Spain: Villanueva de San Juan

Steph and I are in Spain! We arrived here on the farm near Villanueva de San Juan via Malaga. We were one night and a day in Malaga, but that was spent putting out bikes together and fixing flat tyres... we saw a little bit of the town, and had a nice seafood dinner. From there is was a 1.5hr train to Almargen where we were picked up by a friend of the farms owner and dropped here. In case you were wondering, we found this farm on helpexchange.net, we look after the farm and have a free place to stay. Win win.

The entrance to the farm... this photo is deceptively green.

The farm itself is not so large and sits in a beautiful Andalusian valley. Surrounded by lots of olive groves, dry hills and the occasional non-olive tree. We are currently responsible for about 6 dogs, 14 chickens, a large plot of potatoes and some tomoatoes. There are apricots for the pickin, and we are prepping the house to be painted. But when you are getting up at 10am, and siesta is for 4 hours in the afternoon, you don´t have so much time for work...

Two of the dogs we look after... good dirty outside farm dogs.

Before we left Portland we got outselves a couple of touring bikes, panniers and all, so that after our little farm stay, we can head north and explore Europe. They have come in really handy here too as the closest town is 3kms away. Although I say we are in Villanueva de San Juan, which is a small village about 3kms away(population approx. 500), Algarmitas is a flatter and easier ride. It has about 5 bars, a supermarket and about 500 people as well.

Algámitas, our local town.

We head there for a Cruzcampo (the local brew) or a tinto de verano (red wine and lemonade) and to get some food every couple of days. Tractors, horses and old people are always cruising the streets which is fun. Most of the people in the towns are either retired or children as there isn´t much work here.

The view from our bedroom door.

So thats abou it really. We are just hanging out on the farm, eating dinner at 11pm, learning a little Spanish, biking to nearby villages for a drink, and trying to stay cool (its 35+ degrees every day!). Sometime within the next few weeks we will be heading off on our big biking adventure... if anyone knows any nice flat routes from the south of Spain to Dusseldorf in Germany (we fly out from there September 8th), do let me know.

Looking down the driveway along the valley.