New blogpost, 17-MAR 2025, Reijer Staats
The rain in Spain
The weather has been stormy for days. We zigzag through our living room, where laundry from our casas hangs and dries excruciatingly slowly. Such an un-Spanish rainy period reminds me of the confinamiento during COVID, in our first year of emigration, now five years ago. Back then, we were stuck at home – now, Jeanette and Paul, a Dutch couple we're friends with, suggest going for a walk.
A rain-soaked and slippery mountain hike doesn’t seem like a great plan, so I propose an alternative: the simple coastal path, a two-hour walk from Salobreña via La Caleta to a hidden bay, where mysterious stone figures are stacked. I send a message: "10:00 at the panadería in La Caleta. Let’s start the walk properly with breakfast. See you in a bit!"
Leaving home – in shorts, because despite the rain, 20°C is forecast – I see that the rambla we live on has already transformed into a fast-flowing stream. In front of the panadería, on the empty terrace in La Caleta, I still find two smiling faces: one under the white hood of her raincoat, the other under his now-soaked baseball cap. We hurry into the bakery’s basement, past the dripping umbrellas in the bucket by the entrance and carefully down the rain-slicked stairs.
The upper windows of the basement are fogged up, and under white fluorescent light, between the stacked barras de pan and the L-shaped counter filled with sweet puff pastry, stands the always-friendly señora of the panadería—in a pink fleece vest, a white apron on top, beaming and radiating a striking pride in her shop: "Buenos días. Qué tomáis?"
Before we decide what to order, I scan the space for a place to sit: against the wall are only two small tables pushed together, and at the left end, a caballero is already chewing on his tostada. The rest of the room is taken up by two crooked IKEA Billies displaying local fruits & vegetables and essentials like detergent and Coca-Cola. Between the counter and the caballero stands a mechanical payment machine, the kind you might remember from buffet restaurants in the 80s—a bulky, impractical device for this tiny space. This particular model, installed here during the first COVID period, with a slide system for change, certainly takes up the space where an extra table could have been.
We join the caballero. For the chocolate pastry, croissants, espresso, and two manchadas (tip: order this in Andalusia if you want a regular cappuccino without whipped cream!), I end up paying €8. My €50 bill hesitates twice before the machine swallows it and neatly returns €42 in change.
This walk remains a favorite—even in the rain! The fishermen in yellow rain capes along the coastal path and the dripping branches of blooming mimosa add color. Rainwater streams from the terracotta roof tiles and over the whitewashed rounded facades of the old villas along the route, and in the bay, the stone figures await. Under the pine trees along the way, we find some shelter—and the pine processionary caterpillar!
Neatly in formation, they cross our path. I immediately pick up our Mèlo. Oops, my bare legs now come into contact with the caterpillars' nearly invisible stinging hairs. And I won’t forget that anytime soon...
Jeanette and Paul fly back to sunny Netherlands. The following weekend, the nearly-birthday-boy Johan and I explore the city of Almería and reminisce in the beautiful Cabo de Gata. We are lucky with the cleared-up weather there, and our local Airbnb host Gino meanwhile thinks—and mostly hopes—that we are going to invest in his city. But Gino, we most certainly will not. Back home in Almuñécar, we celebrate Johan’s birthday in Restaurante El Maño with amigos, a fantastic new discovery.
For now, I enjoy some me-time. Johan is elsewhere, looking after new guests. Gardening around Villa Merise, face in the sun, coffee in hand, and overlooking the coastal path, I realize that people must have wondered these past few days, wherever I went, why this visibly restless hombre was so shamelessly scratching his legs and groin. I glance down again. Under my shorts, two bright red, itchy legs are covered in bumps. Unfortunately, none of the Spanish ointments I’ve used so far have helped.