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| NEWSLETTER December 2010 | |
| This edition: A tortoise on the edge! - update on the ocelot lizard – first snows Sierra Nevada – 2011 Events: Morocco, Herbalism, Welsh Walks and Yoga & Walking – Down on the Farm - Win a Bootlace Calendar - and more… | |
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EWAN speaks! A tortoise on the edge… While watering the plants in the small courtyard where Ewan, our tortoise lives (Testudo Graeca Ibera to give him his full moniker). I was astonished to hear him making little grunting noises – I had to watch for a while to make sure it was really him and not the solar-heated water gurgling or some passing insect. It seems that during battle, courtship, mating, and egg-laying tortoises do make sounds. Mostly these consist of hisses when they contract into their shells rapidly to protect themselves, but they can also make clucks, peeps, and ‘hoots’, etc. People thought for a long time that tortoises are deaf, but this is not quite true. They just don’t have a great range of frequency, perceiving frequencies up to around 1000 hertz. Lower tones between 200 and 500 hertz they hear well. They also have a seismic sense. As soon as the ground shakes just a little, the tortoises feel it and can recognise nearing danger quickly and protect themselves. Strangely, they have no outer ear, but they have inner ear structures – which is why they respond quickly to vibrations picked up through the shell or limbs, but not noise. So Ewan’s grunting/clucking noise was self expression rather than communication – though I did wonder if he was hoping that a lady tortoise might pick up on the love-vibe… |
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One of our other house reptiles was spotted in a different location this summer by a keen-eyed guest with a super-zoom camera, so we know our female ocelloted lizard is still escaping the cats (see Newsletter May 2010). |
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MOROCCO 2011 |
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This year we’ve once more planned two contrasting treks in Morocco. We’ll be returning via a different route to the mountains of the Jebl Siroua, the saffron producing area of Morocco with its typical Berber villages, ancient agadirs (fortified granaries) and fiercely beautiful volcanic ranges. The trip will include a couple of nights at a Riad in the heart of the Medina in Marrakech – the sister-city to our home town, Granada – with opportunities to test your bargaining skills in the souks, visit the famous Majorelle Gardens, the Ben Youseff Medersa with its abundance of exquisite decoration and soak up the atmosphere of the colourful Jemaa El F’na square with its performers and food stalls. This is an 8 day trip including 6 trekking days with local guides and muleteers – all your heavy bags will be carried for you, you just need to tote a day pack with camera, sketch book – and water, of course! Our other Morocco event is the ever-popular trek along the Atlantic Coast. This includes two nights at a friendly riad in the lovely port of Essaouira, a 4 day trek along the beautiful coastline south of Essaouira with its marabout shrines, long sandy beaches, rocky inlets and abundant wild flowers, high quality wild camping, including camel and 4×4 assistance. |
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Jebl Siroua Trek:- 5 to 12 March 2011, |
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TAILOR-MADE BREAKS |
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If you’ve a yen… to walk in the Sierra Nevada but can’t take the time off during one of our scheduled walking weeks – or maybe you’d like a shorter break to combine with visiting one or more of Spain’s great historic cities – or you fancy striding out with a few friends to reach the peaks - or a lazy few days with the odd excursion into wild and peaceful mountains appeals - then why not contact us for a quote on a made-to-measure holiday? With varied accommodation from self-catering with a jacuzzi on the roof at Casa Rif, to half-board in small family hotels in Capileira or Pitres, to B&B at the peaceful Casa Ana we can dream up a contrasting variety of routes and excursions to suit the intrepid or the gentle walker. 5 nights B&B with 4 days of guided walking including Bootlace picnics with home-made bread and garden-fresh salads can work out to as little as €330! if you’d like to chat about an itinerary and accommodation specially selected for you just contact Fiona using the form at the bottom of the page. |
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FIRST SNOWS |
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I’m not sure that UK readers will be at all impressed by this, given the current chilly conditions you’re experiencing - but we’re happy about the weather here! Above is a picture sent to us last week by Rafa from the Refugio Poqueira in his weekly update on approaches to the refuge. This will be a familiar view for Bootlacers who’ve enjoyed the High Mountain week – but with a much less chilly aspect when we pass it in June on our way down from the summit! As I write the mountains are swathed in heavy cloud and the Laguna de la Caldera above will now be buried under a thick layer of ice and snow. Brrrr! |
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| and on a warmer note… | |
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YOGA and WALKING with Arantza Puente |
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A feast for body and spirit – a week of yoga and walking with tasty and healthy vegetarian food. Bootlace teams up with Spanish yoga teacher Arantza Puente. Arantza hails from the Basque country, northern Spain. She lived in the UK for many years and settled in this part of Andalucia where she now co-runs yoga retreats & practices as a Thai masseur. She studied Thai massage with the Asokananda school of Thai Yoga Massage in Chiang Mai, Thailand. In London she studied Hatha Yoga with Sabel Thiam until graduating as a yoga teacher with the Sivananda Yoga Vedanta Centre in Kerala, India. She continually deepens her practice through personal study, visits to India & with world class teachers Angela Farmer, Godfrey Devereux, and Sarah Powers. But perhaps the greatest influence is her love of Buddhist meditation. Her current yoga teaching style is a dynamic form of Hatha Yoga which often starts with some pranayama (breathing practices), then seeks to open & invigorate body, mind & spirit in a way that can include & touch all students from beginners to experienced, focusing on the quality of our awareness rather than simply physical ability. Her humour & vitality are an inspiration in themselves… During the week Arantza will be offering morning sessions of 1.5 hours of dynamic, flowing Hatha yoga to suit all abilities from the beginner to more experienced yoginis. There will be opportunities within the flow of sessions to relax or follow more active and challenging forms. Arantza tells us - “the body is the teacher - the breath is the boss!” |
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Dynamic Yoga is a integral method for learning, accessing and experiencing the full power and meaning of yoga. By linking the breath with each flowing movement you will feel your mind relax as your body becomes toned (Vinyasa yoga method) ; you will also learn to release tense muscles and joints through correct alignment (Iyengar method); and a step-by-step approach (Vinyasa Krama method) enables novices and experienced students to practice side by side, each enjoying the benefits according to their capacity. Guidance is given for developing a personal practice at home so that you can make yoga a daily habit. |
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| The Yoga and Walking week takes place from Saturday 21 to Saturday 28 May 2011 at Cortijo La Cañada in the Orgiva valley. For further information contact us using the form at the bottom of the page. |
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ADVENTURES IN WALES… |
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A Weekend of Summer Walks with Lol Golding of Head for the Hills |
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Bootlace Walking Holidays was inspired in large part by Laurence Golding who founded the UK walking company Head for the Hills in 1976. This summer Bootlace and Lol are planning a special weekend of walking in one of our favourite hidden places in Mid-Wales. Radnorshire is a thinly populated county with an intricate complex of hills separated by small, fresh rivers. Typically the farmland stops on the sides of the valleys leaving the tops a wild heathland. Grassy drovers roads cross these heathy commons offering delightful walking. Many are ancient trackways connecting hillforts, castles and encampments dating from the Bronze Age to medieval times. From Erwood to Builth, the Wye runs in a gorge as the hills crowd in. For much of its length the Welsh Wye is a boundary of the shires of Brecon and Radnor. At this point the Wye Valley Walk opts for the Brecon side taking a swift, high route on the slopes of an enormous hill, Pant-y-llyn: an excellent stretch. On the Radnor side the next tributary is the Edw which runs down a valley of secret beauty sunk between two magnificent hills. The first of these, Llandeilo Hill, stops abruptly at the Wye, at Aberedw Rocks, a canyon-like feature. Here hid Prince Llewellyn in flight from Edward’s armies. On top is a very fine ridge walk along a chain of heathy hills which form a key watershed and include the springs of the River Arrow. The pattern is typically small sheep farms with neat, hedged pastures which stretch up from the valley to a distinct boundary where an extra thick bank marks the limit of the enclosed land. Beyond are the ancient commons; hills brilliant with heather and traversed by drovers’ roads. On the other side of the Edw is Aberedw Hill. It stands huge and apart, being totally surrounded by deep valleys. Just below the top is a stone circle and a place whose name means ‘wraith’s bush’. Above is a burial mound, one of four on top of the hill. They are mentioned as sighting mounds by Alfred Watkins postulating the theory of ley lines in The Old Straight Track (Abacus Books). |
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It’s in this lovely stretch of quiet land that we plan to set our three-night summer camp for a weekend of walking, good food, music and camp-fires – if you’d like to join us – use the contact form at the bottom of the page to find out more! |
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| Laurence Golding - Radnor needs YOU! |
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Lol talks about the notion behind starting a walking business with wild camping - “The idea itself is very simple: a way to fully enjoy the countryside; to stay in Nature for an extended period of time without having to leave it; to make an ancient journey…When you arrive at a place on foot, under your own power, you come upon it gradually, able to absorb it little by little… Then you are passing away from it and onto the next thing that happens to dominate or catch your eye. Each tree, each rock assumes its essential place when fully perceived. There is something fundamental in walking-speed that enables all the other parts of you to assimilate your perception. Ideas clarify and focus because of that speed.” |
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| Satish Kumar writes of Lol: “I am not new to walking. Even so, walking with Laurence was one of life’s experiences. His kind of holidays are a true alternative to tourism and the packaged holiday.” |
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DOWN ON THE FARM |
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| Pomegranates and Saffron from La Dominga |
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We’ve come to bonfire season again – having collected our permission to burn from our Ayuntamiento* in Carataunas village we managed to squeeze in the first blaze of the season before the weather closed in. Yep! – as all the folk in the UK were shivering in subzero temperatures and waiting for the promised snow, the South of Spain was inundated in 24 hours plus of continuous rain. Folk who know our access track will understand why Paul rushed out this Sunday morning to check it was still there! We welcome rain to keep the Sierra Nevada nevada (snowy), refresh the aquifers and keep the acequias* running next summer, but are hoping this winter won’t be as overwhelmingly evil as the last one, which clocked up an incredible 1 tonne of water per square metre, recorded during only one week in Capileira just after Christmas… Autumn in the Alpujarra swithers between superb sunny days of clear air, lit by warm golden light (with the deepest blue skies you’d wish to see), to blustery gale-shaken days, whirling with gold and silver poplar leaves, broken branches, fallen prickly chestnut cases crunching under foot – and…oops…we have to lever the wisteria back onto the roof again - to rainy days with scarves of cloud draped over the hills like a teenager’s bedroom after a dress-up session. Our hedgerow harvest includes boletus mushrooms, sweet spanish chestnuts, hazel nuts, pomegranates and delicate strands of saffron. There is cultivated saffron crocus growing just outside the house, but during the Autumn walks we also discover wild crocus growing in abundance. *Ayuntamiento - Town Hall, Acequia - moorish irrigation channel |
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| Autumn crocus - Crocus nudiflorus or Colchicum autumnale? The Colchicum has 6 stamens and is toxic the crocus has three and is a substitute for true saffron. |
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Rotten Tomatoes? In clearing the veg plot we’ve salvaged a bucketful of last tomatoes (Solanum lycopersicum) which have been slowly ripening indoors. It always gives me pleasant surprise when this happens - the ethylene given off by riper fruit acts as the molecular cue to begin the ripening process for the rest. The origins of the tomato are S. American – Peru and Ecuador – and the fruit – yes it is! - were brought to the rest of the world by the Spanish Conquistadors. Tomatoes were originally yellowy orange, so the Italians named them pomodores - “golden apples” - the red tomato more commonly used today in Europe was grown from Mexican seeds. The heaviest tomato ever grown is claimed to be the 7lb 12 oz (3.51 kg) whopper from Oklahoma and the largest ever tomato plant (oh, that stereotypical American obsession with size!) was the “tomato tree” which grew inside the Walt Disney World Resort’s experimental greenhouses in Florida. The plant was recognized as a Guinness World Record Holder, with a harvest of more than 32,000 tomatoes and a total weight of 522kg (1,150 lb) just from this single vine. It grew for 13 months, finally succumbing to disease this year in April. As the seeds which grew it were discovered in Beijing, China I wonder if the Chinese are hiding an even more enormous tomato tree? However I’m proud to say that Spain claims the record for the most tomatoes thrown, presumably by the most people at one time…the town of Buñol, Valencia which annually celebrates La Tomatina the festival which has at its heart an enormous tomato fight. On August 30, 2007, 40,000 Spaniards gathered to throw 115,000 kilograms (250,000 lb) of tomatoes at each other - |
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Well – yeeeeuchhhh! According to my correspondant this is strictly for the young and the brave (or foolish). Being all three, he attended this year…he adds “look out for the Auzzies - they know how to punish the pommies with pomedore”. If you really want to see more look here! Maybe to get their own back for Disney stealing away the tomato tree to the West the Chinese have adopted the Tomatina Fiesta, although throwing food is strictly against Chinese cultural norms so rumblings of disapproval have beem heard in the Press. Tomatoes are also a popular “non-lethal” throwing weapon in mass protests, (look out Nick Clegg!) and there was a common tradition of throwing rotten tomatoes at bad performers on a stage during the 19th century. Embracing it for this protest connotation, and with whimsical Nederlandish humour the Dutch Socialist Party adopted the tomato as their logo. |
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TASTY TOMATO IDEAS |
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Last of the La Dominga toms |
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Tomato Salad - A touch of Mediterranean sunshine to brighten up these chilly Winter evenings. (A quick to assemble light meal or side dish - good with a stir-fry of smoked tofu, mushroom and quinoa and packed full of vitamins!). - Combine tomatoes with - chopped spring onions, - some minced jalapeña if you like it HOT! - fine strips of capsicum peppers – red yellow green colours are fun and a feast for the eye as well as the tum - - garlic, - fresh basil leaves - a little lime or lemon juice along with some zest and finally… - diced avocado. If you, like us, have green tomatoes lurking sullenly not turning red in the corner of your kitchen try a Fresh Green Tomato Pickle to go with this week’s curry - - Dry roast half a teaspoon each of coriander and cumin seeds. Process in coffee grinder or pestle and mortar and add to finely diced tomatoes. Combine with - |
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Great with Chickpea and Banana Curry – very South Indian! |
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¡Buen Provecho! |
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HERBALISM and WALKING |
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If you’re wondering about an early summer activity break to stimulate the mind and body the forthcoming Herbalism and Walking week will take place in June – with plenty of wild flowers and herbs to spot in the heights we’ll be taking our herbalists up to find some of the alpine spring blooming up above or base in Padre Eterno. All the usual good food from Fiona and Paul, fascinating teaching from Julio and Sophie, cooking up some fragrant lotions and potions in La Dominga and just to round it off a dip in the pool at Los Perez! |
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Herbalism and Walking 2011 takes place from 18 until 25 June – for more information contact us using the form at the bottom of the page. |
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Reluctant Gardener (The) |
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On the subject of gardens, if you enjoy light hearted, positive-news-type blogging, check out Mandy Sutter’s blog at – http://www.mandysutter.com/blog/ “ tales of my 87-year old Dad and his allotment”. With entries like Ted the Shed, Guerilla Gardening, Scarecrows and Chain of Command – it’ll make you smile (or LOL like me!) |
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WHERE’S PAUL? |
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This Newsletter’s competition: the deliriously lucky winner will be sent our new Bootlace 2011 Calendar – packed with 12 full-colour photos taken by Fiona during the Bootlace walking year… So, if you think you know where Paul’s standing in the picture below, just email us using the contact form at the bottom of the page! If you’ve no idea where Paul is (to be honest neither do I a lot of the time…-Ed) and you’d like to obtain a copy of our splendid calendar (£10 inc. post and packing) to grace your wall throughout 2011, just email Fiona for payment details, and please include your postal address. |
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AND FINALLY… |
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