Destination: Huertezuelas de Calatrava

We pack into the car at about 14.30-15.00 Saturday afternoon. Matt's senora, Mauri has a small sedan and was expecting to fit her sister, Emi, her daughter, Patricia and Matt and myself in. We would have been alright, but Patricia had a giant bag, so we were squished. Fortunately we were to drop Patricia off about an hour down the road with her father because this weekend they celebrate Father's day in Spain (hence the four day weekend). We left in the pouring rain, in hopes to find some better weather in La Mancha.

Pati's "weekend bag"

Rain, rain please stop and let us have an awesome four day weekend.

After about an hour, we stopped in this little town in La Mancha where Quixote was a major staple in their culture (which is understandable considering the fictional character was based out of their territory)

I wish our pitstops looked like this...

Matt and Quixote


Matt and Mauri

A bench covered in tiles with scenes from Don Quixote

A cute little church

The first stop in town was a natural fountain where there is pure water to drink. The view was incredible, as we were very high on the mountain. I filled my bottle and we pressed on.



When we drove into the town, we quickly stopped the car and Mauri got out. I was extremely confused as to what we were doing because she was speaking very quickly in Spanish. It turned out that we were in the center of town and we were in front of her mother's house. We were greeted by random people who we were later introduced to as her mother (who at the time we thought was her aunt) and her brother, Anibal. There were people coming and going through the house all weekend. Some of the faces got a name, others we just said hello. Everyone was extremely nice and friendly and everyone in town knew eachother. I'm sure it's difficult to lose yourself in this town because there are less than 100 people living there during the winter. No food store, no hospital, no pharmacy, only several traveling markets that come twice a week, a doctor that comes once, two bars and two people that cut hair. I was amazed.

Town square. The house we stayed in is to the right.

The bar and some locals

The countryside

We got into the house and they showed us to our rooms. We then moved on to another house, Mauri's house. Apparently she has a lot of family in the town and her mother gave her this house because she thinks that eventually all of her children will come back to live in the town again. The house is decorated perfectly, tons of antiques and furniture made from farming equipment. I am not sure the purpose of the house, considering she doesn't sleep there (she's afraid to sleep alone and the mother's house is closer to the center of town.)

The vase on the floor is over 100 years old and the picture on the wall is of her ancestors who have lived in the town

View from Mauri's Patio (notice the kitty cat on the roof)

A table made of farming equipment (I don't know the actual name, but this one was used to cut down wheat)

We dropped her car off in their garage on the outer end of town and we walked back to the house. When we got back to the house, her mother brought out some cookies and we relaxed by the fire. A little while later she brings out a big bag, an old iron aparatus and a pan with holes in it. Yes, we were cooking chestnuts over the fire. Apparently castaños, or chestnuts, are very popular in the town. We were also shown on a walk the next day that there were several chestnut trees burned down by a person who went a little crazy.

Chestnuts over an open fire. After they are cooked, they dump them out on the floor because it is so cold, they cool them and you can eat them right away. All the waste goes back into the fire and the floor is swept several times a day.

After we had had our fill, we decided to hit the town and head over to the bar. Right next door. Right before we had left, a man named, Victor stopped by. Coincidentally he is our security at the apartment complex in Madrid. He works his land in Huertezuelas on the weekends and works in Madrid during the week, and we can not understand a word he says. After two beers and some tapas, thank you Victor, and we walked the whole (maybe 500m) way to the next bar. We ordered another round of beers there and the bar tender (who may have been 14, if that) kept bringing out refills. Grandma came to get us for dinner and she was angry because we were late and some of us with lesser tolerance were a bit borracho(a).

Emi, Matt and Victor at the first bar.

I'm not sure if this would go over well in the states...but this little pup was just wandering around the bar.

When we got back to the house we had a nice dinner of pork on toast with melted cheese over it and homemade sausage...even though I was horribly full from all the cookies, chestnuts, tapas and beer. We were so tired by the end that we all just called it a night and went to bed.

The next morning we rose at about 10:45 for 11:00 mass which didn't really start until about 11:15-11:30. There was no rush... we were running late and yet grandma had us sitting down drinking coffee and the most delicious toast that was toasted over the fire and covered in olive oil and sugar. (Mind you they had a very modern, fully functional kitchen...they just liked the fire) We crossed the street to the church and found ourselves in a quaint little church. It was modest, yet beautiful. Most of the clergy at the mass we were at were women and children. All the children participated in the mass- either passing out bulletins, singing in the choir, reading prayers, decorating with their own art work, responding to the gospel. It was a very different experience. After mass the priest came back to grandmas house and had a cup of coffee and a smoke. Had we not seen him say mass, we never would have assumed him to be a priest, but he seemed to be a very interesting person.

Church

We sat around the fire for awhile, waiting for the rain to stop a bit. It was drizzling when Emi suggested we go for a walk through the town. We immediately jumped at the suggestion and quickly dressed and found some umbrellas. Our walk started up a path past a some huertos or gardens.

Emi and Mauri on the walk back to town

hee haw

That twig in the middle is a baby pistachio tree.

Matt, Boni, Emi and Mauri

This is a sign that there is no contamination in the air: lichen

Some shots of the countryside:

A kennel for the hunting dogs

The entire town:

It didn't really come out, but behind me is a broken down windmill that was used to hide people during the civil war.


A bigger version of Holly:


Sheeps!



Mauri, Grandma and Emi



My friend Moro. (he was dirty, so I was just pretending to pet him)

When we were done with our walk in the country, we came back and started to make homemade donuts. Grandma got the ingredients for the dough and Mauri started to make that. Grandma man-ed the fire and got the pot ready for deep frying. Once the dough was ready, another friend of the family came over to help out and started cutting out the circles and Matt's job was to make holes in them. He also made some in the shape of hearts and lips for me. My job was to put sugar on them out when they came out of the oil. I still can't believe we made donuts...and over the fire too!!

Final product:

After we made donuts, we practiced our Spanish by going over commands and past tense verbs and then we had some dinner. After dinner, we got ready and went back to the bar with Emi. Matt had his heart set on a game of billiards, so off we went. We played one game of Emi/Myself vs. Matt and Emi ruled the table...even though every time she got one in she called it a "casualidad." Some pool shark who looked like Sean Penn and was missing a finger thought he was going to rule, but it turned out he was a little to drunk to play. He was just good and hitting the balls really hard...actually, you had to watch out when he went because he had a tendency to send the balls flying. I held my own. The second match was Emi/Sean Penn vs Matthew and myself. By the third round we were exhausted and headed home for some sleep.





We rose the next morning, had some donuts and coffee for breakfast and challenged Emi to a game of cards. Rather, she challenged us with several new Spanish games that only had 40 cards to a deck. It was pouring out and we were expecting to leave right after lunch. We played several rounds and learned some good new games and helped get ready for lunch. Grandma had been shreding the bread for migas all morning which were delicious. We also had a potpuri of sausage- chorrizo. I ate Bambi, in sausage form. He was delicious. I had also had partridge the night before in which when they served it with the instructions to watch out for the bullets. All of the food was absolutely delicious and made from the land by the people of the town. They didn't have a food store, but rather a market that game once or twice a week. All the food was very strong in taste and absolutely ripped my stomach apart by the end of the weekend.

FRESH eggs :

After lunch, we packed up and headed back to city life. I thought the lake was the country...I was dead wrong.