Blogpost 62, 24 APR 2026, Reijer Staats
Live today
A new chapter in Spain and La Alpujarra. Live today, no one has promised you tomorrow. I'm in that familiar phase many men go through, which you're not really supposed to have if you supposedly always do what you want, especially if you've already emigrated to Spain.
Amid all the cancellations of our casas, Spanish storms and rain, and our holiday plans that keep getting postponed, that's just how life in Andalusia, Spain, can be sometimes. In winter, we mostly deal with whatever comes our way. Is this it? I often wonder. I also have doubts about writing. Because, who really wants to read my stories in a world full of so much pain?
However, in spring space opens up and our life takes a new turn. We're starting something new again! I really feel inspired to write about it: "Johan, do you happen to have a fitting title?"
Photo: Happy trails! La Alpujarra in Andalusia keeps drawing us back.
Naughty couple
Anyone who read my blog post On the run knows how two unknown neighbours once had to rescue me from the windy rooftop terrace of Lolapaluza when I was installing the jacuzzi, accidentally locked the sliding door, and couldn't get back inside. Since then, the standing instruction for guests is:
"Use this right-hand door," and I demonstrate, "because I removed the lock and it can never close. Look, this left one..." — I demonstrate again — "that one does lock."
On the eve of the long weekend of the Día de la Constitución and the Día de la Inmaculada Concepción in December, I leave Lolapaluza, heading home for the continuation of, yes, Saint Nicholas' Eve. The guests had checked in: a last-minute booking, he from Seville, he still had to pick her up in Granada, so they only knew their arrival time at the last moment. When I finally get a time, they are still two hours late.
I leave them with clear instructions. At least, you'd think so, as I saw her nodding in agreement at the sliding door in question.
At 00:30 I'm woken by an unknown Spanish number. Sleepily, I dismiss the call.
Then three WhatsApp messages follow:
"Reijer"
"Estamos en la terraza"
"No podemos entrar"
Sigh. A sense of unease takes over me.
I reply: "OK, un momentillo, voy ahora".
Only half an hour later I insert the key into the front door of the ático to quickly free the locked-out guests from the rooftop terrace. No movement from inside. I get my phone and call the number from the messages; their key is stuck inside the lock. I hear sobbing on the other end, and myself, now a little panicked, hang up to call Johan for advice. No answer. My heart is pounding.
In the cold, I decide to go to the Guardia Civil, where attempts to call 24-hour locksmiths follow. Fortunately, the third answers and finally at 3 a.m. I manage to get inside and open the bedroom sliding door to the terrace. I find two shivering, naked twenty-somethings entwined on the cold terrace floor next to the steaming jacuzzi, with just one small towel covering their intimate parts. The air conditioning inside the bedroom had been on full blast all those hours. Sauna temperatures!
Suddenly I feel like a voyeur in this rather embarrassing situation for them. I don't know how quickly I must get away. "Buenas noches!"
Photo: Christmas in Cádiz, "La Tacita de Plata" — a city surrounded by water with a silver sheen and a strong character. See the video on Facebook or Instagram.
Is this it? On life in Spain and doubt
In winter (I know: it's long gone), we're no longer driven by guests, but by cancellations:
"Our health is letting us down a bit,"
"I've found myself again. Spain doesn't fit right now,"
"Our dog can't handle long car journeys,"
"My parents are unwell,"
"Given the situation in the world, maybe this isn't the time to come to Spain…"
A loosening of our cancellation policy on Airbnb to a less strict category leads to more bookings but also more cancellations. Some long winter bookings from guests who would come here to slow down fall away and are replaced by short stays, giving us less flexibility: our own planned Spanish explorations keep being postponed.
I'm angry at Trump, angry at Israel, angry at the manosphere, and disappointed in the unnuanced blaming of refugees or other cultures by angry people for everything. "Hey, you can't just condemn a group because of the behaviour of a few individuals," I say. That's a noble thought, I'm told, but a bit naive.
To a friend I usually call 'Hombre', I ask, man to woman, how she experiences safety on the street. I introduce this with my own experience as a gay man: I sometimes feel wary of a macho group. Typically Dutch, probably a bit drunk, visibly watching others, looking for trouble. When I see them, I cross to the other side of the street.
My Hombre friend responds at length, with her own examples and tips on how a man should behave in a dark street when a woman is walking towards him alone and you don't want to make her feel unsafe. She finishes with: "PS: Ask another woman too. I'm curious about her answer."
I do. My introduction is the same, but the second woman's response is different: "But Reijer, you can tell you're gay just by looking at you."
Oh, how I love Spain without labels, which distances itself from the world's troubles. And the Andalusian people, who mostly mind their own business and not so much others who think or look different. Then our hairdresser Jesús tells me how much racism he experiences here and that as a father and gitano he often has to explain to his four children why they're not invited to a birthday party. I stare at him in the mirror, surprised, as he continues:
"They like to hear us sing, they like to see us dance, you won't hear a bad word from them, but they do exclude us."
I feel touched.
Thoughts whirl through my head: yes, I'm going to get a tattoo, a nose ring and wear long Nike socks. I'm buzzing my head now, just back from the barber. The way I scoop the milk foam from my cappuccino glass. How I pick deep in my nose. My awkward awareness of how things should be, passing judgement on others. Food stuck between my teeth. My inferiority complex. The sudden panic that can overwhelm me.
I'm not just becoming my mother. I'm starting to miss her, now I understand her better.
Johan sometimes doesn't get me anymore. With that 99% chocolate and craving for sweet potato and seed mix in my homemade kefir. I grate cauliflower into rice and ask if we're having pulses tonight. His answer always: "Yes, Beatrix."
One storm after another bends towards Spain.
Is this it then?
Will the next winter be like this one?
Suddenly I'm fully back in my body.
Photo: La señora Andaluza at the bus stop round the corner.
One last cancellation
I search for words to describe the sound of the long, narrow and deathly silent hospital corridor. It feels slow and endless and I'm completely in the moment. The sound is menacing and echoing. Feet on linoleum, my breathing bouncing off the walls, the smell of clinical sterility.
The night nurse leads. I walk behind our guest.
Her husband has been admitted.
At the start of their stay he was already breathless, and a few days ago, when things really deteriorated and they didn't know what to do, I drove to them, called 999 and helped him into the ambulance.
He seemed stable. There was a treatment plan. Things improved. But last night my phone rang and she told me in panic she had been called to the hospital immediately. So I park in the underground garage. We check in at A&E. The night nurse takes us to intensive care.
The ICU doctor looks worried. Google Translate at hand.
A blood clot has travelled to the pulmonary artery. He's in a coma.
It won't be long now.
"You've entered a nightmare," I say, and we walk to the ICU room, just being screened off with mobile partitions.
I drive home. She stays with him. How suddenly you find yourself in someone's life. Between love and death. Conversations no one wants to have. Family on the way. "Live today, no one has promised you tomorrow," the text above the photo in the kitchen of Casa Larimar suddenly means something. Clothes that will soon go to a charity bin. Someone left behind.
A week later I read in the guestbook: "Lost in paradise."
Photo: Calma después de la tormenta.
Water planning
Between one storm and another and the cancellations, these two hombres and their perro take a sunny trip to Murcia, Elche, Alicante and Cartagena (see the video on Facebook or Instagram). And again and again, we're happy to come home. As if confirming we made the right choice to live in Almuñécar.
At home, I contact the large hotel in Salobreña responsible for the communal water reservoir for Villa Merise and the casas of our six vecinos.
I'm the President of this small neighbourhood community: the one who arranges maintenance, keeps contacts and manages the administration. I ask for a new bottle of the product our handyman adds monthly to the water, and for a schedule for major maintenance of the reservoir. We agree someone will come for an inspection.
A small, bald, nervous man stands before me: El Jefe. He immediately calls the Ferretería, coincidentally the same place with the 24-hour locksmith service that helped free the "naughty couple". The product will be ready for me; when I pick it up, I see a grin I didn't expect from the key wizard.
After inspecting the reservoir, we walk to our neighbour, the former mayor of Salobreña, to discuss the schedule: Tuesday evening El Jefe will start draining the reservoir. Wednesday cleaning. Wednesday evening it will be refilled. Thursday everyone should have water again.
As agreed, so done. I coordinate with the winter guest at Villa Merise and inform all neighbours about the maintenance.
But on Wednesday morning, no sign of activity: the reservoir is still full of water. I call El Jefe. No people, I hear curtly, maybe this afternoon. But no pasa nada, time passes. I call a few more times. At first some mumbling, then a new phase in our contact: I get cut off. Eventually, no answer at all.
"I think he doesn't like foreigners," I tell the mayor, who shakes his head. "El jefe no es una persona seria." We shouldn't have asked him for this job. The mayor helps me find another local service provider and a few weeks later a new date is set. This time everything seems to go according to plan.
But the day after cleaning, calls come in: there's no water.
El Jefe explains the water pump broke during the last storm: storm damage in Salobreña. Life isn't always idyllic on the Costa Tropical. He promises to repair it and says tankers will bring water in the meantime, but again it's empty promises. The weekend passes. Then another.
We arrange a hotel and another casa for our winter guest.
Only after nine days does water come from the tap again.
Meanwhile, I sign a report at the Guardia Civil, the Policía Local visits to check there really is no water, a neighbour sends a lawyer after El Jefe, and several letters from politically active neighbours end up on the town hall desk. On our main character's social media profile I see mostly VOX propaganda, family photos at bullfights and his wife posing provocatively in a tight see-through swimsuit by a pool. A friend says locals told them the hotel in Salobreña has a history on the wrong side of fascist Spain.
Our activist neighbour tells me El Jefe and the mayor once worked together at the PP, until a political dispute got out of hand and they came to blows. Afterwards, he was seduced by the hotel owner to join VOX and was rewarded with responsibility for our water.
VOX, PP, PSOE…
I'm learning to understand Spanish bureaucracy better and better.
Emigrating to Spain also means repeatedly learning that here no one really takes care of anything.
Photo: "And Johan! Any news?"
Una Más
The question "Is this it?" bubbles up again. Johan and I are happy with our portfolio of authentic holiday homes Villa Merise, Casa Larimar and Casita Little Switzerland, but it's been nearly a year and a half since we added Ático Lolapaluza. I point out a small budget waiting for setbacks, like a broken car or disappointing income… or maybe for one last project?
We explore the idea:
It doesn't have to be an addition to our rental portfolio.
Primarily a place in a different area where we like to be ourselves.
Something to really sink our teeth into.
Christmas with friends by the fireplace.
A place where I can find inspiration to write.
Yes, we like that! On rainy winter days we both scroll through our phones: Idealista, Kyero, Fotocasa, Pisos, ThinkSpain are all scoured. Johan mostly makes suggestions, I join in, sometimes smoothly, sometimes I don't respond or ignore him, sometimes there's friction and we don't speak the rest of the day. What sticks ends up on a shortlist.
Our search area is large. We take beautiful trips. Under Dutch skies and over Andalusian paths, we wander between coast and mountains through La Alpujarra and already get a taste of spring. We explore the Tropical Valley behind Almuñécar and discover Alhama de Granada inland.
We walk past vineyards, almond groves and cortijos, where mules still work the land. We meet proud, friendly Spaniards.
Sometimes friends join our outings and walks, like the Hombre friend. On a sunny terrace we let the afternoon stretch out.
Back in the car, Johan and I exchange a glance. A small wink, because we managed to keep our plans under wraps. And despite all photo and video posts on my Facebook and Instagram, no one asks anything.
What fits the budget is often unfinished or too remote. Finding a needle in a haystack. A nearly perfect house is in the wrong village. A ruin in the town of Órgiva turns out better than expected but has a scruffy, suspicious cat lady as neighbour. We make an offer on an authentic historic Alpujarra-style property with a slate floor and Moorish chimney, but after all the rain the plaster falls off the wall, and we withdraw our bid when our lawyer expresses doubts.
Then we drive on again, past a cortijo for sale, mainly to remove this small farm from our shortlist.
And Johan! Any news?
What! Una Más?
Hidden in the Contraviesa mountains of La Alpujarra, at 1,000 metres above sea level, we came across a small cortijo with its own orchard. Close to the wine village of Albondón and just 25 minutes' drive from the beach. See my video of this area on Facebook or Instagram.
Photo: We instantly fell for the peace and simplicity, the almond groves and the sea view.
In the meantime, we have signed the preliminary purchase contract. Now we wait for the paperwork, and then we'll get to work to share this special place next winter. While I continue writing, Johan is already cutting out the first letters from a piece of scrap wood for the new nameplate: Una Más.
I walk over to him: "Is this it then?"
He doesn't look up, just glances sideways. "Yes," he says and keeps cutting.
Live today. No one has promised you tomorrow. This is life in Spain, just as it is. Want to read more about our life in Spain? Also check out our other Spanish chats.
Until next time!
Johan & Reijer