Day 11 - Alpujarras Adventure

Following up on the contacts made at the Orgiva weekly Thursday market, we went yesterday afternoon to visit “Huerto Lechuza”, a lovely piece of land within an ancient olive tree orchard.

Ras and Ana sitting on the edge of the trunk of an olive tree that is over TWO THOUSAND years old - and still going although it was chopped!

Ras, a very easy-going, permaculture-inspired young man with an old soul, owns and manages this land, and has filled it with vegetables, flowers, trees... and especially cacti, his passion.

Check out his cacti site for more info!

Ana very much enjoyed carrying out some garden tasks to the sound of Ras's reggae music - Rastafari culture is his other passion, while his space reflects his inner and outer voyages...


Two yurts with wooden floorings hold his room and his office-cum-fruit-drying space. Four of Ras's friends from London were there, at the end of their two-week stay – quite a change from urbanite London life!

We stay over for a lovely group dinner, during which Ras's next-field neighbour, Pixie, invites us to park down in her drive, which we gratefully accept, especially as we can tell from our chat that we seem to have a lot in common with her – and after all she was the one who had picked us out at the market, pointing to the greenhearts we wore!

The view from the bottom of Pixie's garden: Orgiva mountains - wow!

Friday morning begins with trying to get showered, but Pixie is embarrassed to show us the outdoor shower (which all the - very spoilt - London boys have been using during their stay - eek!). Pixie, we discover quickly, has great attention to detail and loves things to be “nice and pretty”. So this shower, made hurriedly and unlovingly by someone who stayed on her land for a bit, breaks the balance of her beautifully sculpted piece of paradise. Also, it just don't work!! Staring at someone else's stagnating dirty shower water, Pixie wishes outloud she could just rip the whole thing out and start again... Danny's “Mr.Fix-It” side is awoken by this cry, and he offers to help her take it down and build another one! So begins a three-day adventure in Pixieland... an experience of creativity, recycling, use of natural materials, enjoyment of the task in hand, team work... a common vision that grows as it becomes a reality in caring, talented hands... Here we offer you some shots of before, during and after...

This has just got to go:

Back to basics, and start afresh:

On a plastic undercover, stones and pebbles from the land are placed to make up a natural shower floor:

Three doors Pixie's mum had saved for her are used as the back wall...
This gives the shower an Alice-in-Wonderland feel!
Maybe through those doors is another dimension...

Ana screwing:

Danny relaxing after a good day's work