So the dream has begun. We set out on Wednesday to walk to Ruben's finca for the first time. We headed out along the road to Portugal, took the last road on the right and walked till we hit dirt road. Less than 10 minutes, past farms of pigs, an old couple trying to repair their fence where the sheep obviously tried to get out,and a lovely little stream with waterfalls on it, got us to Ruben's gate. The house sits on the side of a hill with an incredible view out over the Sierra. It is surrounded by olives and fruit trees and on a windy November day, looks like a little piece of heaven. The goal for the day was to get the alberca cleared out. It is the old resevoir, which acts as the overflow for the borehole tanks. We decided lunch was a good idea before attacking the digging, so we sat down and had a picnic of fresh baked bread, queso viejo, chorizo, jamon and olives, in the sunshine at the front of the house. Aaah bliss. It was then time for work. At some point about 2 years ago a sheep and a dog fell into the alberca, so there was a collection of bones in the soil, which made the digging a bit more interesting. Thankfully as they were sunbleached it was not as bad as we had expected.
Simon did the digging and Fran did the hauling and about 2 hours later we could see tile! We then went and started the generator, which makes a heck of a lot of noise in the little spare room, and set the pump going on the borehole. The tanks filled up and we had overflow! Only to discover that at some point someone had cut off the excess pipe that ran into alberca and the water was just pouring out the side of the pump house and down the bank! We stuck a couple of bricks under it so as not to wear all the soil away and watched the water run, and then realised that as we needed to drain the tanks to clean them, filling them up was bit of a silly thing to do. We turned the power off and opened all the taps in the house to get everything out of the tanks. Thankfully the sulphur smell is much less so we think it was only because the water was standing in the well for so long.
By that time it was starting to get late so we headed back into town as we were going to try and find the path over the hill, which is a much quicker way to and from Cortegana. The track is an old camino real that was originally built by the Romans that winds inbetween 2 dry stack walls and a series of farms. Really quite the nicest walk home that you could think of. It turned out that it was actually very easy to find and much faster than we expected. We got back into town just as the sun was going down and decided to stop in at our new 'local', a lovely little bar run by a very nice Scottish couple, David and Christine, for a glass of vino tinto. They got a big laugh from the fact we came traepsing in with a bucket full of plants, a broom and a rucksack, rather dusty and tired, but all in all very content.
Simon did the digging and Fran did the hauling and about 2 hours later we could see tile! We then went and started the generator, which makes a heck of a lot of noise in the little spare room, and set the pump going on the borehole. The tanks filled up and we had overflow! Only to discover that at some point someone had cut off the excess pipe that ran into alberca and the water was just pouring out the side of the pump house and down the bank! We stuck a couple of bricks under it so as not to wear all the soil away and watched the water run, and then realised that as we needed to drain the tanks to clean them, filling them up was bit of a silly thing to do. We turned the power off and opened all the taps in the house to get everything out of the tanks. Thankfully the sulphur smell is much less so we think it was only because the water was standing in the well for so long.
By that time it was starting to get late so we headed back into town as we were going to try and find the path over the hill, which is a much quicker way to and from Cortegana. The track is an old camino real that was originally built by the Romans that winds inbetween 2 dry stack walls and a series of farms. Really quite the nicest walk home that you could think of. It turned out that it was actually very easy to find and much faster than we expected. We got back into town just as the sun was going down and decided to stop in at our new 'local', a lovely little bar run by a very nice Scottish couple, David and Christine, for a glass of vino tinto. They got a big laugh from the fact we came traepsing in with a bucket full of plants, a broom and a rucksack, rather dusty and tired, but all in all very content.Thursday dawned bright and clear and much less windy. We set out fairly early to get back to the finca and finish off the tanks. There was an armoire downstairs that looked rather out of place, so we shifted it upstairs to cover the window with the beehive in it. Yes the house has big shutters on the windows and sometime recently a swarm of bees decided that the space between the upstairs window and the shutters was the perfect place for a hive. It is quite large and very interesting to be able to watch the bees working. Kind of like the set ups they have at county fairs but right there in our own living space! Fran then spent a couple of hours bleaching out the water tanks while Simon whittled a walking stick and then we headed down the hill for lunch out n the stoop. The weather has been wonderful and we have been able t work in jean and a t-shirt, which wold never happen in Vancouver at this time of year. After lunh we trid to get the generator stared and had the first real setback of the week.We pulled and pulled on that stupid line and nothing happened. After about an hour of fighting with it, we gave up and trudged back over 
the hill to Coregana. When Mum and Dad were done with classes we went to the Trueco and ordered pizza and drinks to drown our sorrows. It was not the best of days but really it could have been far far worse, specially considering what we both were doing at this time last year.
the hill to Coregana. When Mum and Dad were done with classes we went to the Trueco and ordered pizza and drinks to drown our sorrows. It was not the best of days but really it could have been far far worse, specially considering what we both were doing at this time last year. 
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