Espana! - August 21 - 24, 2018

We took an early flight from Copenhagen to Barcelona then boarded a train to transfer us to Barcelona's main train station. There we caught the train to Figures to visit our new friends, Peter and Sumarah Scott. Since our flight was fairly early in the morning, we had done a trial run the day before to make sure there were no snags in getting from our apartment to the airport. All went perfectly. Peter had told us there are two trains to Figures, one is a local with a little over a 2-hour travel time; the other is a high speed train and makes the journey in only 1 hour. What we didn't understand is that the slow station goes to one station in Figures and the high speed train goes to another station in Figueres in on completely different tracks. Our sad, make-shift Spanish language skills got us to Figures all right but via the local two-hour train, of course. No problem, the ride was comfortable and the scenery was beautiful. We passed industrial areas, then country sides where we cruised through small towns and stopped at about 10-12 of them inroute. Much of the land we rode through was farm land growing green beans, tomatoes and big melons. The tomatoes and beans were staked in old fashioned tee-pees but the tomatoes were grown in Quonset-hut structures covered in net to protect the fruits from the blistering sun. The plants were loaded, absolutely loaded.

Peter was waiting for us when we arrived. We packed up the luggage his white Opel and headed to their summer house in Empuriabrava.

We met Peter and Sumarah on our cruise through the Norwegian fjords a couple of weeks ago. We connected immediately and became friends. We hope that our travel plans will allow us to travel together again in the future. The Scott's live in Cape Town, South Africa but also have a farm outside the city, a beach house 55 minutes from the city and of course, the summer house in Spain's Costa Brava region. Their summer house is in one of the oldest and largest marina residential area in Europe. It is called Empuriabrava. It's easy to find on Google.

Sumarah is a lovely, truly beautiful and warm lady. She has a 24-year old son in New Zealand whom she adores. He is coming to visit her and Peter in South Africa this December and bringing along his serious girlfriend. Peter is a boisterous, charmer. He chats non-stop in both Afrikaans and in heavily accented English. Often I could not understand a word he said. He's a very successful business man and knows a lot about world politics and world economies. I must add, he is quite often is full of the devil. At first it's hard to tell if he's telling the truth or simply telling a bald face lie. After a little while we began to know the difference in his mischief. He's quit a conversationalist and extremely fun to be around. After three days with Peter, I don't know how Sumarah manages living with a man who often behaves as if he has a serious case of ADD. Don't misunderstand, they both are absolute sweethearts and we enjoyed every minute with them!

Their summer house's 50-year-old community is built on the Mediterranean coast and consists of single family homes of various sizes. There are cottages and there are multi-million dollar houses as well. Nearly all have exteriors of concrete stucco and are painted white. All have tile roofs and a pool. There are apartments and fisherman's houses too. All have direct access to the 15 miles of canal waterways and access to shared or individual pool. The fisherman's houses are like townhouses built side by side and share walls. Every property has room to moor a boat or yacht and sits on a man-made canal that provides access to the sea. Most of the properties have been totally renovated and updated in new clean modern styles, but most owners have taken care to retain much of the original structure and character. It's a lovely but bustling place. The canals have a constant flow of boat traffic going out to or retuning in from the sea. And the brown-sandy beaches are packed each morning by 8 am. The summer residents are quite international. Most visitors are from Germany, France and the Netherlands. Peter said there are about 20,000 fulltime residents in this little resort town but at least twice that many during summer holiday months. And do they love their boats. Nearly every residential property owns a boat or yacht. Some are mere dinghies; some are huge, super expensive yachts.

Famous for its community and huge marina, Empuriabrava has a lengthy and very wide beach as well. No matter the day, the beach was crowded with sunbathers. As a note, the Mediterranean has relatively no waves; it is a very calm body of beautiful clear water. There is very little surf on the beach but even boats as small as 15 feet can safely navigate the sea.

We arrived in late afternoon and spent the evening getting comfortable with each other again and enjoying the Mediterranean air and dinner by the pool. Peter pointed out his palm tree that had recently died. A certain variety of palms in this area, the ones with a very wide trunk and long fringy palms, have been attacked by an insect from Morocco. The bug attacks the heart of the palm and it ultimately dies. There is little that can be done to stop it. Many palms of this type in Empuriabrava are either sick or already dead. It's such a sad situation. Sumarah said while they never have mosquitos before, now they were being tormented by them. They both suspected it had to do with water being captured in the top of their dead palm. You know Stan, of course! Within one hour of our arrival, Stan and Peter had a ladder out and up against the dead palm, tearing it away at the dead palms and stalks in order to get to a point where it could be sprayed with insecticide. Believe it or not, it seemed to help. Then next, they tore into a project to replace one of the lights on their pool. That's my handyman for you!

We spent the next two days relaxing under umbrellas on the pool deck, cooking, having wine and learning about the area and our new friends. Late in the afternoon on our second day, Stan helped Peter launch their boat. It's funny! Their boat is a ridged inflatable 4-person dingy with a 4-horsepower motor. It took a while for Peter and Stan to get the motor started but they did and we cruised up and down each canal in Empuriabrava . . . right alongside forty and fifty-foot yachts. Some people laughed as we chugged along, smiling and waving. The truly wonderful thing was, though we got to see the back sides of all the houses, apartments and fisherman's houses. We motored under bridges into areas where the big boy yachts and sailing vessel cannot go due to the limited space between the water and the bridge. The weather was hot and clear for our entire visit but each afternoon as the sun became low in the sky, a nice breeze would muster and the air became pleasant. On the water that day, the air and the light was perfect. . . the kind that makes a person simply take a deep breath and say ahhh.

Actually, except for Peter cooking the meat on the grill, Sumarah did all the cooking, and she is a master cook! She prepared chicken wings for appetizers and lamb chops with salad one night, chicken with sweet potatoes with salad of lettuce, red onion, feta and olives, and she wrapped up our meals with salmon topped with asparagus and a savory butter sauce. One of the best meals was a salmon salad she made at lunch. She mixed a special canned salmon with chopped vegetables like tomatoes, cucumber, pepper, red onion, olives garnished with guacamole. Breakfasts were always fancy breads with a variety of sliced fruit, yogurt and fresh purple figs picked from their nearby tree. I love figs, especially those grown on the Mediterranean; somehow these figs are darker and sweeter than those I used to pick from the fig tree that grew in my mother's yard.

After our morning walk and a late, light breakfast we all hoped in the Opel and drove the area. Peter and Sumarah wanted up to see why they chose this particular spot for their summer house. All along this area of the coast are bays in which marinas and beaches are nestled. Resort towns of varying sizes are there too. Although the towns are almost next to one another by water, the drive between the towns can be quite long. Between the towns were farms. They grow miles and miles of apples, red ones and green ones all deliberately planted close together to keep the trees small and the fruit top notch. The rows of trees were covered with netting for protection from birds. We saw fields of grapes and fields of corn loaded with ears ready for picking. Earlier cherry trees had born their fruit and had been harvested. Like Empuriabrava, each sister town has a core ancient, historic, section making up its Old Town with narrow winding streets. These towns also have a newer section with all the services and shopping one would find almost anywhere, but that area of town most near the beach was purely for resort life. There are beaches filled with umbrellas, near-naked bodies lying in the scorching sun and kids running in and out of the water. Off the beach was a string of shops selling souvenirs, beach goods, ice cream and just about everything else that is also sold in the clip-shops in any beach town in America or Mexico. Oh and they had restaurants too! While actual restaurants are located across the walkway from the beach with outdoor seating street-side, many had adjunct decks across the walkway overlooking the beach for a better view and atmosphere.

I spotted the one I wanted to visit as soon as we arrived on the beach at Escambia. I knew it had two things I was interested in having during our visit to Spain . . . grilled squid and paella. Before After all the wonderful meals the Scotts had prepared for us, we treated them to a lovely lunch on the beach, and, yes, we had grilled squid and saved the paella for another day.

We walked through the small streets of Escambia, browsing shops and window-shopping, trying to work off our lunch a bit and then ruined it all by having yummy ice cream cones. The day was hot and the ice cream was just right.

We drove on to towns like La Rubina and Roses. While La Rubinia, Escambia and Empuriabrava are relatively flat, Roses is a steep hillside town with lovely villas overlooking the beach and marina. Enchanting! The whole area is just that, enchanting! It is indeed easy to see why the Scott's bought property here.

Stan and I each want to learn a foreign language. It's an important goal we have had for a long time. We have spent a good bit of money on all kinds of "learn a language" packages. We have Plimser; we have several varieties of Rosetta Stone. We have apps on our phone but still, we can only limp through. We think Spanish is the one we must learn since it is fairly universal, second only to English. Learning by immersion, we think, is the key to learning the language. You must learn it, and practice it to get it. We want to return to Spain in the next year or so and remain here for a period of some months, up to 2 or 3. We want to live in a community, take Spanish lessons and live like a local.

We have found that we truly like the Costa Brava area but truly have not seen enough yet. And while we are completely infatuated with the coastal resort towns, we are not sure that's where we will get our best exposure to the language. We have a lot to learn about where the spot in Spain might be and what time of year will be the best.

Before moving on, I must write about what Stan and I learned from Peter and Sumarah regarding the trouble going on in South Africa these days. In a very simplified explanation and from a purely lay perspective, I will do my best. With the end of Apartheid, it was agreed that there was an unfair balance of land ownership and wealth between white and black people in South Africa. White South Africans make up 9% of the country's population yet they own 72% of the land. As a part of Land Reform initiatives, the government could buy farms and redistribute the land to black South Africans. Now, the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party is seeking to change the constitution to speed up redistribution of the land to the country's poor black majority. The government is considering and has already begun a process to evict the white owner and nationalize his land. Poor blacks will be given the chance to live on the land and work the land. White owners will lose their holdings and what we all know as South Africa will quite likely be something else. I am not racially biased. I am not. I love all people. And I want all people to have opportunity and a road to prosperity. But acquiring private property via eminent domain and giving ownership and tilling rights to people who have no tools, no training, no management skills, and no technology and expecting them to prosper is wrong. I pray the government of South Africa finds another solution.

We are leaving Empuriabrava and saying good-bye to our new but friends. We will remember our time together in Norway and or brief visit with these special people here in Spain for the rest of our lives. We hope to see them again in the future. We are moving on the southern part of Spain now with a first stop in Valencia. From there we will also visit Malaga and Madrid before returning home. As I said, we have much to learn!