The Rain in Spain

The rain in Spain falls mainly on the plain. Except that today it fell mainly on us and we were in the hills.

Hornachuelos, the gateway to the Sierra Morena. What name could me more enticing and more Spanish? It perches on a ridge formed by two ravines. In the time of my novel, it was a little settlement in the back of beyond, or the back of Burke (please choose appropriate expression for your nationality). But it is old and has the history to prove it.

It is Sunday and Hornachuelos is a small town. What happens on Sunday in small towns across the Christian world? Absolutely nothing. Everything is closed. The streets are empty. The rain is falling.

The views are pretty spectacular, but somehow the thought of standing in a howling gale of driving rain to view them, makes them seem somewhat less so. But I experiment anyway.

We trudge up into the town to find the tourist information. Here is a sign, we dutifully follow the arrow. Here is another, so off we tramp. Then nothing. No sign, no Tourist Information. We do secretly know however, that by this time it will be closed for the siesta, and as it is Sunday, closed for the day.

We have not eaten since nine this morning and the pangs of hunger are gnawing. Below our rainproofs our clothes are darkly wet. We find a bar, it is full of men. We find another, it is full of men. And another and another. We join the men, but there is no food, only beer and coffee. Where are all the women? At home cooking dinner of course.

So back to the car. The rain gushes down the street in torrents. It sloshes out of downpipes onto the pavements and we squelch through it. We drape the seats of the car with the wetness of bags and coats and cameras. Then we set off into the Hornachuelos Nature Reserve, and we climb further and further into the mountains.

It is beautiful. It is worth the drenching. It is wild, it is thick with vegetation, that grows low and verdantly green. Trees and shrubs cover the steeps slopes of the hills that rise and fall like peaks in a choppy sea. We wind around endless bends and very occasionally, there is a hacienda (house) hidden in the scrub.

If I were a French soldier in Napolean’s army, I wouldn’t look forward to marching through here, it is the perfect abode for the Goyo’s guerillas! Another sigh of relief, as the places I have chosen for my book surpass my expectations.

Good photos are impossible through the little windows of our Fiat 500 and there is nowhere to stop, so I drink it in and try and hold it in my memory. We see groves of trees that have had the bark neatly stripped from their bases and we wonder why. Then the penny drops, they are cork trees!

We meander to Puebla de los Infantes. The sun has emerged again and there is a garage/servo. We screech to a halt, weak from hunger, it is four o’clock. Bread, cheese and toasted, salted almonds make a wonderful meal. We toss the rind of cheese in little pieces and watch fascinated as the ants amass and drag them into the nest. It will be remembered in the annals of their history as a time of plenty. For us it is time to return home.

We brave the Cordoba traffic and only get lost once this time. Parking the car in the car park down the road, we gather our things, my friend opens the door and closes it again. Lumps of hail the size of marbles ping onto the bonnet. We wait. It stops and we make a dash for it. We reach number 24, the clouds open and the rain siles down. We hurry on. Number 23, the water runs down my neck. Number 22, my dress is sopping again. Number 21, my sandals, which had half dried on the journey home, return to swamp-land. Number 20, we fiddle with the keys and press ourselves, dripping, into the door.

An hour and a cup of tea later we are on the roof. The murky brown of the Guadalquivir river has become cleaner with the run off and reflects the blue of the sky.

The ducks are roosting in the trees like so many Major Mitchells (Australian cockatoo) but so much quieter and more dignified.

Overhead the sky is still black, the thunder rumbles over the Sierra Morena and a glorious rainbow arcs across the sky.