Moorish Farmhouse, Orgiva, Spain.
A long journey home after the exam yesterday. We finished just before 6:00 and by 7:00 I have reached Gatwick and checked in. Fairly quiet at the airport on a Saturday night. On the way back, I finished "Driving over Lemons" and am definitely planning a trip out to see his part of the valley. Collected the car at 12:30 and back at the farmhouse at 2:30 in the morning!
So today was as quiet as I could make it.
For this weeks blogs I have decided to focus more on some of the local sights and trips out, rather than the usual daily routine we have had for the last couple of weeks. So today's blog is mainly about driving up towards Pampaniera and visiting the O Sel Ling Tibetan Buddhist monastery high in the mountains.
This involves a drive of several kms off road and the land rover is ideally suited to this. We parked well before the start of the buildings and walked the last couple of kms, gasping somewhat in the slightly thinner air when we are high up.
Orgiva in the valley, on the way up to O Sel Ling
The entrance sign - visitors are welcome between 3:30 and 6:00. We were a bit early!
A massive prayer wheel - the traditional Buddhist mantra, Om Mane Padme hum, is the message on the side. Oddly enough, it revolves easily with a slight push.
The Stupa at the monastery
The monastery is actually a collection of rustic local buildings on the hillside, mainly consisting of tiny buildings built into hillside, most of which seem to be the tiny rooms occupied by retreatant monks (of whom we saw none during our walk). It is a sparse location and would be very bleak in winter. It does have some nice views of Pamaniera and Bubion though. A visit during actual visitor hours would be excellent. Maybe we can include a visit when we are doing the "learn to relax" theme which includes an introduction to meditation.
Afterwards we went to Pampaneira for a walk round and some lunch - my chance to have the (im)famous Patata a Lo Pobre, "poor man's potatoes", which is just potato, onions, green peppers, and egg. Combined with black pudding, ham, cheese and chorizo, this makes a "plato alpuharran", a plate of local delicacies. Linda stick to a vegetable tortilla - perhaps wisely.
We had a long catch up call with Emma, who is approaching exam time at college but seems to still be enjoying herself. She has been keeping up with us using this blog (while we use her facebook account) and feels that we don't mention her enough. So this is her mention. Later in the year, Emma will be staying with us in France and Italy so will feature lots no doubt.
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