We are spending our last few weeks in Spain in a small village called Maro, just outside of Nerja. Nerja is a bustling tourist center, noisy with Brits on holiday and Maro is the quiet village next door, with a population (I’m guessing) of no more than 400. Both towns hug the lovely coast of Southern Spain.

This morning I saw a man leading oxen up the steep road from the ocean. He was wearing a straw hat to protect himself from the sun, although he was already bronzed like a statue. He headed uphill with two oxen and a walking stick, the ocean glittering with sunlight on one side of the road and white houses with red tile roofs on the other.  I watched him from the balcony where we had gazed at the full round luminous moon reflected on the water the night before.  Spain is filled with scenes like this and all of it seems so timeless.  The crumbling buildings, the pueblos blancos perched on mountainsides, the herds of sheep and the sound of goat bells – all of it lovely and so peaceful.  I am grateful to have spent the summer in this beautiful land.

We have not had reliable internet in Maro, which has actually been perfect for our last few weeks of travel. Each day seems hotter than the last one, with a kind of sunlight that goes all the way into your bones, bleaches the stones, the playas and the buildings, and makes you simply relax.  In the late morning we walk down the hill to the celestial blue water to the beach and then up again later in the day when the shadows give us a slant of welcome shade. I have been able to appreciate the benefits of simply reporting what is around me, taking notes that will grow into stories as I think about it on the airplane home or in my own small writing room, where the experiences I’ve had this summer spin themselves into gold. So for now, I will simply tell you about my last few weeks here in Spain.

August seemed to change everything as the heat intensified and the tourists descended on coastal Spain. Life slows down and this kind of heat makes you think twice about doing anything ambitious until nightfall. In Maro, the older people pull their chairs outside in the evenings and sit in the street. The doors to their homes all stay wide open to let in the evening air. Curiously, it seems as if the women sit in small groups together while the men cluster together in their own separate group.We have been pleasantly surprised by the lack of TV here, which I think helps to preserve the noble character of Spain – very rarely do we see television through windows or blaring in public places.  That is quite refreshing.

But who knows how old these “older people” really are?  I am aware in a village like this, there are sharp contrasts in cultural ideas about aging.  I am almost 50 and wear colorful, youthful clothes – here, many women who might be within a decade of my age, wear black even on the hottest days of the summer.  They lean towards the traditions of their parents, rather than their children – but this fits in with the many customs that still exist in Spain; their close connection to the land and to the sea, and to their food sources. In another post, I will tell you about some of the festivals we saw this summer and how connected Spain still seems to the essence of life, to the sources of life, to the mysteries of life and to each other.

I also look forward to telling you about the way the perception of time is altered here – partly based on temperature (here it is so hot that it’s dreamy – difficult-to-focus, lay-in-bed-in-just-sheets, hot – !) and partly because its so old.  My son, who has a gift for making friends in any language, asked some college aged friends what  Spain’s best period economically was. In all seriousness, they answered, “Well, probably the 1500’s.”  My son laughed, no I mean, in your lifetime he clarified, “Oh, well”, they shook their heads with a sigh, “This just wasn’t our century.”  Can you imagine having such a sense of time? I can’t!

And there are delightful little details that transcend language or nationality that have happened all summer.  One such moment happened early in the summer dawn, getting ready to drive into Pamplona for the running of the bulls.  It was about 4:00 in the morning and all around us, in many languages, people were whispering as they prepared for the fiesta. In the darkness, from across the parking lot, I heard a familiar tune. It was humming; a song that drifted over to us in the murky summer air – the song was “Love for sale” – one of my favorite songs – and the person humming it was the parking lot attendant we had met the day before.  He was Nigerian, in Pamplona for the week working. He had never met Americans before. I can’t really describe why, but this little moment made me smile all day – the absent minded humming of an American jazz song loved by two people in a country that was not their own.  This reminded me of one of my favorite moments in Paris a few years ago when I visited the Louvre with my son.  We were in a room of antiquities, with high sloped beautifully painted ceilings, the light soft and beautiful and the voices hushed in awe. As we stood with a small group of strangers gazing at the paintings, a beautiful young woman began to hiccup.  I mean a really, really beautiful young woman. Her hiccups were lovely – feminine – and they echoed in the room and the moment we were all sharing.  She was embarrassed and apologized in French, but of course, we were all enchanted – I have never forgotten those hiccups in the Lourve just as I will never forget hearing Love for Sale in the pre dawn darkness before watching those mythic bulls thunder through the ancient streets.

I continue to read the Hadley and Ernest biographies and the writing Ernest did for theToronto Star, marveling at the newness of everything they experienced together and enjoying Ernest’s delightful sense of discovery.  His awe and wonder come through in every sentence. I look forward to weaving our travel stories together when I get home.

Tomorrow I am going to see a bullfight.  I will tell you all about it!