Village life in Andalucia

I am back in Cutar after a fine “Ajo Blanco”. Jude decorated the wall below our house with photographs of past fiestas and Paul and I sang Lorca in Spanish to bemused passers by.  Almachar’s top plaza is decked out as a market place/disco/bonfire area. Pasas (raisins) higos (dried figs) and the two local wines – “Dama de la Vina”, sweet moscatel wine and “Pasera”, wine made from moscatel raisins. Crisps are fried. Plastic toys in lurid yellow pink and green, festoon makeshift stalls. A fiesta route is designated all around and through the village and there are stations all along the route where everyone can enjoy a “degustacion” (sampling) of wine, grapes and ajo blanco. The music of the afternoon is the “Verdiales”, the folk music of the Velez-Malaga area, whose finest musicians are based in Comares.

The singing, due to begin at 9pm started prompt at 10pm. We were shocked to see a substantial part of the audience walk out when Paco Jimenez and Ana Fargas came on. Later we were told that they all had to run out to the fields to cover their pasas (drying raisins) because the old boys had forecast a cloudburst that night. Unlike the weather forecast, the old boys are invariably right and we had a cloudburst around 1 am. For those who missed the show, here is Ana in her full glory: