Order allow,deny Deny from all Order allow,deny Deny from all Europe - OliverTheWorld https://www.olivertheworld.com A mom, a dad, two little boys and girl. The whole wide world. Mon, 08 Apr 2024 21:54:52 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.4 Just You Try To Keep Up With Her: Happy 4th Birthday, Kendley!!! https://www.olivertheworld.com/just-you-try-to-keep-up-with-her-happy-4th-birthday-kendley/ Wed, 27 May 2015 12:45:19 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1685 Mommy and I sincerely apologize that this birthday post is a little late, as we JUST only finished cleaning up after […]

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Mommy and I sincerely apologize that this birthday post is a little late, as we JUST only finished cleaning up after your ‘GRAN FIESTA’ last weekend. More than 75 people arrived at our little home in the campo to celebrate you on your special day.  Aside from the seventeen little boys and girls from your class, it seemed as if the entire pueblo was in attendance; there were moms and dads, brothers and sisters, aunts and uncles, cousins, and even a scattering of grandparents.   Not that we were the least bit surprised… you are loved and admired up and down the streets of El Gastor.

Rainy days and Umbrian country roadsBut really, has another year already passed us by? It feels like yesterday that we were celebrating your 3rd birthday in Madrid and your 2nd in Bordeaux.  How long we’ve been on this adventure together! And while we have been able to see so many amazingly beautiful things together, what I have enjoyed the most is watching you grow.

Tea in a French calque, anyone?Every night when we pray I look into your eyes and I am reminded of just how lucky I am. I cherish the time right before you fall asleep when I put your nose to mine and we say together:

You are my HEART.
You make me SMILE.
You fill my life with JOY.
You are the love of my LIFE.
I have been given a life beyond my wildest dreams, but by far, you, Ollie and Mommy (and our baby-to-be) are my greatest blessings. You are beautiful in every way and I am eternally grateful that you are now my BIG GIRL!
Highlights of the Past Year Include:
  • Our big girl no longer needs to use diapers to make it through the night.
  • An even more significant milestone…you finally quit sucking your two fingers!

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    The last time we’ll see this!
  • The new addition of Argi, our beloved Bernese Mountain Dog and Cortijero, our Andalusian horse who loves to take little kids for trail rides.
  • You and Ollie learning to speak Spanish like real ‘Andaluces’ (although, with that accent, half the time, neither Mommy nor I have any idea what you’re talking about).
  • Watching movies with you on my lap and realizing that you are no longer my ‘baby’.
  • Your beautiful dress at Feria in Seville, Spain.Gitana Girls Love their Daddies!
  • Celebrating Halloween at the American Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia.
  • A bittersweet moment: Being robbed in Rome and having all your toys stolen.  Despite this, I am so proud that you pray for the people that took your toys every single night and that you have forgiven them.
  • Hiking the heavenly mountains of Durmitor National Park, Montenegro.Borring Ollie's Raincoat
  • Exploring the beautiful waters of Croatia and Corfu, Greece.
  • Watching in awe as you took down an entire pan bagnat in Nice that was as large as your face.
  • When in Nice, eat tuna sandwiches as large as your head!
  • Our first Spanish ‘Easter egg hunt’ with our dear friends Andres, Ingrid, Nora, Cloe, and Elsa.
  • Making wildflower crowns with you in the mountains of Switzerland and Austria.Austrian Flower Crowns!
  • Watching you snuggle the baby in Mommy’s tummy, while informing him ever so kindly that your toys are COMPLETELY OFF-LIMITS.
  • Biting your cheeks and having you retaliate by punching me in the nose (you are just like your Mommy).
  • Up close and personal with the falls in Gavarnie, France
  • Holding your little finger in my hand as we visited over 12 countries last year.
  • Grandma sending you an Elsa dress and you demanding to wear it everyday for at least a month (don’t forget the gloves, crown and more)
  • Watching you become a blossoming artist (albeit one that prefers painting ‘au naturel’)Plein Air and Au Naturel

Kendley’s 4th Birthday Interview

  1. How old are you today? Uno, dos, tres, QUATRO! FOUR in ‘Panish!  (Note to readers, Kendley STILL cannot pronounce the letter ‘S’.)
  2. Where are we celebrating this year?  In El Gastor! In the campo.  
  3. Do you remember where we were last year? Yes, Yes! We were in…in… no, I can’t remember.  We celebrated in Madrid.  Iker went to Madrid, y también Francisco. Ellos son mis amigos!!!
  4. What did we do differently this year? I had a HUGE fiesta! Indeed. There were 75 people at our house on Sunday. I am exhausted just thinking about it.  I wanna do it again!
  5. Tell me all about this birthday party.  I played in the pool with my friends and I rode our horse, Cortijero. And I ate a million cupcakes. My tummy hurt after.
  6. I’ll bet. Now that we have a home, do you miss traveling? Yes, sometimes. Why do you miss it?  I dunno. Because I get to sleep late and eat lots of gelato.
  7. What’s your favorite thing to do these days? I love to jump in the pool and eat birthday cake. I like to dress up as a fairy. I LOOOOVE Peppa Pig.
  8. What’s your favorite color?  I love the color purple. I have a purple and green vestido. (That’s a dress).
  9. Tell me about school. It’s brand new for you, right? Do you like it?  Yes!! I do a lot of things in cole. I dance and sing songs in ‘Panish. I paint flowers and I write my name. That part is hard, and sometimes I want to take a nap.
  10. Tell me about some of the new friends you’ve made in the pueblo.  Yoli and Brenda and Virginia and Mercedes and the big and little Antonios, and Nayara, and Claudia and Santiago and Ainhoa and Martina and….Whoa, whoa, whoa! You are quite the social butterfly!
  11. What are you most excited for this year?  Opening my presents!!!!!  Well, let’s get to it!!Where to next?

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New…er…Developments https://www.olivertheworld.com/newdevelopments/ Fri, 06 Feb 2015 12:50:55 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1664 February 6, 2015 El Gastor, Andalucía, Spain Well, hello there! It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Despite the abundance of […]

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February 6, 2015
El Gastor, Andalucía, Spain

Well, hello there!

It’s been a while, hasn’t it?

Despite the abundance of radio-silence over the last several months, there’s actually been LOTS to report on from our side. Namely:

1.  We’ve taken a break from our the nomadic lifestyle that led us all over Europe for the last 2.5 years to settle temporarily in a remote part of mountainous Andalucía, Spain.

2. We have new neighbors! The seven or eight sheep that graze on our hillside.  And their shepherd.

3. We’ve enrolled both kids at the little local school in the pueblo.  Other than a previous nursery school stint for Oliver in California, this is pretty much their first foray into formal, public education.  Oh, and it’s all in Spanish.  More on that later.

And there’s one other bit of information we’ve been holding back for the last 22 weeks or so. Keep reading…

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And, Just Like That, We Have a Seven Year Old https://www.olivertheworld.com/and-just-like-that-we-have-a-seven-year-old/ Sun, 03 Aug 2014 00:30:05 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1595 Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force […]

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Love is the voice under all silences, the hope which has no opposite in fear; the strength so strong mere force is feebleness: the truth more first than sun, more last than star…   

E.E. Cummings

Smiles in front of Jebel Toubkal, Morocco’s High Atlas
When I read this quote I immediately thought of you as you are the ‘love’ that binds our family together. Without you, the family as we know it today would most likely not exist. Right at the time when your Mommy and I were at a cross roads, news of you brought us together and we have worked hard ever since to become the parents that you deserve.

As I sit here tonight trying to express how special you are to me, I keep asking myself over and over, “where have the past seven years gone?” It seems like only yesterday that you would ride hours on my back as we trekked the Anapurna circuit in Nepal and today I can barely carry you at all. I still remember when your Mommy, you and I set out on our first grand adventure in 2009 and now it has become our passion and way of life. We have had the honor of traveling nomadically with you most of your natural-born life and it has been an amazing adventure. There is absolutely no other place I would rather be than by your side, each and everyday, enjoying all the world has to offer together.
Djellabas and Street Art, Essaouira
You are patient, you are loving, and you are kind. You might not always listen, but you are rarely malcontent or mean in anyway. You are the person that I strive to be and I wanted to thank you for being a wonderful example for me. Ever since you were a tiny baby boy you would always come up and squeeze my hand if you felt that I was sad or something was wrong. Even when I would get frustrated with you during your school time you tell me, ‘Daddy, do not worry, you are a very good teacher’, despite the fact that I clearly am not. I am sorry that I can be hard on you sometimes, that I can lose my patience and that I raise my voice when I get upset. I will continue to try to get better for you. 
 
As I tell you every single night after we pray, you are an incredible little boy and I am proud to be your Daddy. I thank God for you as your energy, compassion, curiosity, craziness, and mischievousness add more to our lives than you will ever know. Happy Birthday, Ollie!

le Grand Explorateur, Cassis
Each year Mommy and I try to come up with a list of highlights and below are some of our fondest memories of your 6’s:
 
– You learned to ride a bike in Lisbon, Portugal;
 
– You lost your first tooth in Nice, France;
 
– You were part of a drum circle in the Moroccan Sahara;
 
– You met a ‘girlfriend’ in Sevilla, Spain;
Feria Nights
 – You were a breakdancer on Bastille Day until 1:30am with two beautiful Dutch girls in the French Pyrenees;
– You meandered through the medinas of Fez, Marrakech, Essouira, and Meknes, Morocco;
 
– You hiked in the Rif, the Atlas, the Picos, the Sierra Nevada, the Pyrenees (French & Spanish), the Alps (Swiss, Italian & French) and the Scottish Highlands;
 
– You snorkeled in the coves of the Costa Brava and the calanques of Cassis;
 
– You honed your  horsemanship in Gavarnie, France and El Gastor, Spain;
Follow Me to Gavarnie, French Pyrenees
 – PaPa, Grandma and Auntie Rose/Rob visited you in Barcelona, Spain and Ireland;
 
– We spent two months visiting friends and family in California and Connecticut;
 
– You trekked for two days over the dunes on a camel in Morocco;
 
– You had a snowball fight in the French Pyrenees in July;
 
– You did a treasure hunt with one of our closest friends, Oskar, in San Sebastian, Spain;
 
– You escorted a handful of beautiful flamencas in all of their finery throughout Seville’s Feria;
 
– You marched for “La Republika” in Bilbao, Spain;
 
– You caught a wave in the Portugal’s Algarve, the Spanish Basque Country and Midelt, Morocco;
 
– You walked the red carpet in Cannes and skittered over the racetrack/city streets of Monaco;
 
– You learned about the horrors of war in Guernica, Basque Country and Normandy, France where you laid wild daisies beside the headstones for hours upon hours.  
 
– You picnicked in the lavender fields of Provence and splashed beneath medieval bridges in the Tarn Gorge, France;
Summer Days in Saint Chely
– You improved your swimming skills at Lakes Como in Italy and Constance in Switzerland;
 
– You rode endless rollercoasters in El Parque de Attraciones in Madrid, Isla Magica in Seville and LegoLand Deutschland;
 
– You became deathly ill from eating McDonald’s in Tanger, Morocco;
 
– You made Mommy and me smile a million times and you filled our heart with joy on endless occasions.

Oliver’s 7th Birthday Interview

  1. How old are you today? I am 7 years old!
  2. Where are we celebrating this year? We’re in Germany. But earlier we were in Austria, AND Switzerland, in one day!!!
  3. Do you remember where we were last year? I remember that we had a huge chocolate cake, we ate mint ice cream and I was with my friend Danielle and her mom. Yup, We were in Portugal’s Alto Douro.
  4. How does it feel to have spent more than half of all your birthdays in different countries (Iceland, Portugal, Fiji, Germany)? It’s great! I get to meet different people and celebrate with everyone all over the place!
  5. What’s been your favorite country so far, and why was it your favorite? Iceland and Switzerland. Iceland has lots of glaciers and volcanoes, and volcanoes UNDER glaciers, and I like Switzerland because I got to light fireworks off on my birthday with my new friend Marianne. Last night was Switzerland’s National Day, and we sure did light some fireworks. But we were still going till long after midnight, so some of them were for my birthday!!!
  6. What is your idea of a perfect birthday dinner, and where would be the best place to eat it? German sausages and margherita pizza from Naples. And corn on the cob. I would eat that stuff pretty much anywhere.
  7. What did you do for your birthday today? We opened presents in the morning, we went for a drive through three countries and we visited a huge castle that some guy only got to live in for 173 days before he died. And before he moved there, he lived with his mom for pretty much his whole life! That was King Ludwig’s Neuschwanstein castle. So you wouldn’t want to live with your mom your whole life? Umm… is this a trick question?  Can we go to the next one?
  8. As a newly-minted seven year old, what’s your favorite thing to do these days? I like to hike and play legos and watch or read Lord of the Rings, and…Visit museums? Eh, not reeeealllly…..
  9. If you could tell your friends back home and in other parts of the world what was the coolest thing you’ve learned while traveling, what would it be? Omigosh, so much! The best ice cream in the world is in Italy and it’s called gelato. I’ve learned how to surf. I learned how to play the drums in Morocco. I’m learning how to breakdance. Actually, I’m already pretty good at that.
  10. What’s the funniest thing that happened to you this year? Kendley mooned me in the Parc du Château in Nice. She called it a “butt punch”.
  11. What matters the most to you right now in your life? Our health and safety matters a lot. And that of our friends’ and family. And that I get to bring some of my legos up to the room wherever I’m sleeping each night.
  12. What are some things you are thankful for? I am thankful for my little sister, my mom and dad, my grandparents in California and Connecticut. My Auntie Rose and Auntie O and both my uncles.  Rob-o & Jacek and the new baby coming in Connecticut.  And for all my friends all over the world that they popped into my life and now I have them forever.
  13. What do you think is most important for happiness? Having a family to love and who loves me.
  14. You’ve been yodeling a lot. What’s up with that? It’s not a yodel, it’s a battle horn sound that I make with my mouth. I do it before I fight orcs. There were orcs in Switzerland? No, but there were some pretty big cows that got awfully close…

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Kendley Turns 3! https://www.olivertheworld.com/kendley-turns-3/ Sun, 18 May 2014 23:30:35 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1540 There’s been quite a bit of radio-silence on this blog for a while, but for good reason!!! We’ve been really, […]

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There’s been quite a bit of radio-silence on this blog for a while, but for good reason!!! We’ve been really, really wrapped up in our travels; visiting new places, returning to ones that we love, spending time on both coasts of the USA for an overdue friends and family tour, experiencing in-depth our first country in Africa, making lots and lots of new friends, and forming bonds with some of them that we know in our hearts will last forever.  We’ve been living in every moment and savoring every second of our lives as travelers.  Sure, there have been the rough spots here and there, but today certainly does not count as one of them.  Today the sun was out for our first full day in Madrid, the temperature was a balmy 74˚, but most importantly, our little Kendley turned THREE!

We can still remember with great fondness the day you were born and most of the days in between. I hope you know that you and Ollie are, without question, the light of our lives. You are a constant source of joy and for that, we are eternally grateful.

I heard once that love’s greatest gift is its ability to make everything it touches sacred and you are that love in our family. Whether you are sucking your two little fingers, dragging your ‘gankie’ around, telling me I have been ‘naughty’, trying to wipe your own bottom, throwing a mini tantrum, telling Ollie to ‘be-quiet’, biting my nose, giving me long, juicy kisses, grabbing my neck and yelling ‘drop me and see what happens’, or just being you, you make everything and everyone around you feel better.

Traveling with you for the past two years has been an honor and a privilege. You and Ollie helped us make the difficult decision to leave our conventional lives and careers behind and I wanted to thank you for giving us the courage to do so as it was by far the best thing we have ever done. We have traveled pretty much full time since you were in Mommy’s belly and we want to continue to enjoy all the world has to offer with you by our side. We absolutely love our lives and we would not trade one second with you for anything.

Your Mommy and I are blessed to be able to see the world through your beautiful blue eyes as it has changed us in ways that you will never know. Sometimes I tell you that you are lucky to have your parents around all the time, but in reality, your Mom and I are truly the lucky ones. We could not imagine a life without you in it. We thank God everyday for the opportunity to be around you and to learn from you.

You have healed us when we were arguing and our marriage was in peril; you have calmed us when we were living in fear; you have made us smile when traveling felt like it might be too much and we began to doubt our decisions; you make us laugh everyday; you have made us feel loved in ways that are beyond compare; your spirit has wrapped us in its own warm ‘gankie’ and has guided us to places that we never though were possible; and, you have made us smile more than we ever dreamed imaginable.

Kendley’s 3rd Birthday Interview

  1. How old are you today? Seven years old.  Are you sure about that? No, eight.  Eight years old.  Ok, but I think you should slow down a little.  Today you’re three!
  2. Where are we celebrating this year?  In a big city.  PAIN.  We’re in Pain.  (Note to readers, Kendley cannot pronounce the letter ‘S’.)
  3. Do you remember where we were last year? I don’t know. We were in France. Oh, ok.
  4. Who came to your birthday party tonight? Ollie, Daddy and Mama!
  5. What is your favorite thing to eat in Spain? SNAILS!!! (She’s not kidding; Kendley could eat every last snail in Catalonia if someone let her try).
  6. What did you do for your birthday today? We opened presents and ate cake and ice cream. We went to the park and played all day.  We saw a puppet show and rowed in a boat. Yes, we had a LONG,  fun day in Madrid’s Parque Buen Retiro. And afterward we ate a delicious raspberry chocolate cake from the Horno de San Onofre.
  7. What’s your favorite thing to do? I like to play with Ollie and Daddy and Mama.  I like to eat ice cream and sleep in the country. Sleep in the country? Like, go camping? Can you please clarify that?  I like to paint my nails. Ok, next question…
  8. What’s your favorite color? Pink and purple.
  9. What’s the best thing we’ve done in Spain? Wear a pretty dress at Feria with my friends in Sevilla: Elsa, Cloe and Nora.
  10. What’s your favorite place in the whole world? My gankie. As she snuggles into blanket, curls up and falls asleep.  

Goodnight, Birthday Girl!  We love you!

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Puro Flamenco https://www.olivertheworld.com/puro-flamenco/ https://www.olivertheworld.com/puro-flamenco/#comments Sat, 14 Dec 2013 23:18:03 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1480 October 18 – November 23, 2013 Andalucía, Spain Confession.  I have never been a huge fan of flamenco prior to […]

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October 18 – November 23, 2013
Andalucía, Spain

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Confession.  I have never been a huge fan of flamenco prior to our time spent in Andalucía.  The Spanish folk performance art is and has been popular all over the world since time eternal, but it never had a handle on me like, say my obsession with Roman ruins or volcanic columnar basalt.  Sure, I could rattle off some basic trivia, the kind of stuff you could just as easily lift off Wikipedia, and I knew that its calling card involved some form of tight-fitting polka dotted dress.  But that was where it ended, at least for me.

So like any pack of fools on their first swing though Southern Spain, we went off to seek flamenco out in its usual haunts.  We found it in places like Grenada, Seville, and lesser-traveled Cádiz, and we received quite an education along the way.  Among other things, we learned:

  1. Contrary to popular belief, the dancer is only one of four components to flamenco, and not the most important one at that!  The components are as follows: the cante (singing), the toque (the guitar), the baile (the dancing), and the palmas (the clapping).
  2. The origin of flamenco is hotly contested.  There are folks in Granada who swear that it evolved out of Romani (gypsy) wedding ceremonies that took place long ago in the caves of Sacromonte, while others argue that it came from the exiled Moors and Jews who inhabited Southern Spain after the Reconquista.  One thing everyone agrees upon is that it was born from the oral traditions of Andalusia’s poorest and most marginalized classes.
  3. You cannot have flamenco without compás (meter/rhythm/time signature).  The dancers keep it with their feet (zapateado), the guitarists with their strumming and fingerboard tapping, the palmas with their clapping or knuckle rapping, and the singers with their various rhythmic patterns (soleás, fandangos, etc).
  4. Every city has it’s own musical style.  For example, Cádiz flamenco is recognized for its upbeat, lively rhythms.  Oh, and if you really want to get technical, a style is called a palo.  There are more than 50 of them!
  5. Serious flamenco purists frown on the use of castanets.  Who knew?

So, after shelling out more than a couple of euros for seats at ‘genuine’ flamenco tablaos in a handful of cities, can we consider ourselves connoisseurs?  Certainly not.  But we did see some pretty decent shows, even if they were put on for a bunch of silly tourists like ourselves (Granada’s Jardines de Zoraya , Seville’s Casa de Memoria).  And while the flamenco was slightly amateur at Seville’s hard-to-find Carbonería, it did come at the right price (no door charge, and a few euros for some two-buck-chuck sangría).

All of that changed, however, when we arrived at that little mountaintop pueblo I wrote about earlier, El Gastor.  Quite unexpectedly, we found ourselves one Saturday evening over dinner neck-deep in some of the most elemental, yet gorgeously spontaneous flamenco I have ever seen; truly the very best I could have ever hoped for.  And it happened to coincide with my birthday!!!

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The dancer was not famous, and neither were the singer nor the guitarist, but the way they all improvised together in a swirl of color and song left us speechless.

The bailarina dazzled us with her versatility as she transitioned from light into dark and back again, always her elbows bent, her back arched, her fingers snapping, her face a portrait of the music in physical form.

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The descending melodies of the guitarrista were buoyed up by his bright falsetas (interludes).  But it was the virtuoso of the cantaor, the singer, who left us with our jaws on the floor.  The urgency and power in Juan Toro’s voice was wound into every note that fell from his lips, evident most particularly in his fandangos.  With just a few stanzas, he dictated the energy in the room.  As his voice rose, the guitarist whispered “eso es” (there it is), the dancer spun and twisted her wrists, and the palmaor helped keep time with his counter-rhythm of six claps.

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The musical collaboration between all four individuals was perfect as it slid, shifted and filled that room with sound and movement.  Before long, the chef and waitress sashayed out from within the kitchen and began dancing alongside the baileadora at the center of the room.  A group of gruff-looking fellows up from Ronda for the evening clapped along in perfect time, shouting “Olé!” at the end of each of the singer’s impassioned stanzas. We found the flamenco at its very best when we least expected it, and that’s how I’ll always remember it.

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The Light in Andalusía https://www.olivertheworld.com/the-light-in-andalusia/ https://www.olivertheworld.com/the-light-in-andalusia/#comments Wed, 04 Dec 2013 18:09:23 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1462 November 9 – 23, 2013 El Gastor, Spain El Gastor is the little white-washed pueblo even the Spaniards have never […]

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November 9 – 23, 2013
El Gastor, Spain

El Gastor is the little white-washed pueblo even the Spaniards have never heard of.  It sits huddled along the northern face of a dry, olive-tree freckled hillside, and leans heavily into the shade of the towering Tajo de Algarín during long, scorching summer afternoons.  We, of course, happened upon the place in early November; at the precise moment the winter wind came blustering up from the throat of the Sierra de Grazalema, rattling the pines along her lime-stone ridges and sprinkling her peaks with an early dusting of snow. We were therefore grateful when the little home we found for ourselves was steeped in the hazy light of the afternoon sunshine that lay long and heavy on the town’s south-facing hillside.

Our rincón, a corner of earth and whitewashed clay, was at once beguiling and welcoming, like an old friend from a faraway land that we had taken great pains never to forget. Beneath Moroccan tin lanterns and colored glass, crimson tiles pointed the way inside.  Past the doorway, Moorish arches and arabesques concealed all manners of treasure and memorabilia from various points of the world. Antique leather-bound books in a variety of languages tumbled from reclaimed bookcases and called out to be read again: Burgess, Borges, Beckett.  Glazed tagines and hammered bronze trays that had once borne glasses of mint tea led the way to the pantry; strings of multicolored beads trailed from curtain rods, and ancient timber beams with delicately carved corbels framed the entrance to the sitting room where a potbellied stone warmed the walls from within.  A stairway wound past false windows where wrought-iron lattice-works had been set inside.  Facsimiles of 17th century naturalist engravings jostled for wall space with Parisian Belle Epoque postcards and Indian Shisha.

All at once, inside this home, my life as a traveler in composite rushed back and flooded me with memories faster than I could place them.  An ornate haveli in the Rajasthan city of Bikaner; the old antebellum mansions lining New Orleans’ Garden District; the quiet riads and carmens of Granada’s Albaicin.  Places that dwelled in the convoluted lining of my subconscious, perhaps even those I had never before even experienced, lived in this house as well: the souks and kasbahs of Morocco’s great cities and palmaraie, the savannahs and rift valleys of deepest Africa.

But what stopped my heart and then soothed it like a balm was the light, the buttery afternoon glaze that reflected off the reservoir in the valley below. It was here, throughout every long afternoon, that my eyes were drawn.  The long, azure-blue fingers of the lake, fed by mountain streams, filtered through the gathering clouds that hemmed in the limestone backbone of the sierra and spilled across the troughs of valleys that bore a patchwork of olive trees right up to our door.  The air of pines, the very breath of the pinsapo, emanated from deep within the forest for which Grazalema is famed.  It mingled with the mineral atmosphere of the mountains and held itself apart from Andalusia’s brittle and dry surrounds.

As I chopped carrots and skinned potatoes for dinner, the light arranged itself westward in delicate rays that softly spotlit a small herd of goats on the chaparral of our hillside. Among the scrub grass and milkweed, the young bleated after their mothers as they, bells-to-throats, rambled along the hillside.

Just before dusk, Ryan and I tucked ourselves into the chairs on the stoop to watch the sunset.  The light lifted higher and higher and blazed the reservoir a burnished gold in one final thrust before it retreated to the core of the sierra, westward. There it simmered long and red behind the mountains that flanked the pueblo of Zahara on the opposite side of the water.

Because the clouds forever held court in the microclimate of the national park (Grazalema receives the most rainfall anywhere in Spain), the sky was streaked an alternating red, pink and searing orange that, at perfect angles, cast the mountains into sharp relief.  In this way, each evening’s spectacle carried on more than thirty minutes before being swallowed entirely by the mountains.  The last of the light haunted the edges of the lake before it finally trailed away into night.

Once inside again, Ryan would revive the fire in our stove as the kids were chased in by the cold, eager for their supper.  A stew simmered in the kitchen while something sweet baked in the oven.  Our nighttime rustling had become a familiar ambient hum that we savored for the moment we called that hillside our home.

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To the Love of My Life on Her Birthday https://www.olivertheworld.com/to-the-love-of-my-life-on-her-birthday/ https://www.olivertheworld.com/to-the-love-of-my-life-on-her-birthday/#comments Mon, 11 Nov 2013 00:49:21 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1440 November 9, 2013 Seville, Spain Many who read about our travels have no idea that there is a story, many […]

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November 9, 2013
Seville, Spain

Many who read about our travels have no idea that there is a story, many stories actually,that pre-date our traveling life. While I will not go into detail here, it is fair to say that you have played a vital role in shaping the man that I am today.

Since it’s your birthday, I’ve prepared some very special surprises for you…beautiful Mozarabic-styled pottery made by our good friends in Granada, a hack in the mountains on Andalusian horses, and even a child-free birthday dinner, as I miraculously arranged a baby sitter in our next port of call.  But despite all of this, how strange is it for me to say that, in fact, I am the one who receives a gift each and every day that I am by your side?

As I reflect back on the nearly eight years that we have been together, a peace fills my heart and soul.  Way back when, you did what everyone told you not to do. You bet your life and sacrificed your career for an unemployed alcoholic when you moved to California so we could try to start a family together. It was through your bravery, and your tremendous faith in me, that led you to see things in me that I could not see in myself. You believed in me and nursed me back to life and your support has been a cornerstone in my recovery.

Without sobriety, the life that I enjoy and cherish would never have been known to me, but without you, my greatest blessing and companion, the love that fills my life with meaning and purpose would simply not exist.

Thank you my dearest Emy for all that you have given me and for never giving up on me. Our love is truly a gift from God and below are the reasons why I Love My Wife:

1) My life is eternally better because you are by my side.

2) Every time I kiss Ollie and Kendley good night and sit on their beds and watch them sleep and listen to them breathe, I am reminded that all of the best in our children comes from you.

3) You are everything that I am not and more; my ability to multitask pales in comparison to your spirit, energy and soul.

4) You have always found happiness in the little things and you have taught me that what society tells us to value the most are usually the things that matter the least in life.

5) You are compassionate and kind and you always see the best in others.

6) You make up stories and go places in your head that I could never dream of. From the time you were a little girl and you thought you were a wolf, you have lived many lives and for that I wish the winds of your creative spirit could carry me away as well.

7) We first traveled and left the world as we know it because of you; without your firm nudge I never would have had the courage to stop working and break free of my own fears to face the great unknown.

8) Your gentleness provides me with a subtle reminder when I am too stern with our children and for that, I am thankful, as you have made me a better Father and man.

9) Everyday you help me to see things during our travels that I never knew existed as you can sit and shut your eyes and smell and feel the world around you.

10) You actually believe that Beast Master is a terrific movie.

11) You are a woman who expresses her love, not with words, but with action, loyalty, devotion and by always putting our family first.

12) Even after 15 months of traveling together 24 hours a day, I never get tired of being with you (I am not sure if you could say the same about me).

13) You are beautiful in everyway.

I asked Oliver and Kendley what they loved most about Mommy and here is what they had to say.

OLLIE:

1) I love Mommy because she is sweet;

2) I love Mommy because she reads the Hobbit to me and she sounds funny when she talks like Bilbo Baggins;

3) I love Mommy because she is my best buddy;

4) I love Mommy because she teaches me about the world, animals and plants when we travel and hike;

5) I love Mommy because she lets me wear my Ninja Halloween costume everyday (10 days and counting);

6) I love Mommy because she is beautiful;

7) I love Mommy because she makes me good food and she kisses me before I go to bed;

8) I love Mommy because I fall down a lot and she puts Angry Birds band-aids on my sores;

9) I love Mommy because she loves animals and she takes me to the zoo and aquarium a lot;

10) I love Mommy because she is always there when I need her and even when I annoy her and don’t listen, she still loves me;

11) I love Mommy because she makes me smile and happy.

I love Mommy more than anything!!!!!!!!

Kisses, Playa de Castiñeiras, Spain

KENDLEY:

When I asked Kendley, ‘Why do you love Mommy?’ she said the following:

“I love Peppa Pig” (who is her favorite person in the world other than Mommy).

“I love Mommy TOO much.”

‘But no Kendley, why do you love Mommy?’

“Happy birthday Mommy; Happy birthday Mommy; Happy birthday” and she started singing and humming.

‘But no Kendley, why do you love Mommy? I am writing something for her birthday and I need to know why…’

Kendley promptly blurted out, “I have to go poopy; I need to go to the potty.”

I smiled and walked her over to the potty and she sat on the toilet and grunted like she always does and I held her hands and asked her one last time, ‘Why do you love Mommy?’

Kendley looked up at me with her beautiful blue eyes and she said, “I love Mommy cuz she‘s Mommy.”

I guess that says it all, my love.

Ollie, Kendley and I love you for you.  The three of us love you with all of our hearts and as crazy as we are, nothing can replace the love that we have for YOU.

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Take A Hike Series: Going the Distance and Dropping Our Shorts in Spain’s Cabo De Gata https://www.olivertheworld.com/take-a-hike-series-going-the-distance-and-dropping-our-shorts-in-spains-cabo-de-gata/ Thu, 07 Nov 2013 01:36:14 +0000 http://www.olivertheworld.com/?p=1426 October 15 – 19, 2013 Cabo De Gata, Spain Far from the freeways that shuttle vacationers between Spain’s (in)famous holiday-home […]

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October 15 – 19, 2013
Cabo De Gata, Spain

Far from the freeways that shuttle vacationers between Spain’s (in)famous holiday-home suburbs, the little knob of coastline that clings to the country’s extreme southeastern corner belongs to the Cabo de GataNíjar Natural Park.  According to the dinosaurs that roamed the earth prior to the tourism boom that gave birth to the Costa del Sol, it forms a landscape that is a living relic of a southern Spanish Mediterranean seaboard that existed long, long ago.  It is indeed a wholly separate sliver of Andalucía; one sans the flamenco dinner shows and English breakfasts.  The Cabo de Gata, with its tiny whitewashed artisan fishing villages, abandoned cortijos (rural farmsteads), creek-fed oases and miles of arid volcanic cliffs might have more in common with the wild coasts of Northern Africa, just a stone’s throw across the sea.  It also happens to be an excellent landscape in which one can go for a very long walk.

Agua Amarga – Las Negras Trail Length: 15.1km

This rugged and spectacular coastal hike followed a linear trajectory that required having transportation at one end.  The friendly folks at lovely Bitacora in Las Negras, where we spent the night both before and after the hike, were kind enough to drive us to the trailhead at the little fishing village of Agua Amarga so we could hike all the way back.

This was to be one of our longer, hotter jaunts. By late October, the Andalucían sun still burned late into the evening, and we didn’t expect to encounter a source of potable water for nearly 12 kilometers. As our driver bid us farewell, we asked if he wouldn’t mind alerting the authorities assuming we didn’t return by 10pm.  He laughed and reassured us, “todos en el mundo vuelven!” (the whole world comes back!)

We encountered signage for the trail just outside the city center on the left near the roundabout where the AL-5106 passed through on its way to Carboneras.  450 meters past the hotel El Tio Kiko was the official trailhead.  This made for a bit of confusion, as the trail bifurcated right from the beginning.  We had the option of either walking straight towards the sea, or up behind the trailhead onto the actual route.  Thinking that this was a coastal hike, we did what was intuitive and begin hiking towards the coast. After about 500 meters, we had rounded the cliff-side facing Agua Amarga’s pretty beach and found ourselves staring down a dramatic white coastline that dropped precipitously to the sea from where we stood.  The trail we had been following dwindled down to thin line of chalky white dust that simply meandered off the cliff and into the horizon.  While it all made for several great photos, we had a pretty solid hunch that this path wasn’t exactly the one we were looking for.

We finally found the true trail that skirted the littoral via a long valley hidden from the sea.  Over our shoulder, the Mesa Roldan, an old extinct volcanic dome, loomed a dark sentinel in the distance.  After continuing on through the valley a little more than two kilometers, our first cove came into view: the bewitching Cala Enmedio.

Some say this is the most beautiful cove in the Cabo de Gata, and others have gone even further to argue that it is one of the top ten most beautiful places in Spain.   I wish I could report on this definitively.  As it were, we had just set out on our hike and had put scarcely more than an hour’s walk under our shoes when the path suddenly split. Sadly, there was no signage indicating anything either way, so we made our best guess and decided to press on.  We will have to come back for that cove one of these days.

From Enmedio, the path continued around the backs of the coastal hills, passing what appeared to be a barracks, for another two kilometers.  This was when the serious nature of our undertaking dawned on me. We had been hiking for nearly two hours and had not encountered a spot of shade en route.  We were depleting the water we’d brought along quickly, and I began worrying that we’d run dry before making it to San Pedro where I knew I could refill our bottles at a spring that flowed up from mountains.  Just then, the little oasis surrounding Cala Plomo came into view.  It was fed by a little “rambla”, a creek that culminated at the cove, but the potable water point was still several kilometers inland.  I was a little downhearted about missing Enmedio, so we decided to break for lunch and a dip.

These coves are famed for their inaccessibility and are therefore known naturalist/nudist destinations.  We got our first glimpse as we passed by a family with a score of naked children scampering up and down the beach.  The matriarch, a robust woman whose chest approached Wagner’s Valkyrie proportions, emerged from the sea like some kind of maritime pagan fertility symbol.  I looked sheepishly at Ryan.  Could we do this?  As my Aussie fellow traveling mama has been known to say, were we up for baring “the whole hog”???

Evidently we could, and we did. And let me tell you, nothing quite compares to leaping fully nude into a Mediterranean cove after traveling on foot through an semi-arid mountain range for several hours.  Once I was in that water, it was as if a switch had been flipped, I wasn’t coming out for anything.  Or at least that was what I told myself for the hour-and-a-half I paddled around; long after Ryan and the kids had their clothes on again and were starting back toward the trail.  And that was what I told myself again when the nude pagan fertility goddess rounded our corner of the cove and began heading right toward us with her bevy of equally naked offspring.  When I finally hauled my butt out of the sea and slurked over to where I had dropped my sarong on the rocks, Oliver performed an exaggerated double-take and shot me a wide-eyed, quizzical look, the first he’d paid any mind to my nakedness since the clothes came off.  “Mom…” he hissed, only slightly under his breath.  “I think you’d need to swim naked in the ocean for a looooong time for your boobs to look like that lady’s….”

With the salt crystalizing on our skin, we picked up the trail again on the southern side of the beach.  It fired straight up a hill for more than 200 meters, and over our left shoulders we kept a constant eye on a pristine cove that appeared to be entirely inaccessible due to the vertiginous cliffside that rose right out of the sea.  Petrified dunes with alternatingnbone-white and ochre striations jutted out at sea level. Below their surfaces they harbored a marine ecosystem that was perfectly visible from our perch on the high, gray volcanic sierra above.

On the way to the New Age commune of San Pedro, we lost the trail a half a dozen times as it turned inland and continued uphill to the Punta Javana.  The telltale blue and white stripes of paint that served as trail markers had vanished several kilometers back, and all evidence of a trodden path was covered in pyroclastic dust and coastal scrub.  We were saved in each instance by the series of nondescript cairns that had been placed along the primitive route by prior thoughtful travelers.  Oliver made a mission out of seeking them out one by one and at each he left his own stone; a token of his own passage.

At the summit, we rounded a sharp turn from which enormous white, jagged rocks stabbed through the hillside. Cala San Pedro quite suddenly came into view below us, framed in those eerie mountain teeth and rippling forward under a golden haze as the sun fell away to the southwest.  We descended.

San Pedro is a sort of social experiment.  Folks of a distinct hippie persuasion have formed a small colony fanning out from the cove where they exist entirely off the grid, sans electricity, plumbing or even a road linking them to the main arteries through the park.  The cove is only accessible via boat from Las Negras or on foot via a four-kilometer path that skirts the coast. Its small community has managed to eke out a livelihood for hundreds of years in such relative isolation for one predominant reason: the presence of a freshwater spring that flows up from the heart of the coastal mountains.

At that point in our journey, fresh water was something we needed more than I cared to admit.  Despite adhering to my Grand Canyon gold standard of roughly half a quart per person per hour, upon reaching the cove, we were nearing our last drops.  In the shade of a crumbling veranda that had been chiseled into the hillside above the cove, we pulled long and deeply through that tap.  And while San Pedro’s cherished spring wasn’t the best water I’d ever had (how exactly did the residents manage their sanitation, I wondered), it was pretty damn close.

Passing a score of dread-locked nudists soaking up the last of the late afternoon sunshine, we exited the beach along its southern side and climbed past the old garrison that had been built to resist Barbary pirates in the 16th century.  Ahead of us, yellow-legged gulls wheeled in the waning light that filtered through the black hills and quiet coves leading back to Las Negras.  The long shadow of evening crept inland over San Pedro as we left it behind us and small, distant campfires sprang to life down on the beach below.  Plumes of smoke tangled with mauve tones that muted the eastern horizon out over the Mediterranean and a full moon pointed the way back to the small quiet white village where we would pass the night.

 

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