Slow in the sun
Trip Start
May 05, 2008
1
14
97
Trip End
May 09, 2009
Mojacar,
Spain and Canary Islands
Monday, June 23, 2008
Here in Mojacar, relaxation takes on a whole new meaning, probably because the rules of the universe are somehow alterered and time does not seem to work in the same way! We are staying in a resort the kind you see only in old-fashioned movies, where we are getting a big beautiful room, with a view of the deep blue sea and the surrounding mountains, with two meals at a pretty good buffet included, all for the exorbitant total price of 44 euros a day (which is less than what we paid for a crappy hotel room in Huatulco in Mexico)
Our hotel
. As we said, time works differently here: the prices stuck in the 80s, and apparently the nearby village was the last refuge of the Spanish Moors (as late as the early 20th century, women here wore veils and they had a sign at the edge of the town reading Mojacar, kingdom of Granada), which accounts for a time warp of about 400 years. Perhaps no one can tell, because no one wears a watch here, and time flees by deceptively fast. You just go to the beach, feel like you just arrived, and all of a sudden itīs evening. Itīs sunny here and hot every day, and we havenīt seen a single cloud in the sky since we got here, which makes it even harder to see the passage of time. Still, time has passed by, as evidenced by women stopping to wear veils and adopting instead the European beach vacation dream, of sitting around topless on the beach, smoking a cigarette with one hand and holding the cell-phone with the other....We were worried when we first got here that we would get bored, and we had taken note of the nearby Hollywood western movies studios, an aqua park in a nearby town and a variety of other attractions. We havenīt had time to do any of those though, because we were so busy sitting on the beach. Not that we want to piss anyone off, but as we explained, time just works differently here. Before we get completely sucked into this abnormality of the space-time, we will leave the last refuge of the Moors in two days and we will go to visit their most impressive achievement in Spain: the Alhambra in Granada.
Before that though, we should also tell you about a gigantic beach party we went to, for the St.Jean Baptiste day, Spanish style, which meant lots of people of all ages on the beach late at night listening to everything from Cuban music, to 90s mtzzee-mtzee dance music, to 70īs rock, all the while drinking beer and red wine eating free fried sardines, smoking copious amounts of cigarettes (and other substances) and lighting gigantic bonfires. All in all, quite a party!
