Despedidas y Experiencias Compartidas: Goodbye to Spain

I am watching the sun fade on my last days in Motril, my home town away from home. As always happens at the end of any good period of time, events seem to speed up and condense. Since my spring trip, I have been entirely Andalucian in my travels. In 3 consecutive weekends, I was lucky enough to be able to visit 3 of the region’s important parks. First, in a camping trip with friends to Cabo de Gata in Almeria, a nature preserve that includes kilometers of coastline and some of the most pristine beaches I’ve ever seen. Next was the adventure of a lifetime in the Sierra Nevada, a mere 3 days of backpacking that included washed out trails, trespassing, bushwacking, stray dog companions, camping above the snowline, and hiking several hours in the snow in jeans, khakis, and non-waterproof shoes to summit the highest mountain in continental Spain, Mulhacen. For a fuller and more evocative account, read what Jasmina has to say http://stumblesthroughtime.blogspot.com/2010/05/summiting-mount-mulhacen-with-dog-named.html. Finally, we visited the province of Cadiz on a municipal government-sponsored youth excursion to the Parque Donana and nearby towns.

Time in general has been full and fast lately, with busy workweeks and packed weekends. The Mediterranean climate has finally showed its true colors, and we’ve had no rain for over a month. The rhythm of food, language, and pastimes here has long been just hovering on the edge of my reach, and the past weeks have felt like the final and complete immersion into this place’s life. The cruel irony, as my flatmate and colleague Alisha put it, is that everything always seems to be coming together perfectly right as you’re about to leave. Assuming that that feeling is inevitable, I will say that I am lucky to have had the time I’ve had here, to have shared it with the people I’ve known, to have seen the places and done the activities and lived the experiences and learned the things that have made this year so rich for me.

Returning to the United States from a year working and living and traveling abroad will undoubtedly bring some mild culture shock, as well as the stark realization that I am returning to a world where I am one of many idealistic, worldly, moderately accomplished recent graduates looking for work. A dose of realism awaits me, without a doubt. But first, I get to delay that inevitability with the best remedy for these types of concerns… travel, of course.

I am in currently on a break between two starkly different trips, north and south. I recently finished a 10 day solo exploration of the North of Spain, an area I have long wanted to discover and a different side of Spain from the one I have gotten to know so well here in Andalucia. In Asturias, the cradle of the reconquista and the only zone not influenced by the Moorish empire, I learned to pour cider in the traditional way at a small town fiesta, bottle overhead and the glass tilted a meter below, and hiked in the Picos de Europa with an Asturian hiking club.

In Bilbao, I explored the magical Basque coastline and wandered a city full of incredible architecture. In San Sebastian, I stayed in a pueblo where only Euskera (the language of the Basque Country) was spoken in cafes and plazas, crossed the border into France, and wandered the countryside on trails through deep green mountain forests that surely are sisters to my Blue Ridge. Both Basque Country and Asturias enchanted with their distinct traditions, history, and attitudes. The Basques, especially, surprised me with their political passion and antipathy towards the Spanish state, which even after over 600 years of integration they still see as an oppressor. A really inspiring and eye-opening journey for a lone traveller, full of good people and beautiful places and many new things.

Now I am ordering my affairs and saying goodbye to the friends and town of Motril, my home this year. Very soon, I am heading to Morocco again. This time, on a 10 day road trip that will have me packed in an old land rover along with Jasmina, a Belgian farmer, 2 Spaniards, and a Swiss student. I cannot even begin to imagine what that trip will have in store, but it is certain to be interesting. From there, the journey home, greater in its significance even than in its long distance.

I appreciate anyone and everyone who has kept up with me this year, via photos or my blog or emails. It has been an important 9 months for me, containing a lifetime’s worth of living in some ways. So, thank you all and I look forward to our next conversation in person. Best wishes, Andrew.