Hanging out in the village

In the potos- The front of 'my' house, Mutley, my little charge, a view of the sea from the road to La Mamola, and another view in the village.








Each day I learn a little more, meet a few more people, and recognize opportunities to remember about living in the moment.
I have braved driving the switchback roads that crawl up the spine of narrow steep hill reaching from the sea. Little (white) villages like Polopos, and occasional solitary dwellings mostly restored from ruins, sparsely dot the landscape.
One such place belongs to a new friend, Steph. She came from England 6 or 7 years ago, to be with her husband- but he died suddenly, three years ago, and she has struggled to carry on with his dreams and projects here- learning a whole new way to be in the world in the process. She doesn’t drive, yet lives in a remote ruin that is partially renovated. She has some rescued dogs (most expats do here) and chickens, and currently also shares her living quarters with a large lizard, because it moved in and she doesn’t know what to do about it.
I have also braved driving the streets of Haza del Trigo, but there are only a few that are wide enough to drive. Parking is normally on the edge of town, a very short walk from the house, but at times there is a closer vacant space. It's always a gamble, because if all the possible spaces are taken, its a long way around on the one way streets to the rambla and back to return to the parking lot.
Catherine’s little Opal had me flustered the first time out, as getting it into reverse required knowing the trick of pulling up on a ring around the gear shift. I did it by accident once, luckily as I was turning around on the cliff road at the time. Later in town with Steph, we had to ask a policeman how to reverse so we could get out of a parking space. He was kind enough not to laugh at me.
I have loaded about half of my belongings into a box at the post office- which is only open about one hour per day- and will find out on Monday, after they have hauled it somewhere else to get it weighed, what it will cost me to ship it home. Hopefully it’s less than the worth of the contents.
A stressful experience involved my computer acquiring a virus- bad enough anywhere, but here is a very backwoods kind of place, and I had visions of trying to explain about the problem to someone who may or may not know English let alone computer viruses. It turned out Steph knew someone, another expat, who did just that as a business. Derrick worked on it for a few hours, says it was a particularly clever one as it hid itself and changed file locations. I apparently got it when I accepted a suggestion to download an update for JAVA, but it wasn’t legit. The malware itself tells you that you are infected and tries very hard to download a new antivirus program, listing multitudes of supposed viruses that it has detected. Then of course, you would be told that to clean them up it will cost you. I guess the learning is to look very very closely at any downloads- even the ones you think are familiar.
It cost me, but mostly I just feel lucky to find someone to help me clear it up! I confess I have a huge dependency on this little computer.
Costa Tropical- this southern coast of Spain is quite varied- economically at least. Here it is still quite poor, and not especially touristy. The vast areas of plastic greenhouses are annoyingly unattractive, but then again, this is the one source of income here- and is perhaps preferable to the tourism route. Farther west, between Malaga and Gibraltar and known as Costa del Sol is the much more ritzy area with expensive hotels, fancy beach clubs, yacht harbors, casinos, and whole villages of expats.
Meanwhile, back in my own little village, I have realized that the goatherd numbers over four hundred, and is quite a sight as it roams the hillsides around here. They are all different colors and sizes of animals, but its more about the sound, of the hundreds of bells that they wear on their necks, all different tones and pitches, which is mesmerizing. I would expect it to be just insanely noisy, but in fact there is a flowing melodious pattern to it, soothing and ever-changing.
Polopops, mentioned earlier- has retained its name from when the Greeks lived here, around the sixth century BC. It is interesting to see that some ancient Greek names stayed after millennium of conquest and upheaval.
Only a few more days here, then not sure yet- could stay with Steph in her 'ruins', but getting a bit antsy to move on.