nice menu del dia (menu of the day) in the evening, where Carmen had a vegetable salad, for starter and I had salmorejo (a cold tomato soup with egg in), traditional dish of Andalucia. Then both of us had another traditional local food; habas y huevos for the main course (broad beans and fried eggs), which was absolutely LOVELY! Dessert was fruit pudding, which was very nice as well.

View over Ugijar

 The following day we looked around the village of Ugijar before having a lunch of soup at the same place as the night before, Carmen having the soup I had and me going for a garlic soup this time. We then headed back to Yegen via a different route to the one we took before, it was slightly shorter at 10km, but was more scenic, with lots of beautiful views over the lower mountain areas. We arrived in Yegen and stayed in the Pension in the village for the night as El Clasico was on and we wanted to stay and watch. So we watched in the bar with the locals and had a cerveza and tapas (beer and tapas). Carmen and I were supporting different teams so that made the evening more interesting. I would like to say on here that my team beat Carmen's!

Admiring the view over the mountains

 Our second week of work was much the same as the previous week with the added responsibility of having to dig an area beside the house to make a herb garden as well. We were also helping to make plaster to coat the side of the water deposit that had now had the walls fully constructed. We had exactly the same work schedule in the morning but in the afternoon we took it easier starting at 4 and finshing at 5:30, as we had an extra hard morning. The rest of the week was much the same and we took the afternoons a bit easier as it was supposed to be something that wasn't all about the working, so we had some afternoons where we climbed the surrounding hills and visited the village and just relaxed.

The view from the hill above the house

 We also met during the second week one of their neighbours, an english couple of ladies originally from Manchester who had been living there for 7 years. It was a really nice lunch and we were able to have a good chat with them. We were sad we were not able to have met them earlier.

The plastering was finished on Friday morning and we left on Friday afternoon to head up to the village to stay in the Pension for another night of relaxation. We had another menu del dia with some lovely salmon and pork leg on the bone (gorgeous) before going back to bed for the night.

A certain highlight of the whole stay for us was a certain cat that was living with the couple we stayed with. His proper name was minimus, but Carmen nicknamed him James Bond because of his habit of following us everywhere stealthily and sneaking into the shelter of the outer tent whilst we were trying to sleep, sometimes climbing on top of it. But every morning when we got out the tent he would run out of the tent and sit on a straw bale which was close by and start licking himself as though he had been there all the time. It was quite entertaining!

Our next post will see us trekking through the Alpujarras, probably the best part of our trip so far in Spain, so stay tuned!