news of the day

14 Jan 2019 | Cabo de Gata, Spain> Picking up from where we left off, in Cape of the She-Cat... los Spañoles dont wake up til at least 8 + no in-room coffee so early risers like us got to wait around for hours to even get caffeine. Then we mustered to go hiking in Cabo de Gata-Níjar Natural Park but the road was blocked off just before the actual cape. We cd walk along a dirt road which was nice + no 1 in site... 'til we got to the point where we cd see the lighthouse @ the point but dint want to do all this walking along roads to get there + have no daylight left to hike so we wint back + got the car + drove around only to find out there wasn't decent hiking really, just walking along the beach or a salt-harvesting estuary. We explored around then wound our way back thru the tented agriculture wasteland (plastic tents might make it easier for ogranic farming, but man they're unsightly + presumably not so good for the environment) + went back to where we was yesterday near Playa de Mónsul, hiked most every cove + headland between San Jose + Cabo de Gata. Saw the Celto-Iberian goats again then went to sum secluded beach + there wasn't nobody around + think it was a nudist beach anyway (the way spañoles roll, unlike italianos) so went skinny-dipping in the frigid sea then saw a mother goat + baby just sitting along on the trail a long ways from the flock + thought maybe they was sick cuz they wasn't moving + so we went to investiage when appeared the same goatherd we saw yesterday who yelled at us tho today he was nicer said not to worry la cabra solo sta dormiendo. The baby was 2-days old, he picked it up roughly by the front legs + shook it around til it started bleating bloody hell + walked on... this way the lazy mother would follow him thinking her kid was in distress. We followed behind watching them play around precariously on the edge of a cliff then down to another beach (Monsul) + another rocky ridge then went back into town + walked our beach + sat at another harborside place drinking beer + eating olives enjoying the sun... where else in yourup can you sit outside in shorts + T-shirt mid-January?

celto-iberian goat

beauty + the breakdown part 617

the shepherd

15 Jan | Tabernas> Drove to the town of Nijar then over Sierra Alhamilla on back roads, not a soul in sight, just how we like it. Finished our mixtape + started it over, makes sense since we're rounding the southern edge of our vuelta.

driving over Sierra Alhamilla

Meandering thru Rambla Honda to Tabernas. Staying on a funky ranch run by this old very talkative couple so took like an hour for them to show us our stone cabin sort of thing. Went out to Fort Bravo, a film set where they filmed a bunch of Spahgetti westerns + also movies like Lawrence of Arabia + the 3rd Indiana Jones, which we saw last night while the set was fresh in our head + sure enough the whole Nazi chase scene is up canyons in + around Tabernas + also in Cabo de Gato... the below is on playa de Mónsul, same beach the shepherd above is staring down to. We sat on this beach a while + climbed around the rock poking in tidepools.

There's a few cheesey Spaghetti Western theme parks around here like Oasys, but Fort Bravo ("Texas Hollywood") is the only one that is a legit film set, still being used. We explored around the fake town, had a beer in the saloon then saw sum "spectacolo" re-enactment which involved a lot of running around on horses + shooting blanks. A bit like being in West World. The actors were all hanging out before + a few tourists, but otherwise not many people even tho it's perfect weather + in the summer it's brutally hot + tons of folks go. Then went for a run out on dirt roads up into the hills... Spañoles are bit like Amerikins in that they're paranoid about private property, no trespassing signs everywhere. Little plots of lands growing cactus or nothing fenced in w/ a ibizan hound or german shepherd barking back at u thru the cyclone mesh... weird considering their anarchistic past, whereas you never see private property or hardly a fence in Italy, despite their more fascist history. Then made home-cooked meal + ate in front of a fire (nights get cold here).

fake town

Fort Bravo

dolly train trax

INT. shot

p.o.

if we had bedder skills we'd photoshop the flag upside-down

gateway to the gallows

prison

movie still of same noose inside the saloon

inside the church

behind the scenes

INT.