Blog post 63, 18 JUL 2026, Reijer Staats

The road to relaxation in Andalusia

Johan and I are having lunch at Costacabria, overlooking the Mediterranean Sea on the Costa Tropical. The tassels on the parasols flutter in the breeze. The fresh passion fruit flavour with my confit de canard is delightful. Friendly chats with familiar guests. At the table next to us, an older couple...

She's constantly on speakerphone, he listens to his radio, also on speaker. Not my taste in music. Oh, that dreadful discomfort: the face turning red, sweating under the arms, jaws clenching. Johan rolls his eyes and orders a vino tinto.

Later, I wait for new guests at Casa Larimar. My eye sweeps over the estate and the greenery, along the road and the apartments on the Paseo. Beyond that, the sea and dolphins hunting a school of sardines. What a sight. A comment in the guestbook lingers: about the distant sound of traffic. Yes, grumble, I think, that's noted in the Airbnb listing too.

Discomfort. Oh, minor discomfort.

Perhaps this is where relaxation begins?

Photo: Red vintage & sea and sky blue, our Dyane parked in our little street on Urbanisation Fuentes de Almuñécar

Behind the wooden fence in Almuñécar

Summer, four years ago. Our purchase of Casa Larimar was a done deal and a neighbouring house on Urbanisation Fuentes de Almuñécar also vanished from the market. Around that similar house, Casa F, a tall wooden fence was quickly erected; above it, Johan and I saw new palm trees growing taller every day during that first renovation summer in our new property. We also wondered who the mysterious vintage French-registered camper van parked there belonged to.

Years later. Around a guest changeover, on the street outside Casa Larimar, I'm approached: "You don't know who I am, but I know you quite well." What a remarkable first meeting.

In front of me stands a youthful man from a generation before mine, blond-grey hair, slightly reddish skin, and a Labrador on a lead. With enthusiastic casualness 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. Nice writing, by the way, there are layers that not everyone will understand. But I read right through them..." He pauses. "How you see the world."

You're addressed. Listen carefully. And with a well, I won't keep you any longer the conversation ends. At home, I scroll through my mailing list, curious how long this talkative neighbour has been following us.

Our conversations become more frequent, emails exchanged whenever I publish a lively, off-the-cuff news & miscellany story (not my words) on the blog, and we even peek in each other's supermarket trolleys at Alcampo. On the street outside our houses, Ben invites me in: "You must be curious to see what it's like on the other side of that fence."

It's like stepping into the mid-century modernist set from the Palm Springs photo series by photographer Erwin Olaf: a large, sleek open space with a supporting metal beam in the centre. Vintage everywhere. Oh, I love that! Their upper floor, basically our Casa Larimar, connects via an external metal staircase with the terrace apartment below. Everything in the same style. Inside flows seamlessly through glass sliding doors into the outdoor spaces, with all those tall palm trees. In the background, the hill with the casco histórico of Almuñécar and the Mediterranean Sea (see the photo at the top of this post).

Ben introduces me to his partner: artist and creator of nearly everything I see. No, not Erwin... but Evert. The books scattered around the house are Ben's world.

Ben and Evert have become familiar faces. These free spirits sit inside at our kitchen table in crumpled speckled shirts worn inside out (I wonder how they manage to button them up) chatting about everything and nothing — politics, character, the French vineyard where they once lived the life we now lead, and everyday concerns. Plenty of opinions. No clear thread. Ben calls the shots.

I'd love to read or write a book about this man.

After two hours, only a sip remains of his café solo and a small bite of the pastel de nata. I watch Ben's constantly moving mouth with a crumb at the corner and wonder which tangent he'll take next.

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

Sometimes a guest leaves a story behind

With Johan and the couple of friends, I'm still having lunch at Costacabria. I flick through the calendars of our casas. The first bookings for summer 2027 are in. Many names are familiar. The friends at the table are already booking their two weeks at Villa Merise. Perhaps that is, besides a good review, the greatest compliment: guests who return.

Then another message appears. The fifth today, and she's just arrived. I look at my screen and feel my body tense. Johan doesn't even glance up and orders another glass of vino tinto.

Oh dear. A whole month to go.

I borrow a cigarette from my friend and we walk to the smoking area at the side of the terrace. "A cry for attention," she says. "Don't get involved." Yet I decide to engage. "Reijer attracts these types," I hear Johan say. "You're just people people," replies my friend.

Ah, minor discomfort.

Without a car. Against my advice. The guest renting Casa Larimar in midsummer: "This bloody hill..."

The winter visitor who ran out of the two standard rolls of toilet paper on day one. He asks if I can bring more. I deliver twenty-eight rolls. They're pink, very Spanish, not a special order but just what was available that day.

The couple who reported only boiling hot water from the shower. Forty kilometres later, I turn the thermostat tap back a notch. At checkout, plates with dried tomato sauce remain in the cupboard. Half-licked spoons still damp with a white yoghurt trail in the cutlery drawer above. I fear this English duo were unfamiliar with the dishwasher and hastily closed the door behind them.

Ageing hippies by bus. I pick them up at the bus station and advise a quick visit to Lidl, where I watch them, both wearing clearly too-large sandals on their grubby feet, wander lost for two hours from my Renault 4. Upon leaving, all furniture has been pushed aside to create a dance floor. A circle of tealights around the bathtub and incense ash everywhere.

But it can always be worse.

At the vecinos in Salobreña, on their rooftop terrace. We secretly hoped to see the Filemon from TV again, but this year it's their other guests. And Eva, suspiciously long in the kitchen, and Jesper elsewhere on the terrace by the barbecue, leave us alone with them constantly. Tension. What happened here and do we even want to know? Without glasses I only see a rapidly moving beak and two eyebrows far too large and heavily tattooed opposite me. And Johan's look shouts: Beam me up, Scotty.

After all the messages following that fifth one. After all the going with the flow.

Ten hours of cleaning.

A fridge full of half tubs of quark, a rounded pack of gazpacho, wilted lettuce, yesterday's and the day before's takeaway, and an opened pack of cheese with growing mould circles. Three large bags of rubbish, despite me showing where the bins were.

No review. I wanted to keep this guest happy. But I didn't want to lie either. Along the way, I kept going with the flow. With her colourful character and funny anecdotes.

I thought a story would come of it.

Photo: Here I still have a photo…

Here I still have a photo…

I kept staring at it. Fifteen years ago, around this time in Seville, and it was scorching hot then too!

Guus Meeuwis was staying in the same hotel as us, the EME Catedral. We kept bumping into each other. After knocking hard on the bell, his then-wife let him complain about the shower drain not working properly.

He faded a bit next to his Valérie. She had a strikingly platinum blonde hairstyle, I think, he was shy, clearly under her direction. Wandering across the square in the photo, I asked Johan if they were still following us. I turned and looked him straight in the eyes.

Hmm, annoying.

I still don't quite know how to behave around a celebrity.

By Rail — Guus Meeuwis & Vagant

"Kedeng kedeng... it's not on your map, but I know where you need to be..."

Well, that Andalusia trip in 2011 would take us along the Costa de la Luz, Costa del Sol, and Costa Tropical, and felt like a string of hidden gems. It was an endlessly happy summer, I was very excited about what was to come and had high expectations. Life has its ups and downs. Of course.

Back to the photo above: two young dogs, already searching for a forever place to be in Spain?

Maybe take another photo like this one day. Then fast forward to 2041, looking back nostalgically in 15 years' time?

That's how I try to write again: a bit of tidying, reflecting, letting myself get bored, gently going with the flow... and only then do the words come.

Humming.

That last drive through the orange groves

With a friend, I drive through the Lecrín Valley, a little further through the orange groves than our usual trips to Casita Little Switzerland. My chest voice slowly drops to my lower abdomen, one hand loosely on the steering wheel, humming without realising it. Eleven years ago, Johan and I drove exactly like this and fell in love with the valley.

The friend shares that romantic view and takes an interest in the picturesque hamlet of Chite: the Andalusian architecture of Donald Gray and the world of artist and hippie Gym Halama. He leaves Gym's studio in Chite with a piece of art under his arm. We look at old renovation projects by Ofra Landman full of artisanal details: terracotta, azulejos from Fajalauza, wooden beams, oriental rugs and lamps, and the pomegranate as a recurring symbol of life.

Chite, also called Little BBC by the English: London jetset, TV personalities and music legends found inspiration here. The motorway and reservoir weren't even there yet. I see the valley again through my friend's eyes.

Photo: Fresh from the orange groves. Right outside the door of Casita Little Switzerland.

Still, something has changed.

Recently, while driving my Renault 4 back from the MOT at the ITV in Órgiva, I heard my mother's voice at every bend: "Don't drive that car any more, it will be your death!"

Soon after, Marja called from Restábal.

"Danielle has had an accident."

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

"She's going to die."

When I got home, I locked the Renault 4 and knew straight away: I won't drive this car another metre.

Danielle was the estate agent who introduced us to this valley. Almost every house we bought or sold was with her. She gave advice, reassured us, and made us laugh with her disarming remarks. About the clique in the valley: "I am Switzerland myself." About the ugly excavation on the southern slope of the Sierra: "Do you find that ugly? Oh, I don't at all." Nothing was too much trouble. She helped measure a house, tore her trousers in the process, and initially didn't even want to show us our first Casa Una Más. According to her, it wasn't authentic enough. But it had terracotta, azulejos and wooden beams. "Oh, don't you know those?" she asked excitedly, as if we already knew half the valley.

"Look, Dani-fast," Johan and I used to say whenever we saw her rushing through the valley with a client. And that happened daily. Sometimes we were even welcome in Danielle's circle in Restábal.

A full church, an entire village out, generations of Valley expats. An impressive procession uphill along cypresses to the cementerio. Breath catches, throats clear, lips pressed tightly as the coffin was bricked and plastered into a wall by municipal workers.

For Johan and me, the Lecrín Valley was also a bit Danielle.

Yet everything moves on. I'm no longer campesino. Johan now drives a van: a younger, smaller white Fiat. Once all the paperwork for our new cortijo is done, we'll head into the Las Alpujarras mountains with it.

Photo: Farewell friend. The end of an era. Thanks for all the memories. I'm sure we'll meet again in Salobreña.

Discomfort, going with the flow and relaxation

I meet Evert, Ben's partner, along the Paseo. He tells me he's read my blog posts. We talk about writing. That I always try to put on paper what I see, hear or experience, and also what's happening in my body at that moment: clenched jaws, something triggering, the voice slowly dropping to the lower abdomen. The words usually come afterwards.

I'm still practising. Discomfort. Going with the flow (but not too much). Relaxation. Johan just has a glass of vino tinto.

Oh, and dear smoking friend, you were right of course. And we're really happy you're coming back.

Seize the day from the beautiful Costa Tropical of Granada.

Reijer & Johan