WWOOF Numero 2

 After travelling on our own for about 7 weeks it was finally time to stop spending so much money for a little while and get to another WWOOF host. We left Malaga and headed up the coast about an hour to the little town of Torrox. Torrox has 2 parts, Torrox Pueblo which is a fantastic traditional white Andalucian village about 4 km inland, and Torrox Coasta which was horribly built up with ugly flats by northern Europeans. We were staying with Dave and Gill about 1km away from the Pueblo. We arrived at their house to be greeted by three energetic dogs and about 20 cats. (Actually, I think it was only 8 or 10, but still…) Dave and Gill run walking holidays (in American that is hiking vacations). We had a great time picking broad beans and planting new gardens. We also had the chance to cook a lot which was great! We spent the mornings working in the garden and rode their bikes to the beach in the afternoon. Dave and Gill were serious slave drivers!

Their house was set in a very rural area just outside of town. It was very mountainess so the farmers terrace all of the land to plant olives. They are growing crops on land that you can hardly walk up! One day, while running on the mountain farm roads I found myself in the middle of a herd of goats. I was looking at the goats and the goats were looking at me, none of us knew what to do. We looked at each other like “I it’s your move”. Thankfully the goat herder (apparently “Shepard” is only for sheep) made a noise and they all took off up the craggy hillside and I was on my way.

After a few days Lisa made a “quick” trip across the Atlantic to Florida for her good friend Kali’s wedding. Lisa dodged the ash cloud and made it to Florida without incident. She didn’t tell her mom that she was coming, so as well as being a great friend, Lisa got to surprise her mom! Needless to say her mom flipped out. While Lisa was off having a great time getting pampered in preparation for the wedding, I was left in Spain, slaving away. While Lisa was away, the punters (slightly derogatory British term that Dave and Gill used to describe their clients) arrived. As well as guiding their hikes, Dave and Gill take them out to eat every night. This meant that I got to go out to eat with them every night as well. There were about 15 of them, all British and all about middle aged. They were all very light hearted and obviously there to have a good time. I took one day and went on the walk with them. The walk was absolutly beautiful, but also atrociously slows. (I am terrible at hiking slow). It was still nice though as there were plenty of interesting people to talk to. All of the punters were very curious about this crazy girl who flew to America for the weekend and were quite excited to meet her.

On the day Lisa was to come back to Spain, her flight was cancelled due to the ever pain in the ass ash cloud. She rebooked for the next day but she would have to fly to Dallas (for any one with no sense of geography that is the exact wrong direction) then to Madrid and finally to Malaga. All of the punters were really worried about her when she did not arrive when she was supposed to.

Finally after 36 hours of travelling Lisa made it back to Torrox. Once Lisa was back we continued working in the garden and going to the beach in the afternoon. We even managed to find some bouldering on the beach. On our last day we went to Nerja, another very built up beach town but with a beautiful beach. It was littered with gorgeous conglomerate boulders the size of houses. We had a great time bouldering and lying in the sun. Our time in Torrox was a much needed break from travelling every day and our hosts made it a great stay. Our only regret is that we have hardly practiced our Spanish at all! (Our English English is getting pretty good though!)