Blog post 63, 18 JUL 2026, Reijer Staats

The road to slowing down in Andalusia

Johan and I are having lunch at Costacabria, overlooking the Mediterranean on the Costa Tropical. The fringes on the parasols flutter in the breeze. On my plate, confit de canard with the fresh tang of passion fruit. Good conversations with guests who have become friends over the years.

At the table beside us sits an older couple: she is constantly on speakerphone, while her husband keeps changing radio stations—also on speakerphone. Not my kind of music. Unease. A flushed face. Sweaty underarms. Clenched jaws. Johan rolls his eyes and orders a vino tinto.

Later, I wait for new guests at Casa Larimar. My gaze wanders over the urbanisation and its gardens, down the road and the apartment blocks along the Paseo. Beyond that, the sea and dolphins hunting a school of sardines. Pure joy. A comment in the guestbook lingers with me. About the distant sound of traffic. Oh, come on... Mr. Nitpicker. That was clearly stated in the Airbnb listing.

Unease. Just a little unease.

Perhaps slowing down begins right here?

Photo: Vintage red, sea and sky blue. Our Citroën Dyane parked on our street in Fuentes de Almuñécar.

Behind the timber fence in Almuñécar

Summer, four years ago. We had just bought Casa Larimar. Around the same time, a neighbouring house in Fuentes de Almuñécar vanished from the market too. Around that house of the same style, Casa F, a tall timber fence was soon erected. During that first summer of renovating our new home, Johan and I watched palm trees behind the fence grow taller day by day, until they towered above it. We also wondered about the mysterious vintage camper van with French plates, always parked outside.

Years later. During a guest changeover, right outside Casa Larimar, I suddenly hear someone say: "You don't know who I am, but I know you quite well already." Now, that's an unusual first meeting.

Before me stands a youthful man from a generation before mine. Greyish-blonde hair, slightly reddish skin, and a Labrador on a lead. With casual enthusiasm, he continues: "Reijer, I'm Ben. I've been following you and Johan since 2020. We must have viewed your Villa Merise just before you bought it, but you acted faster. I really admire your writing, by the way. It has layers that not everyone will understand. But I read right through it..." He pauses. "How you see the world."

Someone starts talking. You listen. Before you can reply, he finishes with well, I won't keep you from what you were doing. Back home, I scroll through my mailing list, curious to see how long this chatty neighbour has been following us.

Our conversations become more frequent. Emails arrive every time I publish one of my lively, casually written news updates and miscellaneous bits and pieces (not my words) on the blog, and we even peek into each other's supermarket trolleys at Alcampo. On the street outside our casas, Ben invites me in: "I bet you've been wondering what it looks like on the other side of that fence."

It feels like stepping onto the mid-century modernist set of the Palm Springs Photo Series by Dutch photographer Erwin Olaf: a large, minimalist open space with a supporting metal pipe in the centre. Vintage everywhere. Oh, I'm so fond of this! Their top floor—basically our Casa Larimar—connects via a metal outdoor staircase to the terrace apartment below. Everything follows the same style. Through the glass sliding doors, inside flows seamlessly into the outdoor spaces, with all those tall palm trees. In the background, the hill with the casco histórico of Almuñécar and the Mediterranean (see the opening photo above).

Ben introduces me to his partner: an artist and maker of nearly everything I see. No, not Erwin... but Evert. The books scattered throughout the house—that's Ben's world.

By now, Ben and Evert feel like familiar faces. There they are, two free spirits, sitting at our kitchen table in creased, polka-dot shirts worn inside out—I can't help wondering how they even managed to button them up. Conversations about everything and nothing: politics, character, their French domaine where they once lived the life we now enjoy, and everyday struggles. Plenty of opinions. No common thread. Ben decides the topic.

How I'd love to read a book about this man. Or better yet, write it.

After two hours, only one sip is gone from his café solo and just one small bite from the pastel de nata. I watch Ben's ever-moving lips and the crumb at the corner of his mouth, wondering which direction he'll take next.

Photo: The front door of Casita Little Switzerland. My favourite door, almost restored to its best gris perla.

Some guests leave a story

Johan and I are still having lunch at Costacabria. I'm checking the calendars for our casas. The first bookings for summer 2027 are already in. Many names are familiar. Even the friends sitting with us decide to book their usual two weeks at Villa Merise right here at the table. Perhaps that's the greatest compliment of all—besides a good review: guests who keep returning.

Then another message pops up. The fifth one today. She's only just arrived. I look at my screen and immediately feel my whole body tense. Johan doesn't even look up and orders another glass of vino tinto.

Oh dear. Another whole month to go.

I borrow a cigarette from our friend and we walk to the smoking corner beside the terrace. "She's crying out for attention," he says. "Don't encourage it." But I decide to do exactly that. "Reijer attracts these kinds of people," I hear Johan say. "Well... you're both just people-people," the friend replies.

Just a little unease.

The guest who insisted—I clearly remember trying to talk him out of it—on coming to Casa Larimar in the height of summer without a car: "This bloody hill..."

The winter guest who had already used up the two complimentary rolls of toilet paper on day one. Could I bring more? I delivered twenty-eight rolls. Pink. Very Spanish. Not intentional—just what the supermarket had that day.

The couple whose shower only ran boiling hot water. After a half-hour drive, I turned the thermostatic tap back one click. At checkout, I found plates with dried tomato sauce put back in the cupboard. Spoons, still wet, with white streaks of yoghurt, lay in the drawer above. I suspect this English couple never quite worked out the dishwasher and left rather hurriedly.

A pair of ageing hippies arriving by bus. I picked them up at the station and advised a stop at Lidl first. From my Renault 4, I watched them wander the supermarket for two hours, both wearing sandals at least two sizes too big for their dusty feet. By the end of their stay, every piece of furniture had been moved aside to create a dance floor. A circle of candles around the bath, and little piles of incense ash everywhere.

But things can always get worse.

Dinner with our neighbours in Salobreña on their roof terrace. Secretly, we had hoped to meet one of their TV personality friends again, but this year we found ourselves with another couple—and with Eva disappearing into the kitchen and Jesper at the barbecue, they left us alone with their guests. All evening. My shoulders tensed up. What happened here? Did we want to know? Without my glasses, all I really saw was a pair of duck lips, constantly moving, beneath two oversized tattooed black eyebrows opposite me. And I could feel Johan's energy beside me: Beam me up, Scotty.

Weeks later. After all the messages following that fifth one. After moving on for weeks.

Ten hours of cleaning.

A fridge filled with half-empty yoghurt pots, a swollen carton of gazpacho, vegetables left too long, takeaway from yesterday and the day before, and an opened pack of cheese—greasy, covered in white spots and starting to smell. Three large bin bags, even though I'd shown her where the bins were.

No review for this guest. I wanted to keep the peace. But I didn't want to lie either. Somewhere along the way, I found myself moving along with her more and more. With her colourful personality. With her funny anecdotes.

I thought it might turn into a story.

Photo: Fifteen summers ago…

Fifteen summers ago…

I found myself staring at this photo. Fifteen summers ago, around this time of year in Seville—and it was unbelievably hot back then, too!

There was this rockstar-looking guy staying at our hotel, the EME Catedral. Short bleached hair, a tank top, muscular arms, a denim wristband. We kept bumping into each other. It wasn't long before Johan and I nicknamed him Billy Idol. After hesitantly pressing the reception bell, he—somewhat surprisingly for someone with such an eccentric look—timidly started complaining about the shower drainage.

Strolling across the square in the photo one night, I asked Johan if he was still walking behind us. I turned and looked him straight in the eyes. He gave me half a smile, just lifting one corner of his upper lip.

Yikes…

Even now, I still don't quite know how to act around people like that. Do they hide behind their image, or am I simply the shy one?

Catch My Fall — Billy Idol

"If I should stumble..."

Anyway, our road trip through Andalusia in 2011 took us along the Costa de la Luz, the Costa del Sol, and the Costa Tropical, and it felt like an endless chain of hidden gems. It was a happy summer. I couldn't wait to see what lay ahead and had high expectations. Life has its ups and downs. Of course.

Back to the photo above: two young dreamers, already searching for a forever home in Spain?

Maybe we should take a photo like that again someday. Then look back fondly in 2041, fifteen summers from now.

This is how I start writing these days: first tidying up a bit, daydreaming, letting myself get bored, quietly moving on... and only then do the words begin to flow.

Humming.

One last drive through the orange groves

I drive through the Lecrín Valley with an amigo, a little further through the orange groves than on my usual trips to Casita Little Switzerland. My voice slowly dropping from my chest into my belly. One hand resting lightly on the wheel. Humming along without realising it. Eleven years ago, Johan and I drove these same roads and fell in love with the valley.

My amigo shares this romantic view and takes a particular interest in the picturesque pueblo of Chite, the Andalusian architecture of Donald Gray—featured here before—and the world of Gym Halama. He leaves Gym's studio with a piece of art tucked under his arm. We visit old renovation projects by Ofra Landman, full of authentic details: terracotta, azulejos from Fajalauza, wooden beams, oriental rugs and lamps, and images and sculptures of the pomegranate that seem to appear everywhere, as a familiar symbol of life.

Chite—known among British expats as Little BBC: the London jet set, TV personalities, and music legends once found inspiration here. Back then, the highway and reservoir didn't even exist. I find myself seeing the valley again, through my amigo's eyes.

Photo: Fresh orange overload right at the doorstep of Casita Little Switzerland.

Yet something has changed.

Recently, on my way back from the annual vehicle inspection (ITV) in Órgiva in my Renault 4, I heard my late mother's voice in every hairpin bend: "Don't drive that car. It'll kill you!"

A moment later, my friend Marja called from Restábal:

"Danielle has had an accident..."

"She fell through a floor in a house just before a viewing..."

"She's going to die."

I locked the Renault 4 and instantly knew: I would never drive this car again.

Danielle was the estate agent who introduced us to this valley. We bought and sold almost every house with her. She gave advice, reassured us, and, above all, made us laugh with her wonderfully disarming remarks. About the cliques in the valley: "I'm Switzerland." About the scar left by years of stone cutting on the southern slopes of the Sierra: "You think that's ugly? Oh, I don't think so at all." "Oh, don't you know them?" she'd ask enthusiastically, as if we already knew half the valley.

Nothing was ever too much trouble for her. She once helped measure a house, tore her trousers in the process, and at first didn't even want to show us our very first Casa Una Más. According to her, it wasn't authentic enough. But it had exactly what we were looking for: terracotta floors, azulejos and wooden beams.

"There goes Speedy Dani," Johan and I would always say whenever we saw her crossing the valley with clients. Which was practically every day. Occasionally we were even invited into Danielle's clique in Restábal.

A packed church. An entire village turned out. Generations of valley expats. An impressive procession climbed uphill between the cypress trees to the cementerio. People holding their breath, a single cough breaking the silence, lips pressed tightly together, while municipal workers bricked her coffin into the cemetery wall and sealed it with plaster.

For Johan and me, the Lecrín Valley will always be a little bit Danielle.

Life moves on. I am no longer a campesino these days. It's Johan who drives the delivery van now: a newer, small white Fiat. Once all the paperwork for our new cortijo is sorted, we'll head up into the mountains of Las Alpujarras.

Photo: Farewell amigo. The end of an era. Thank you for all the memories. We'll probably see you around in Salobreña.

Unease, moving on and slowing down

A guest tells me he went down to the beach but left after just five minutes: "My God, those bodies. The tattoos. I mean, you know Billy Idol, right? Can you imagine someone having his face tattooed on their shoulder?"

Then, walking along the Paseo myself, I run into Evert. He tells me he's been reading my blog posts. We talk about writing—how I always try to capture on paper what I see, hear or experience, and also what's happening inside me at that moment: clenched jaws, tense body, that voice slowly dropping into my belly. The words come only afterwards.

I keep practising. Unease. Moving on—but not too much. Slowing down. While Johan has another glass of vino tinto.

Oh, and yes... my dear smoking-corner friend, you were right. And we look forward to having you both back as our guests.

Treasure every moment. From the beautiful Costa Tropical de Granada,

Reijer & Johan