Friday 30 December 2016

So here I am in Rodalquilar!  Gradually getting settled.
We walked up to the old gold mine the other day.  In Goytisolo's time it was one of the main employers in the region, but the gold didn't last long. These photos will give you some idea of what it looks like now.



Monday 12 December 2016

A week today I'll be crossing the Bay of Biscay and arriving in Santander. You would think I'm preparing for an Arctic expedition, the amount of things I'm having to take!
Being young and fit, Goytisolo travelled light - I'm feeling envious.
Unfortunately I've been suffering from a persistent infection since August, I was hoping it would have cleared up before this trip but I'm going to have to take extra antibiotic with me, as well as all the rest of my medication. S, my companion, complains we will need a suitcase just for all my drugs.  I hope we don't get taken for drug mules!
We have found a base in the village of Rodalquilar. In Goytisolo's time this was a mining town but now the mine is in ruins. The fortunes of Rodalquilar have gone from boom to bust many times in its history. The Romans mined silver there, later there was an alum mine, and when Goytisolo visited they were mining gold. The first gold mining was in the 19th century but stopped at the beginning of the 20th, to be started again in the 1930s.  In between these periods of industry, the population of the village would slump and poverty dominate.
Not that the people were benefiting much from the mine when Goytisolo visited in the 1950s. The mine was owned by a private company, the workers were badly paid and there was very little in the way of health and safety regulations.
Rodalquilar has had a renaissance over the last few years since the central offices of the National Park are situated there, and a wonderful Botanic Gardens has been opened.
This is where I will stay until the end of February.

Thursday 1 December 2016


I'm planning an adventure! I want to follow in the footsteps of the socialist writer, Juan Goytisolo, who spent three days in 1954 walking through the Cabo de Gata, the poorest and most deprived region of Spain under Franco's rule, and then wrote a book, Campos de Níjar (Níjar Country), published in 1960 which was banned in Spain by Franco. Needless to say, as I'm disabled, I won't be walking (!) but I intend to visit many of the places he walked through and talk to the people who live there, just as he did (if my Spanish is up to it - it will be a challenge! Good practice for me). The area is still quite poor although it has changed dramatically since 1954.