Day 80 "Caves and Confusion"

Spanish Practices

Day 80, a day of confusion when we were told our house didn't exist, also we talk a little bit about Spanish Income Tax, and explore some caves in Nerja.

Find out more: https://www.thesecretspain.com

Day 80 Caves and Confusion

Wednesday and the day begins in Spanish confusion as the man that is coming to service Petra and Justin’s pool and will first collect the key from our house has rung to say our house number does not exist.

I had one of those surreal conversations with him in my very average Spanish. The trouble is those language courses do not actually prepare for the way and how the Spanish actually speak.

We can probably all remember poor old Manuel the waiter from Fawlty Towers who you to say “I speak Engleesh, I learned it from a book.”

The character spent much of his time confused by what everyone was saying.

To prove that our house and house number do exist I have sent the pool man a WhatsApp with the GPS, this is usually the easiest way to solve the problem of not having a post code. Well we do have a post code but it covers one town, a village, four Estates and a hotel.

Petra can speak very good Spanish, she has a University Degree, but even she gets confused and here the local accent is quite thick, think of the English Cornwall accent and imagine somebody Spanish speaking with that kind of dialect.

Wednesday and it looks like some tourist attractions will be opening soon, including our local Aqua Park, the large water slide, which I can see from here has had a coat of paint and the sea water normally used in the park is going to be chlorinated, something I thought happened anyway. – I still don’t quite know how a social distancing water park full of children will actually work – but good luck to them.

Another tourist attraction about twenty minutes down the motorway is the Caves of Nerja, caverns that stretch for three miles just above Maro next to Nerja.

They were discovered in recent times in 1959 by five kids who slipped down through a sink hole and made their amazing discovery – the place was opened up to tourists, sixty years ago in 1960.

I can’t say I usually enjoy caves, we have been to the Glow Worm Caves in New Zealand, where you lay face up in a boat and travel through the caves on water, above you are what look like stars, but are actually glow worms.

We expected the Nerja caves to be a disappointment, they are not, they are quite spectacular caverns with an enormous stalactite, or is mite.. oh yes tights come down don’t they.

We went probably 20 years ago now; we had the caves to ourselves and it cost about 4 Euro to get in then. Now things are very different, and the Caves have become a major tourist attraction, entry is about 14 Euro now.

For that you get a headset in your language that will take you on the tour.

Until recently concerts were held down in the caves as they formed a natural amphitheatre.

So how did the Nerja Caves form? About five million years ago water got into the marble rock and dissolved it, forming the caverns.

Evidence of human occupation were discovered along with skeletons dating back 25 thousand years, there are also cave paintings, but public entry is restricted to the paintings. In 2012 some more remains of painting were found, depicting seals, dated from 45 thousand years ago, possibly the oldest paintings of humanity.

This is fascinating place to live, mankind has made this area his home for maybe more than 45 thousand years.

Wednesday brings the weekly shopping trip, I get Chris’ mask ready, we tie it so that the mouth area forms a cup that seals and allows him to breathe better and I put a drop of Lavender oil on it so it is a more pleasant experience.

I have to say our trip to Almunecar and there were a sizable minority that have discarded their masks, one old man just held a filthy looking mask in his hand, a couple the worse for wear staggered into the local shop I was outside, proceeded to kiss passionately, they obviously haven’t heard of the British rule about not having sex with strangers, although the law will allow you to invite a professional lady into your house. You can tell this was a law created by an old Etonian can’t you!

Wednesday and a busy day is over, I have produced four Podcasts today, excluding this one, made a commercial for ACAST and spent a horrible time trying to get my tax information sorted for the Spanish Tax Authority – Hacienda

I can’t say I am looking forward to being a Spanish Tax payer, the tax payer has to prove to the tax man that he does not owe money, not the other way round as it is in the UK, it means that they can freeze your bank account and or help themselves to any money in the account, the onus is on you to prove you do not owe money.

As a result the most familiar thing you hear from anyone Spanish who comes to work for you is. “Please pay me in cash.”