Retrospect

[nosoypato]

I was thinking about a request Señor Randy made recently. It seems he was distraught because of the non-appearance of a figure central in Iberian culture. Now many may wonder why is Señor Randy so concerned? It just so happens that he's an astute observer of folkloric happenings in our humble peninsula, knowing that the other peninsula(Iberia) has bestowed upon us the glorious Alternate Southern Lingo.
So I remember back in 97 I ran across the object of his desire. It was in an edifice in Aragon built around the 15th century in the usual Mudejar style.
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There she's, an aggressive virgin in living color. Notice how she daintily keeps her balance as she stumps on the cherubs.
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When I searched for Señor Randy's obsession I came across forgotten memories. Here was Rueda de Jalon where I lived one year back in 76 in that small village on that fertile valley. There I fished on the Jalon River where the carp were caught by placing a whole ripe fig on the hook.
Anyways here's Rueda. I had the privilege to live by the church in the center of town in public housing because I lived with the local doctor who happened to be my girlfriend.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0407.jpg

Nearby in Muel, where a friend crafted ceramics in the famous blue on white Muel style brought by Arabic ancestors during the Al Andalus Caliphate was a charming temple of worship. Notice that the larger vegetation overgrown stones are the foundations of a Roman temple to a deity(Minerva or Diana). The church's interior are decorated with frescoes done by Goya, he was a maño.
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[nosoypato]

To the south the the arid Aragonese lands were boundaries with the Caliphate where the balance of power swayed from one side to the other in 13th century. Towns were walled and situated on high ground for better defense. At this time losing a battle meant your town could be razed, men killed, women raped and children turned into slaves or eunuchs.
This is Morella one such city ob the way to Valencia and the Mediterranean.
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The usual fortified gate into the city.
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A herald paying homage to the backbone of the economy.
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A nearby Roman aqueduct, for they were the original founders of Moreela.
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[Randy Clark]

wow jimmy great pic as always. so it seems the blessed virgin had an issue with the cherubs huh? really do love the architecture it is amazing to me to think they built it all by hand. no cut saws no concrete pump trucks no cranes. than to look out across the fertile valleys, ah maybe some day i could sit back and enjoy a beer over looking a site like that.:occasion14 thanks again for taking the time to share these pics

[nosoypato]

Señor Randy at the time all this was hatched everybody was testy, not only the virgins. It took them 700yr to reconquer the peninsula. Sort of the way Afghanistan is looking to us. Perhaps we also need aggressive virgins.
That fertile little Jalon picture was taken from a Moorish fort in ruins. I would climb up there looking for potsherds. What you can't see in that picture is that on the extreme left are cave dwellings all up the hillside. My fishing buddy was a cave dweller.
Here's the fort I took the picture from.
http://http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0409.jpg

I'm also fascinated by the stonework in Spain. That year I went to the Valle d'Echo, in the Aragonese Pyrenees butting up to Navarra. There the mountain folk took very seriously the story of the 3 little boars. So no matter the effort they built in stone, even the roofs as insurance against fire arrows.

Check this one out.
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It was in the town of Echo.
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The uneven streets are made of stones also. Kids here learn quickly not to stumble.
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I also came across a more laid back virgin in Echo.
This one was unusually attired with 2 pears over her bosom and a fig over the coochy.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0341.jpg

[Randy Clark]

damm cool stuff jimmy your first pic the fort didnt come up? did you delete it? rock roofs i saw that just last week on some travel show. hate to walk under the eave when a rock fell off. cool stuff though. are they water proof or just leak a little?

[nosoypato]

The internet deities must have been playful. Here's the Moorish outpost in ruins. it's not much to look at butt I enjoyed climbing up there.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0409.jpg

The houses I lived in with slate roofs never leaked, even with a heavy snow cover as it melted.
This one is from 1990 somewhere in the Catalan Pyrenees. My wife is kind of ticked off because I asked her to stand by the building to serve as proportion.
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Here's a few more with very steep pitch because of the snow. Actually stone roofs are very practical, they last many generations thus having a minimal carbon footprint. The only drawback is if by misfortune you were the one to replace the roof.
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This one has lichens and moss on it.
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You might have noticed that in most of the houses the stones were not worked or minimally so. Regular people couldn't afford cut stone.
The king who built this church in the 12th century could definitely afford it.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0089.jpg

[nosoypato]

So I looked through some of my scans. I came across old celluloid that I actually developed myself in the early 1970's. I haven't scanned them all and what I have is a shadow of what I had due to one flashflood and two fires.

This is what I saw when I walked out of our lovenest in Rueda de Jalon. There is the grocery shop of Caesar my friend, his dog Trotsky laying by the doorway. Caesar was an old Republicano, which in this part is synonymous with a commie. He was lucky to be alive because his side, the liberal freethinkers side lost to the reactionary visigoth wannabes of the Falangists in the civil war of 1936.
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The church to my right as I walked out the door. Never set foot in the place which is a shame for there's no telling what kind of virgin inhabited the place.
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The tower ringing.
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The Doctor of the town.
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The young medical student.
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[D Duck]

That last pic of you is classic Jimmy!

[Randy Clark]

some really cool pics there jimmy. your wife makes a lovely model for the brick work. of course i see why you decided to study medicine or at least the young doctor. as always very interesting pics thanks for sharing these:occasion14

[nosoypato]

Señor Randy the village doc came with many other charms. My friend came from a tiny hamlet, El Run, in the Aragonese Pyrenees. What a charming place. El Run had a population of 19, situated as the first town in the Valley of Benasque high in the mountains. It's so isolated they have their own language called patues, only spoken there by perhaps 1500 people. Well I loved the place. Her house had been a water driven mill owned by her family for generations. There I found that wine placed in barrels at high altitude gains in alcohol content. There I made and ate a delicacy called chiretas and chiretones which is sheep lung wrapped in intestines or sheep intestines stuffed with rice then deep fried. Hardy mountain food in a cold climate.

This is the view from the house. It can be seen here but it sat on the river Esera which ran through the center of the valley. It used to power the sawmill here.
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The Esera where I poached many trouts. A daring feat since the the wardens carried machine guns. Not unusual since Spain was a right wing dictatorship during this time and this place being 15 miles from France was guerrilla and contraband haven.
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Then pastures on the other side of the Esera.
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Scampered up the mountain to looked down on Castejon de Sos which was the largest town.
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In the hamlet I visited the school house where the budding surgeon learned her a-b-c's.
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El Run had a 12th century hermita or church. I ended with the key to the place, had a good time in there.
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Scattered in the higher pastures there were houses that were use only at certain times of the year for it was safer to live in the villages.
They are called bordas.
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Of course being isolated, with a hostile climate, hungry 2 and 4 legged animals, a priestly order thought it was the ideal place to build a monastery.
So they did.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0591.jpg

[nosoypato]

This is Cerler, 2 mile further up the road, I learned to ski.
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[Randy Clark]

dammm jimmy those are really cool.would love to be able to go there and take pics lovely country side.Those churches are great in B&W.:occasion14
how long were you over there for?

[nosoypato]

Señor Randy I was stranded for nearly 10yr in that rugged peninsula. I Came home in 79 when it was safe and economic and professinal duties dictated that the jig was up.
Not before I delved in the arcane art of organic animal husbandry. That last year found me in the Sierra de Oliveda on the foothills of the Catalan Pyrenees.
This is the place in the center of the picture.
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A closer look at the masia, for that is the name in the local lingo, which is catalan. This [lace had 4ft walls or more at the base. All the walls were curved inside.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/oliveda7900000033.jpg

The window was my room, next to it on that stony bulge was the tasty pigeon roost house. I gave me Histoplasmosis.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/oliveda7900000035.jpg

Across the yard was the barn where the cows slept and were milked.
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The barn had a rustic door.
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Next to the kitchen this guys lived. In the spring they would give birth to tasty lambs which met their maker when they reached 20kg.
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Our kitchen. Jordi is the human gutting the snail. He was a local a man of few words but salt of the earth.
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[nosoypato]

As you came out of the masia, the nearest town was across the hills, not much to it. Only a church and a few houses. In this parts the population was scattered in isolated fortress like houses with several generations living under one roof. The places were huge with rambling rooms at different levels.
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Here Pilar, another shepherd and Miguel. Miguel was from Soria, a mountainous region of Castilla. He and Jordi were the owners of the masia.
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They had 8 cows. The milk was sold mostly but we made cheese, yogurt and butter with the rest. Not to forget the coffee with fresh milk or the toast topped with freshly skimmed cream.
Here Jordi bringing the cows in from their afternoon stroll.
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In the mornings we'd take the sheep out for a walk across the fields that had previosly been sowed with nutritious grasses.
Here Miguel heading out with the heard with Pusa(it's flea in Catalan) his sheep dog. Unfortunately Pusa was afraid of the woolly beasts butt the sheep didn't know. Therefore with a well placed pebble aimed at Pusa we could get him to freak the sheep into going the right way.
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Notice that Pusa always tried to keep a distance from the sheep. Not that I blame the dog, those bleating animals were a surly lot. The rams would butt you at any time.
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After a long day of throwing stones, a nip from the medicinal wine bag.
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I put this one because the sepia color is totally unintended. I developed these one also. I can only say that I was very poor so the chemicals I used were iffy as well as my darkroom habits.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/oliveda7900000028.jpg

[Randy Clark]

dammm some really cool pics sounds like a great way to live for awhile . ever dream of going back or has realitiy now hit that area also

[nosoypato]

The morning was cool and overcast as is usual in autumn on the sierra. There was much to do as today was la matanza, which means massacre butt with an appeal to the taste buds. I know that we are familiar with getting close and personal with our organic meat quest butt here la matanza has a folkloric communal twist. A few chip in to get a hog, invite a few locals from the neighboring farms and have a hog parts manufacturing party. In those times food had to be preserved for the winter. We would make butifarra white and black(a sausage), jamon serrano, bacon and many other catalan carnivorous delicacies.

Here is Manolito the cat sitting by the hearth where a large cauldron was heating up in preparation for the process. In this farm there was no cat food, all his meals were also organic. In fact the only heating was that fireplace.
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The guest of honor arrives chauffeured in an elegant Renault 4L.
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He was invited to table.
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Butt he didn't want to stay with all those folks salivating and carrying on with the medicinal wine bags. However we persuaded Señor Marrano to stay.
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This was the last thing he saw.
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[Milan]

That's some awesome stuff Jimmy. Thanks for sharing!

[nosoypato]

Señor Milan I felt a little sad for that porker butt he did taste good. All the parts had their use which made for an interesting larder. Unfortunately most of the negatives from this time were consumed in fires and floods.

Señor Marrano gets a quick trust of the knife to the Carotid arteries from the butcher.
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The blood is collected, it's used to make the black butifarra.
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Then with a blow torch and a wire bruch the hairs are removed.
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Then the careful dissection begins. First the cheeks, snout, and ears are removed in one piece. then the tongue. These are delicacies in many dishes. The descriptions of those delectable parts lovingly crafted into mouthwatering country fare would surely drive some here to the sin of gluttony.
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Then the meat is carefully separated from the backbone. Being careful not to damage the pertoneal cavity for here are the containers of future goodies. The hollow viscera such as the intestines, stomach and bladder are destined to be stuffed with various cuts of meat and solid viscera. All have a traditional specific use for generations. My favorite was a section od intestine stupped with spiced up meats and the whole tongue nestled in the center. Yummy and it made a nice presentation when eaten cold and sliced.
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The hams and belly were separated to be taken to the barn for preparation. The hind quaters would be covered with salt and great stones would be placed over them. Later we would bruch off the salt and placed them in the attic to cure during the winter months. Part of the bacon we hung in slabs in the hearth to be smoked.
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[Max 4-D]

Love your trip down memory lane!

Cheers:occasion14

[nosoypato]

Then came the art of the payes(country dwellers in this parts). The hollow viscera were prepared to receive the ground meats mixed with spices. The bladder made a nifty globular sausages which would be boiled in the cauldron. The small intestines would be stuffed and reserved for making longaniza links to be eaten fried with eggs laid by free roaming hens. The toes would be used to flavor the chickpeas, the jaw and cheeks would make a sublime dish called galtes.

Here a payesa mixes spices into the fresh blood.
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She was everywhere, efficiently preparing the casings of fresh guts for the stuffing.
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Then on to the kitchen to orchestrate the ritual of rendering a sow into appetizing food for the workers of the land.
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Notice that the payesa is the one doing the hand grinding. She probably had a powerful right hook.
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Out side a fire had been started to roast the backstrap. Inside we continued to toil with the fixings. At one point Manolito the cat ran off with a nice length of guts.
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The cauldron were some of the sausages were cooked, later to be hung and aged, sometimes in the attic some further smofed in the hearth.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0128.jpg

[Randy Clark]

cool pics jimmy . sounds like a feast that night:occasion14

[nosoypato]

Butt it was not all swine butchering, sausage afixing, cow milking, sheep watching and butter churning. Some times we would entertain ourselves by roaming over the region searching for the soul of the land.

We would delight in the allegories carved into the capitals of medieval columns.
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The region was populated with small villages where the inhabitants would huddle in structures added on over the years. This left the countryside as communal forests and pastures very conducive for hunting.
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Sometimes we could catch a folkloric event.
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Another time it would be the march of the aggressive virgins.
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Multitasking individuals abounded playing the flute with one hand and beating on a drum with the other.
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Don't think we were cultural geeks when out and about!! At times we would delve in the pleasures of the city nights drawn as moths to the lights of wondrous machines.
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At times we would splurge and eat out.
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Usually under the protection of Sant Jordi(St. George). Being the patron saint of the catalans, he's depicted in many places. Notice that, as a proper saint, he's armed to the teeth.
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[Milan]

What a celebration of life, simply wonderful :occasion14

[nosoypato]

Yes, that I did. Tried to immerse myself into the daily life of the locals as an undercover Cuban-American chameleon. It worked!! Not only did I experienced the labors of a peasant farmer Butt had communist, anarchists, falangist friends, acquired a profession and stayed out of jail mostly. While being acutely aware that one day I would have to face the tune and become a productive capitalist member of society.
Anyways while studying for the ECFMG(a exam to certify foreign graduates) I moved with my surgical intern friend to Girona. It's north of Barcelona near the Mediterranean. Here they speak catalan and castellano(my lingo).
This is a view of downtown Girona. The cathedral in the background was made out of polished stone with embedded fossils. The crossway on the foreground is by Eiffel.
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Although I thoroughly appreciated the ambiance of the harrow alleys beautifully crafted by medieval stonemasons, my presence there usually had a more mundane reason. There were smokey taverns nestled in those steep alley ways a corners.
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This guy supplied us with the fresh vegetables of the season. Here only what's in season is consumed. Those folks actually would cringe in horror if you offered a melon in the winter time. It's considered a culinary blasphemy and an assault on proper bodily functions.
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lake Banyolas was nearby. There I learned to windsurf.
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[Randy Clark]

very cool jimmy wow how long were you there for?:occasion14

[nosoypato]

Señor Randy I spent my 20's frolicking in those latitudes.
One day intoxicated by the wondrous things I was witnessing, a magnificent obsession came into my noggin. Sure it was nice to wander through the piles of stones shaped with loving artistry by the locals and watch their ancestral quirks.
My momentary passion became a quest to capture the reflections of my mind on an object of every day use.

Here I humbly present the faucet.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0247.jpg

There it was.
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Is it real.
http://http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0249.jpg

Can you see.
http://i792.photobucket.com/albums/yy207/nosoypato/crop0250.jpg

I like it.
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It was long ago.
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I still remember.
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Is no longer there.
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[Milan]

Jimmy, do I really see some visions of carnal pleasures and desires on this faucet, or maybe my mind is just in the gutter :sex:

[nosoypato]

Any vision is possible with the magic faucet. Perhaps you were granted a vision of a goddess from the fountain of El Run.

[Milan]

I see now... I am just blessed that way :toothy10:

[Randy Clark]

dammmm jimmy that was great thank for a laugh on another wise trying day:occasion14

[Esteban]

Superb Jimmy, just superb. History framed with the reality of everyday living. Very entertaining and sort of makes one long for simpler times.

[nosoypato]

Esteban I'm glad you're enjoying this reminiscing of of my youth. I've lost most of the negatives but I'm still scanning.
I snapped out of my obsession with the magical faucet. Went to my favorite place on the peninsula at that time. The road entered a narrow passage for several kilometers, a 2lane with room for only one vehicle. On one side sheer walls with icicles and on the other a drop into the canyon carved by the roiling waters of the Esera. Pilars home village, population 19, 900 meters above sea level El Run. As I said before, situated at the entrance of the Valley of Benasque. The first thing I would do there would be enjoy the simple pleasure of a cold glass of mountain water. Then I would let my senses become adjusted to the sounds of milk cows mooing, the smell of cow manure, smoke from the hearth, water rushing, Pilar's mother cooking, the icy air of the snow covered mountains that shocked the lungs.
Here are a few color slides that survived the passage of time. this is where I stayed. Pilar's ancestral home. It was a water powered sawmill now defunct due to an hydroelectric dam upstream. It's on the Esera, under that bridge huge trout swam. My room was the one on the right in the tower, far away from Pilar, so no hanky- panky till I got hold of the church keys.
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The entrance of the valley. A borda in El Run.
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Loved to scamper in these mountain hamlets.
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Payed our respect to those that endured to this harsh but beautiful land.
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I liked this nearby hamlet called Ramastue. That is an original nearly untoched medieval burg.
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[Randy Clark]

wow jimmy reall like the stone work in these pics. enjoying cold mountain air next to that river sounds good but i'll pass on the ice water and just sit there waiting for my beer to cool down in that cold river:occasion14:occasion14

[D Duck]

Very nice expose' Jimmy.

[nosoypato]

Having overexposed the celluloid, I had still some cans to kick about this neck of the world. So I sailed to the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean. There are 3 big islands and 2 smaller ones. The biggest where I landed for a spell is Mallorca, the other 2 are Menorca( a lot of people from the Jax are their descendants ) and Ibiza. Perversely, as is usual in Spain, these folks spoke another language other than the Alternate Southern Lingo. Undeterred we set up a practice in northeastern part of the island. The island is very rugged but this portion is a flat valley where the main industry was agriculture. It had marshes(where I hunted) and a huge bay, the Bahia de Alcudia(where I fished) 2 miles away. The small town was Sa Pobla.
The town and countryside had many windmills mostly used to pump water for there's little surface water.

If you look closely you'll see a mule cart loaded with the bounty of this land which was potatoes. They did 2 crops per year and exported it to England. It was a rich town of small farmers, here hardly anyone lived on the farmland.
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[Randy Clark]

cool pics did the wind mills work ?

[ShotGunED]

The best part of my 6 month stint in the Med. was a week of pure liberty in Palma de Mallorca....beautifil place and great times.

[nosoypato]

A few worked, mostly the pumping was done with diesel power.

This place had it's own brew, naturally. After all that potato digging some went home to enjoy the internal fire of Hirbas Ibizencas. It was a sort of anisette infused with what some would consider weeds. Butt these weeds were our weeds.

Here are a couple of bottles about to be sacrificed to the Balearic deities.
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A local commuting home with his load of potatoes for a well earned swig of Hierbas Ibizencas. Notice that he sports a low carbon emissions vehicle that recicled it's fuel. Yes this folks were ahead of their time anticipating the coming global warming.
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Being very civilized, the fierce Mallorcan hounds were kept on the leash even while on the road.
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[Esteban]

Very nice Jimmy, I could almost see Don Quixote engaged in battle with the ferocious windmill giants...

[nosoypato]

Giants they were Señor Esteban. Rising from the fertile soil like enormous armored flailing mushrooms. Actually the locals were renowned in the Roman Empire as masters of the rock hurling sling. Regiments of Balearic slingers fought for the Romans from the frontiers on the Danube to the arid lands of Syria.

Seeing that the deities had granted us a magical land where industrious people had shaped it where necessary to survive and left it alone where capitalistic endeavors were not aesthetic, we set out to explore.
The Sa Calobra, which means serpent, a narrow mountain road that descends from the mountains in hair raising pin curves. To end at the Torrens de Pareis, a torrent that flows a few days per year when snow melts or torrential rains drench the sierra, to flow into a small cove. There concerts of Bach a Capella and other folkloric events were offered by the Mallorcans.

The Torrens.
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Fishing ports nestled in remote coves.
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The locals turned me on to a secret cove nearby. It took 45min of hiking throuhg woods and narrow tracks through the mountains to descend to a cove usually accessible only by water. It was Coll Baix which became our private beach.

The cove after the winding trail.
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[nosoypato]

Butt it was not all hankie-pankie and leisure. Man must also quench the atavistic yearning for organic meat.

Here is my fishing buddy QKT(that was his name), a wise gent and a healer that knew all the good fishing spots and the local methods of capture.
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There was a market Tuesday morning in SA Pobla where the locals came to trade, sell or socialize.
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[Randy Clark]

dammmm jimmy these pics and stories should be told correctly with your wine bag:occasion14

[nosoypato]

Yes Señor Randy I thought the same thing back then. It would have been nice to have one made out of gator hide butt I settled for a plebeian sheep job.
I burned the fossil fuel of the efficient Seat my girlfriend had in wanton exploration of this little island. The people were very insular. One time the wife of another md said to us; " I'm also a foreigner in town(Sa Pobla) although I've lived here 25yr, I was born in Santa Margalida". That town was only 14km away!!!
So on we went to check out the land. Coming across tidy little streets that lead to dens of perdition every once in a while. This picture is from somewhere in Mallorca. The wine bag sometimes obfuscate the neurons.
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Another times we would visit the ancient trees that grew twisted on the wind ravaged coast.
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Other times we forsook the the motor vehicle to take up the narrow roads that stretched mercifully flat through hectares of potatoes. There our patients toiled sun up to sun down acquiring the aches that kept us in business.
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Pilar had a twin sister,Genobeba, a professor of literature in Palma de Mallorca.
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Had time to reflect on the good fortune bestowed on me by adroit manipulation of the goddess of fortune. This was such a place. Actually very common in those parts. Many pools dotted the valley, water pumped from the aquifer was thus stored for irrigation, there were no flowing rivers.
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[Randy Clark]

looks like the wine flowed freely over there amazing you made it back to the states:occasion14

[nosoypato]

As I was saying the goddess of fortune was being very nice to me mostly. In this island I was granted a momentous revelation. I discovered how white people lived. Putting aside my commie leanings I immersed myself into the experience.
We rented the house of a Poblense who happened to be a Pediatrician now practicing in the capital, Palma. It was his ancestral home, made to withstand the assault of pirates, which in this parts were either English or Africans from the Barbary Coast. In fact the whole Sa Pobla was built the same way. Narrow streets with solid walls made of blocks of well crafted limestone, with robust doorways every here and there and balconies on the second floor . The dang key to the house was 9 inches long and 1/4 inch thick. It had 3 floors, the first held the exam room, waiting room, kitchen and a great room with a huge ceramic fireplace and well made of polished granite. Why an indoor well? It just so happened that this house and every other in town sat on top of individual cisterns. These cisterns were connected to the gutters and upper floor terraces which then drained by gravity into them. It was the best drinking water but for other things there was city supplied running water. It was a vestige of a time past when it was the only water available.
This is what I saw when I crossed the pirate proof doorway. A stairway leading to the sleeping area with four rooms two of which had a very large terrace just outside the floor to ceiling windows. To the right the waiting room, to the left the waiting room.In the background beyond the stairs a french style door led to a great room, the kitchen, a terrace, bathroom and the animal quarters.
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In the great rooms we would have bacchanalian parties with the local Mallorquines, nice people and very hard working.
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Beyond this room was a courtyard with a brick wood oven big enough to roast a cow butt it was used to bake bread and a sort of rectangular pizza called koca. Further on there was a rabbitt hotel and cow pad on the left and the quaters for the mules on the right. This connected to the next street via a huge appropriately fortified door.

This is the rabbit quarters. Those low cholesterol rodents are very tasty roasted over coals and with ali oli.
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A nice young lady framed in the rabbit warren.
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Then there was the third floor. A white washed attic where butifarra(a type of sausage) was hung to cure. It also held a bounty of earthenware cauldrons, pots and bathing pans.I learned to cook with some of those pots delicacies such as Arroz Brut. The secret to this dish is to add several crushed raw rabbit livers with equal amounts of fresh parsley to the rice at mid point f cooking the rice.

This is a covered dish.
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An uncovered dish.
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....she feeds you tea and oranges, that come all the way from China and you know that she's half crazy, for for you touched her perfect body with your mind...
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The kid next door. His father introduced me to a local custom that begins with a hunt. So we set out on a sparrow hunt, after bagging two limits of the tasty little buggers we plucked them and lit a fire. Then over the coals you roast the suckers whole, beaks, legs and guts till they squeak in a well done manner. Without cutlery you devour the crunchy winged morsel to the ever present medicinal wineskin.
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[nosoypato]

Butt all that living like a christian, left me longing for a more austere experience. Away from the hustle and bustle of mule carts and the scampering and chewing of the rabbits out in the rabbit hotel. Then embarking on a journey to the other end of the island we would go to Esporlas. It was to the house of Genobeba and Miguel lived a ways up outside of the village. Pasts stoned terraced gnarled olive groves, zigzagging one lane roads to arrive at their slice of austere paradise. On the top of the windswept mountain, sturdily constructed, with electricity, no running water but it did have a cistern that frugally provided the needed functions.

This is the front of the bungalow, behind was a terrace, then a precipice with an unimpeded view of Palma de Mallorca.
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Sometimes in the winter it would look thus.
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Inside lived Miguel, also a Literature professor and writer. Now he's a painter with some success. Here in their study.
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A good puff on the pipe out by the terrace. Bellow the guiris would be imbibing intoxicating mixtures and bar hopping. This was sereiny.
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A place to meditate.
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On the premises, from where I took the photo of the front of the house, there was an old cistern from where the sweetest water could be drunk. I don't say ancient because nearby there was a 4000bce megalithic tomb that provided the best black soil to grow geraniums. Unfortunately the ravages of time have erased those negatives.
Here's the cistern.
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Some that are still perusing my reminiscences on this thread may wonder at some of the images. These are people that opened their spirit, hearts, minds, bodies and knowledge to make my stay in Spain a glorious experience. Some that were there with me only lived to once again increase their chance of coronary artery disease by munching on a McDonald burger.

The twins in Esporlas.
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Of course I regretted missing Early duck Season in September. The balmy tealess sunrises when late arrivals would enliven the quiet of the marsh with dysphonic mallard calls.

At such time I would quench my sorrow by staging an unforgetable sunrise ceremony.
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[nosoypato]

Having limited out several times on lovely orbs at the sunrise, I got restless. I had gone many time to another of the Baleares Islands, the fabled Ibiza. I have no images of this time since I didn't own a camera. It went like this; First the anarchists, commies and socialists rioted thus shutting down the university, me being a sympathetic peasenic rapidly would stow away on the next train to Barcelona. There as the sun set, for $3(when the dollar was king) buy passage to Ibiza on the deck of the ferry. You could bring your sleeping bag, any musical instrument, mind altering substances for entertainment and food to greet the sunrise as you entered Ibiza Harbor. I would bring a flute, since a duck call didn't harmonize well with bongos.
Anyways, from Mallorca I would stow my Montesa in the hold of a coastal steamer that would take me to the northernmost island of the archipelago, Menorca. This is a windswept island with it's own language and customs. The locals while not unfriendly, kind of ignored outsiders. Fine with me, I had a friend that taught school there.
The ship arrives at the tiny port of Ciudadala, where I stayed. It's a small port city on the western end of the island. It has been inhabited by Iberians, Phoenicians, Greeks, Romans, Muslims, Castellians and English, no wonder they ignore outsiders!

The Port of Ciudadela.
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It had a tranquil downtown where all the necessities of an organic daily life could be found.
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This was hustle and bustle by Menorcan criteria.
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Here I would buy the Mahon cheese and the Hierbas Ibizencas to lubricate my outings on the countryside.
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This was my rooms simply decorated in an understated style and with a renewable energy heating device.
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[nosoypato]

Now that I was accommodated in my new digs in Ciudadela, it was time to explore. Filled up the Montesa precisely with a tankful of the cheapest gas mixed with a coke bottle full of motoroil and hit the dirt. Once out of the central and coastal roads, all roads were dirt lanes interrupted by gates through private properties. There were no road signs, of course. It was nearly useless to ask the few locals that scurried about, they were either speechless or difficult to understand. This was disturbing because strewn here and there were these huge perfectly symmetrical wedding cake like structures much like the pyramid of Saqqara. Asking the locals only provided the information that they have always been there.
However I had a secret weapon, a guide. Although not a local Menorquina, she knew the road to Nirvana.

There were plenty of stones in these parts. All the fences were endless kilometers of chest high stone walls. Only way to work that land, clearing thus the fields for the plow and keeping the sheep contained. Not many trees except on the coast and those were gnarled wind abuse trees all growing in the opposite direction of the prevailing winds.
The usual gate, no questions asked, just close it afterward. Not a straight plank.
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This is one of the numerous whatevers that dotted the land. I suspect that it was a burial place to keep the dead under a great pile of stones so as to keep them from humbugging the living.
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Then there was a church in the middle of nowhere and no one there either. It rose out of the stony fields as a ghostly apparition hovering over the non existing faithful.
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Butt it came in handy. It had a cistern to draw rainwater from. Initially I approached a conical structure with caution thinking it was the niche or abode of a saint or perhaps an aggressive virgin. It turned out to be the opening to the cistern, tastefully whitewashed.
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The guide did not disappoint. I was taken to a place where the clear Mediterranean laps hidden coves to succumbing to the sensuous touch of the sun.
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It was Nirvana to my humble redneck soul.
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[Randy Clark]

dammm jimmy great stuff and her smile says it all. have to put that one on the wall. great portrait of a beautiful girl with a pretty smile:occasion14:occasion14

[ChiefBubba]

What a great thread. I'm dubbing you "The most interesting man in the world" Chief.

[Esteban]

Great stuff Jimmy. For one person to have gotten so much out of life, just fabulous. How can one not be envious?. I have to agree with the Chief, "The Most Interesting Man in The World".

[nosoypato]

Thanks all, butt it's bit overstated. I just happened to have had hyperactive ants in my pants during that decade.

[nosoypato]

Meanwhile, I've been digging into the chest of my remembrances finding some celluloid ravaged by my inept developing and the passage of time. I confess that I did my developing in precarious circumstances in very cold weather more often than naught without heat and using old vinegary wine as a stop bath. Getting film and chemicals may have meant eating in a dark dive where some of the patrons talked to their soup.

Butt it was not all penury and sampling the salty air of secret coves, sometimes one must grab the toro by it's horn and ply the craft to which one is a devotee.

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I'll be scanning and dreaming of a time long ago. Perhaps a few can accompany me.