The aim of Ayurveda is to live a life in balance with nature, rejecting anything that leads to discord and disharmony. To this end the mind is characterised as having three gunas:  sattva (calmness, harmony), rajas (passion, energy, hubris) and tamas (dullness, destructiveness, negativity). All of our daily actions and thoughts, and their consequences, can be described by these three basic concepts.

The best way to explain these concepts is by the use of examples. In each case I will use people, food and architecture to give a brief illustration of the guna. A sattvic person, for example, is likely to be calm and balanced. They see the world ‘deeply’ and take responsibility for their actions because they seek to cause as little suffering and destruction as possible. They would be unlikely to recklessly consume fossil fuels, buy garden furniture made from illegal teak or support reckless government policies. Sattvic food will be simple but flavoursome and the cook will know where all the ingredients came from. Likewise, sattvic architecture is simple, harmonious and on a human scale, like the houses in a typical Andaluz pueblo blanco.

 It is important to note that, unlike in most mainstream religions, there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way to behave in the Ayurvedic tradition. There is simply a recognition of the complexity and inter-linkedness of all material and spiritual matter.

The rajasic person is likely to be highly strung and will view the world in terms of its utility. The term rajas comes from the Sanskrit word for ‘kingly’ or ‘imperialistic’, as most of us will recognise from the British Raj. To be successful in modern business probably requires a rajasic outlook. Ayurveda recognises that to be overly rajasic in one’s ways will likely lead to conflict and restlessness in one’s life. Rajasic food will be fancy, with the emphasis on presentation rather than ingredients and rajasic architecture is likely to be vulgar and pretentious.

The ‘worst’ guna is tamas. Tamasic people, or people who act in a tamasic way, may be violent and unstable. Terrorists, ruthless corporate executives and murderers: their aim is to kill and to destroy life to suit their own narrow ends. Tamasic food may have reached the table as a result of the gross suffering of humans and animals, and what better example of a tamasic building is there than a giant luxury hotel built on a wildlife reserve for no other reason than profiteering and financial gain?

This brief introduction is intended as just that. The fascinating insights of ancient India are as relevant today as they were thousands of years ago. For a very enjoyable and accessible book on the subject pick up a copy of Satish Kumar’s Spiritual Compass (Green Books).

 This article was published in La Chispa magazine.

One December day in the 1930s a thin and ragged looking tramp arrived in the coastal village of Almuñécar with a violin tucked under his arm. Barely more than a youth with gangly limbs and piercing blue eyes, this seaside outpost represented the end of a long and gruelling journey on foot from Galicia.  Sensing the gathering clouds of war the youth decided to hole up for the winter in the village and took a job as an odd-job man at one of the village’s two hotels down at the beach.

That youth was Laurie Lee, at the time an aspiring poet and romantic who had set out on foot from his family home in a small Gloucestershire village. Later, in his memoir As I Walked Out One Midsummer Morning he put down his first impressions of Almuñécar as such: “It was a tumbling little village built on an outcrop of rock in the midst of a pebbly delta, backed by a bandsaw of mountains and fronted by a grey strip of sand which some hoped would be an attraction for tourists.”

Laurie Lee or “Lorenzo Le” as the locals came to call him ended up staying In Almuñécar for much longer than he ever thought he would. At the time it was a down at heel fishing village, the fishermen too poor even to afford boats. Instead they would wade into the surf with nets and try to catch the scattering of sardines that flitted around in the shallows. This dismal poverty-stricken existence stood in contrast to the former glory days of the Moorish caliphs, who were eventually banished to Africa from the spot which today is marked by a triumphant concrete cross sitting high on a rock.

He describes the listless ennui that perpetually hung over the village and the way the locals would sometimes ‘make their own fun’ by tying the village idiot to a chair and torturing him by stretching his ears whilst smearing mustard on his face and pouring wine over his head to the amusement of the Guardia Civil. They knew how to enjoy themselves in the old days.

The old men were described as being “small and bony, like dried-up birds, perched moodily around the edge of the sea [who] spent much of the day just staring at their hands and sucking cigarettes.” Not much seems to have changed in this respect and I spot a few old birds sitting on a bench gazing seawards. Do they remember “El Lorenzo” I ask. No, they say shaking their heads when I show them a picture of the youthful Lee. One of them thinks he remembers a young writer but, on reflection, he was sure it was an Alemán. But then they would themselves have been but babies when Lee was living here.

It was here that Lee sheltered as the civil war broke out, recalling vividly the day the war began in mid July with the sound of a woman wailing in the street. In those days Almuñécar was solidly communist and red flags hung from everyone’s balconies. Peasants from the surrounding countryside would congregate in the plaza outside the town hall carrying flint lock rifles and talk of the coming revolution. When the war started proper the surrounding countryside was emptied and Almuñécar was filled with country men, women, children and farm animals. Fascist sympathisers, including the priests, were rounded up and placed under arrest. The villagers, expecting retribution, waited for the war to come to them and “Fear lay panting in the street like a dog”.

And then it came. A destroyer appeared off the beach one night and probed the village with a spotlight, as if selecting a target. The terrified villagers ran down to the beach and stood with their arms raised. The beam went out and the following silence was filled with a flash of light as the warship began to send shells screaming down into the pueblo. People fled in terror as houses were razed and trees were blasted to matchwood. When it was all over the searchlight came on again, illuminating the scene of carnage. “In the naked beam of the searchlight we saw them come stumbling up the streets, bent double, crying and moaning, mothers and fathers dragging their children behind them, the old folk tottering and falling down.”

But it had all been a case of friendly fire. The ludicrous truth emerged in the morning light when the captain of the destroyer sent his apologies, saying he had thought the villagers to be enemy insurgents. Plus ça change.

Some weeks later another destroyer appeared in the harbour. Although Lee didn’t know it at the time this was his taxi home. British Navy personnel stepped ashore to seek out any miscreant British subjects and, as Lee put it, “stop us making fools of ourselves.” And so the young writer was bundled on board and escorted to Gibraltar leaving him feeling humiliated, his adventures snuffed out in their prime. “So it has come – the sudden end to my year’s adventure, with the long arm reaching from home,” (although he later returned to fight against Franco with the International Brigades).

I wonder, as I walk around the modern town, what became of the characters Lee illustrated in his book, such as Jorge, a man who trained a sparrow to steal beaksful of beer from other men’s glasses and deposit it in his own. Or Manolo, the waiter and hard line communist who enlisted Lee in trips to the mountains to carry coded messages about stashes of ‘seed potatoes’ i.e. hand grenades.

It is difficult to imagine the village of Almuñécar as it was when Lee arrived almost 80 years ago. It is no longer a village but a large coastal town that has expanded up the nearby hillsides and threatens to merge into nearby Salobreña and La Herradura as ever more urbanizaciones are constructed. Indeed, the hotel where Lee once worked has been demolished and the only real reminder that the town was once the haunt of the writer is a small and incongruous monument near the beach. Lee returned once more to Almuñécar, but this time as a man in middle age. He didn’t recognise much that he had known from before and was appalled that the coast had been turned into, as he saw it, “a concrete cliff”.

He died in 1997, having been made an MBE and is still remembered and cherished as one of England’s best poets, writers and, above all, Hispanists.

Many of us who have moved to Spain end up taking on some sort of renovation project. For most it is a case of modernising a quaint village house or perhaps renovating a tumbledown finca. But who in their right mind would take on the monstrous challenge of restoring a cavernous seventeenth century olive mill the size of a small castle?

I met up Sebastian Blakely at his ‘home’ on the outskirts of Órgiva to see what kind of person could rise to the scale of this challenge. He lives there with his wife Pamela and their three children, having moved out from Devon and bought the place in 2004. “I looked at over 65 other properties and had almost given up searching when a friend told me about this molino. As soon as I saw it I knew it was the place I had been looking for.”

It’s a grand old property, rising three stories high and built with red bricks in the Toledo style of architecture. Sebastian excavated an old road running through the grounds and theorises that the mill was originally the main garrison standing at what was once the entrance to a newly Christianised Alpujarra.  Wandering around it is akin to stepping back in time. Inside the gloomy interior huge olive crushing stones are littered around and arcane machinery from a former era stands silently in the dust. In one corner rests a dilapidated horse-drawn carriage. It’s like wandering around an abandoned museum.

And everywhere one looks there lies large piles of building materials, pointing to the restoration work that is under way. But these are not the usual building materials one finds lying around a building site. Wooden pallets are piled high with bags of lime and large squared oak beams lie across the floors. There are no breezeblock, no bags of cement, no machihembradas. “I want this to be a showcase of sustainable renovation, “explains Sebastian, “not a single sack of cement is being used.” He shows me a pile of bricks which, upon closer inspection, are mud coloured and fibrous. “They’re made of compacted earth bound together with hemp fibre. Excellent thermal and acoustic insulation,” he adds.

Outside in the immaculate walled garden (one part that has already been finished) we talk about building over a cup of tea. One soon learns of Sebastian’s antipathy towards modern building materials. “If a person has any sense of continuity they should not be using concrete – it is a non-re-usable material and is disconnected from the cyclic nature of the planet.” His point is that concrete sets solid and will then be around in that form until kingdom come and will have no further use except, perhaps, as hardcore.

“Lime,” he says, “is infinitely different. It’s a natural and permeable material and can be used again and again.” By way of example he tells me about an old wall he excavated, reusing the lime mortar by smashing it up and remixing it for use in a roof.

But isn’t it difficult sourcing all of these sustainable materials, I ask him. No, he says, much of his requirements are met by a building supplier in Guadix, east of Granada, including all the lime and mud/hemp bricks and insulation. Sixty tonnes of oak from a sustainably managed forest were brought in from France for the beams, along with masses of douglas fir which, he points out, is naturally insect repellent and doesn’t require treatment. He concedes that bringing such materials in from another country (albeit a neighbouring one) might seem a little un-sustainable. But, he points out, that in a project like this you have to set the bar for exactly how sustainable you are going to make it. “If I were to go any more down that path I’d be collecting the timber myself with a horse and cart,” he jokes. It is decisions such as these that he must advise clients on in his own building consultancy, Mimar Sustainable.

And the more Sebastian tells me about his project the more impressive the scale of his vision seems to create the definitive showpiece sustainably renovated Spanish property. Air conditioning is achieved by ‘wind’ collectors that funnel the prevailing breeze underneath the building and across subterranean water tanks in a kind of heat exchanger that cools the rest of the structure above; “An ancient Arab method,” he points out. This design has saved numerous thousands of euros in the fitting of a modern electricity-gobbling air con system, as well as its future running costs. The ground floors (when they go down) will be lime based and sealed with terracotta tiles to allow for the exchange of moisture. “The worst thing you can do,” he tells me, “is to put down a concrete floor in an old house with walls made of stone. This forces ground moisture into the walls where it causes rising damp and rotting beams – disaster! “

How many years will it take before the project is completed? Sebastian sighs and looks philosophical. “Who knows? To an extent it depends on the funding.” He goes on to mention various applications for grants and all the red tape he has had to struggle with. The bottom line, he feels, is that in Andalucía there is little regard for cultural heritage “They have yet to realise their historic patrimony.” Ideally he would like the completed molino to be a local cultural or educational venue for arts, films, seminars and anything else with a community oriented aspect.  Already they have hosted several weddings in the grounds (which explain their immaculate look) and there are several outbuildings where guests can stay. But mostly I get the feeling that he wants the building to stand as a shining example of what can be achieved by using natural materials.

“Cement is toxic,” he says. “Portland cement is used so widely because it is so cheap and quick. But the environmental costs are staggering. Spanish builders have forgotten in only twenty years all the skills that they once used to build structures that have lasted hundreds of years. How long will it be before certain illnesses are linked to people being surrounded by an environment made from cement?”

AFTER two days on a British car ferry in the Bay of Biscay trying to spot elusive whales, I was in need of some firm ground to steady my legs and some decent Spanish food and culture to re-centre my senses. I sat at the rain-sodden docks at Bilbao, a map of Spain on my knee, and picked a target. On a two-day drive down to Andalucía, Toledo, situated bang slap in the middle of the Iberian Peninsula, seemed as good a place as any.

Travelling across the vast plains of Castilla-La Mancha makes one feel immensely small. Nevertheless, the modern motorway network makes even vast landscapes manageable and I was able to pass by Madrid in the early afternoon. When Toledo appeared on a hill on the horizon, it was much the same view as travellers must have seen for centuries.

Not very many foreigners have heard of Toledo. I know this because I saw only a handful during my 24-hour stay in this, the most regal of Spanish cities. The city does not really do foreigners. Menus are still, thankfully, in Spanish and it is Spanish tourists that keep this place alive.

Food for the soul

I took a room on the outskirts of town, next to the bullring. After a brief siesta I headed out on foot to explore the city and make the most of my brief stay. The old walled city is a UNESCO monument of world interest to humanity and is approached along a wide thoroughfare bordered by flower filled parks. Passing through the immense stone gates one can imagine the battles that have occurred in times past over this citadel-city that features so prominently in the blood-and-bibles slew of Iberian history. It was the Hispanic Romans who were here first, finding it a suitable spot to build an Iberian capital. Later, the Catholic Visigoth kings lived here, until their empire decayed and they were vulnerable to the Moors when they invaded in the eighth century. The city accumulated power and, when the Catholics re-conquered, it was recognised by the Pope as the seat of the Church in Spain. A period of tranquillity followed with Muslims, Jews and Christians living harmoniously, until Ferdinand and Isabella brought their firebrand theological dictatorship to Spain and forced conversions ensued. From here Toledo went into a tailspin of decline and the capital was moved to Madrid.

But I was too hungry to care about history that day. I needed lunch. After a couple of weeks in England I was beginning to realise that living in Spain has made my body reorganise itself at some base molecular level and that I craved the Spanish dining experience like a junkie craves a needle. I wandered around a narrow cobbled warren of streets until I came across an innocuous stone doorway with a brass-framed menu next to it. Perfect. Venturing inside I was astonished to find a large Spanish colonial type courtyard with porticos supported by vast Corinthian columns. The place was busy with diners who knew they were onto a good thing. I took a seat.

The menu consisted of delicately-cooked rice with meat and pan-fried vegetables, chicken muslos al chilindron and cool slices of watermelon. A rich, fruity red wine and home-made bread perfected a meal that set me back 11 euros. After the Ramadan of the ferry journey (30 euros for some over-cooked roast beef and potatoes? I’d rather eat bar crisps) I was back in Spanish gastronomic heaven. What a find! [Casón de Los López de Toledo – www.casontoledo.com]

Thus fortified, I ventured out to explore the city. Situated on a hill and with a river running on three sides makes for a strenuous peregrinatory traipse. There is little point carrying a map in a medieval city, unless you really relish a challenge. The best course of action is to simply dive in, allowing curious alleys to lead you astray, alluring vistas tempt you up steps and enticing shops and bars consume you. Most of the streets are too narrow to allow traffic, except for the ubiquitous moped, so it is really a ramblers’ treasure trove.

One unmissable stop on my hastily cobbled together itinerary was the cathedral. I just made it in before closing time and spent an hour or so gaping at the eye-popping richness of decoration that will be familiar to anyone who has ever been in one of the great Catholic cathedrals. If the original effect was to overwhelm the peasantry into religious submission then no expense was spared on this great temple of awe.

A knight in shinning armour

Emerging stiff-necked and humbled (even an atheist can share in the eerie feeling of divine serenity such buildings inspire) I decided to head for bar and top up my sin levels. The Plaza de Zocodover is the epicentre of the old town and has several outdoor bars at which to sit and drink beer and eat marzipan. The Toledans are crazy for marzipan and numerous windows display creations of the sweet almondy paste made with varying degrees of artistic professionalism.

Standing sentinel on almost every street, one can hardly fail to notice the knights. Stiff backed and silvery, these warriors of old stand to attention clutching swords and pole axes and little notices are sellotaped to their chests saying No Tocar. It was a kind of challenge and so I touched one of them. Half expecting him to step forward and cleave my troubadour chulo asunder, I discovered him to be, having raised his visor, as hollow as a party conference political promise. Most of these knights of the empty chest were guarding souvenir shops selling an impressive range of full scale medieval armoury. There was nothing fake about the broad swords, maces, spiked mallets and iron maidens on offer in these shops. Should a future war turn out to be medieval in style, Toledo will be the arms fair of the world.

I walked out of the city in the fading sunlight down to the river, which cuts a small gorge at the base of the rock. Here, darting into the undergrowth, wild partridges seemed to be living remarkably undisturbed lives, which is ironic when you consider this is Toledo’s eating bird of choice and appears on most menus. The river is glassy and clear and from its banks you can see the full glory of Toledo crowing the rock with the setting sun turning the walls of the sandstone buildings to pure gold.

Later on I went for another meal, this time sitting outside a cosy restaurant on a busy passageway. I eavesdropped on some American tourists, a group of Harvard professors on a Grand Tour, sitting at a nearby table. One of them said “I don’t care where else we go as long as we see Granada, Seville and Órgiva,” I did a double take. Had I heard right? He went on to explain to his travelling companions that Órgiva was “zany little town” where a “crazy English guy” lives with a flock of sheep and a parrot. I could tell his companions were not sold on the idea but the professor, grey and bearded, seemed resolute in his plans.

At night the streets really take on a medieval feel. Some are lit by the flickering flames of torchlight and the steely gray cobbles become black. I walked into the maze near the top of the hill, searching out the bizarre. And soon I found it: Toledo’s only British bar. But this was no normal Brit bar. The British colonial era was its motif and it was run by Spaniards and, no, they had never heard of a pint of bitter. Every wall was crammed with assorted oddments from a time when most of the map was pink and the only good Zulu was a dead Zulu. Elephant heads from Rhodesia, Hindu sculptures from misty Ceylon, pictures of Raj-era cricket and tiger skins. I sat at a mahogany table and sipped my (Spanish) beer and wondered whether I wasn’t in some sort of Alice in Wonderland fantasy. I noticed a thick glass window beneath my feet and, peering into it, could make out steaming brass cauldrons and stone steps. It was either a micro-brewery or Hades. When I left I turned down a side street or two, became disoriented and retraced my steps. But the bar was gone. Did it really exist?

So, if you are planning on going to Toledo I challenge you to find this arcane watering hole. And if, by chance, you do manage to stumble across it, here is your next challenge: keep its location a secret.

When I was at university I had a friend who was a scientist. He told me excitedly one day that he was setting off on a small research vessel to the middle of the Atlantic Ocean where they would put down a probe into the Mid Atlantic Trench in search of manganese nodules. I wasn’t quite sure what a manganese nodule was, but my friend was very excited about discovering some of them and he promised to bring one back for me. Several months passed before I saw him again. Over a pint of bitter I asked him about his voyage. Yes, he said, they’d collected some manganese nodules, along with an assortment of uncharted deep water species. But overwhelmingly what they had dredged up from the deep was a spew of supermarket carrier bags. Strange then to think that, out there, in one of the deepest least-explored recesses of the planet, alien-looking life forms know the difference between an M&S bag and a Wal-Mart one.

About the same time I knew another student – this one an engineer. He told me with obvious glee about a visit to a factory in Birmingham where he had seen a “Most impressive piece of kit.” The machine he referred to could churn out a million carrier bags without breaking into a sweat. All the operator had to do was program in the design, press a button and sit back.

Cause and effect. On the one hand was my friend who was enthralled to the power of technological progress and could see only benefits, and the other, my friend who got to see some of the consequences out there in his lonely research vessel.

The disposable plastic carrier bag is an icon for our consumer throwaway culture. Use it once and throw it away. China gets through three billion of them a day.  But any ecologist will tell you that there is no ‘away’. We simply export our plastic junk from one ecosystem to another. I have been on beaches in remote corners of Asia where you can’t see the sand for washed up plastic flotsam. Water bottles, sandals, fishing line, sun cream containers, toys, disposable nappies and fast food packaging: we treat the seas like a giant garbage dump. Occasionally one would find a turtle either dead or dying. When you’ve watched someone take the head off a plastic-choked turtle with a machete as it gasps for breath you’ll forever think twice about loading up with free carrier bags at the checkout.

True, on the global scale of ecological problems, plastic bags are down the list when compared with climate change and deforestation. But that doesn’t mean the problem doesn’t require our urgent attention. What’s more, it’s a problem all of our own making that can be quite easily fixed. Several countries and regions around the world have already banned the free plastic bag. In poor tropical countries the bags pose both environmental and health risks. They clog sewage systems, prevent soil from draining properly, choke cows and collect water, which encourages malaria carrying mosquitoes to breed. In Ireland they call them ‘witches’ knickers’, because of the way they get caught in trees and blow in the wind. Witches’ knickers have now been banned.

Britain will almost certainly ban free plastic bags within the next year. Spain has not yet banned the free bag, but that’s probably only because people don’t know the damage they are doing to the marine environment – which Spain relies heavily on. Yet it is so easy to ban because it is a win-win situation. Retailers in other countries have reacted well to a ban because it means they are now able to charge for something which previously had been free – and they save money in the process.

But what is needed first is a cultural shift. When out shopping I seem to repeat “No es necesario,” like a mantra as shopkeeper after shopkeeper tries to load carrier bags onto me. Once I bought a bin and watched in horror as even that was placed in a giant carrier bag. Of course, sometimes you need the odd carrier bag – especially if you plan to reuse it as a bin bag when you get home.

I test this voluntary renunciation in my local town of Órgiva. First, in the bakers, I order two barras. The baker reflexively reaches for a heavy white polythene bag and I utter my mantra. This stays his hand and he looks at me for a moment to check for signs of madness before shrugging and handing over the bread sin bolsa.  Next is Camac, the health food shop. Here it is no problem as many shoppers are already ‘the converted’ and bring their own bags. You can even buy a sturdy cotton bag in the store and plans are afoot to bring in supplies of biodegradable bags. Piece of cake.

I proceed to the discount supermarket (Dia). Here I expect the worst - but I am pleasantly surprised. Behind the checkout are all the spare cardboard boxes and it is a simple case of putting the shopping in these. What’s more, you even have to ask for your free carrier bag, putting many people off doing so.  Maybe they’re just skinflints.

Finally I go to the big-box supermarket on the coast (Al Campo). Inside the store it seems like I have wandered into a Friends of the Earth conference by mistake. A large banner hangs from the ceiling proclaiming that the supermarket has ‘gone green’. Closer investigation reveals that at certain checkouts you can buy a thick polythene carrier bag – thus saving the world. But at all of the other checkouts they dish out the free ones with wild abandon and nobody seems too bothered about choking the dolphins.

So it seems that voluntary restraint can only go so far. If we’re truly serious about getting to grips with this problem we need firm legislative action.

And while they’re at it they can ban plastic greenhouses too.

THEY came by night. They came by day. Silently slipping over borders, stealthily avoiding detection. Some came by boat, others by plane. Only a few people knew about them. Still less cared. “It’s just not right, they don’t fit in here!” cried a few sane voices in the wilderness. But nobody took any notice until it was too late. Some of the invaders even had government agents to help them settle. And then they waited, their numbers swelling year by year until…
No, it is not an Op Ed from the Daily Mail. The aliens here do not want their children to attend faith schools and they are not overly worried about compulsory cultural immersion courses. In fact, they are more likely to have exoskeletons, pincers, scales or flippers. They might even be pond life. What’s more, they are all, overwhelmingly, happy in their new home.

We are talking ecology here, of course. Spain, like many other countries, is currently suffering from the rampant overpopulation of various species that have found their way here and got out of hand. Some of them, such as the Gambusia holbrooki, a small river fish, were brought in to fight pests. In this case, it was introduced to the Ebro river delta in Northeast Spain to eat mosquito larvae. For the last few millions of years this small fish had been happily living in the rivers of North America, where it was part of a finely balanced ecosystem. It ate; it got eaten - in roughly proportional amounts.

But in the 1960s, at around the time Aretha Franklin was singing Chain of Fools, this small fish decided to unshackle itself from its restrictive food chain. Taking advantage of a Spanish government grant, this American ecotourist introduced itself to the river Ebro. It was just swell. There was a continuous all you can eat mosquito larvae buffet and, what’s more, those elitist European fish just turned up their snouts and refused to eat it. It had children. Several billion of them. And now there are so many of them that the whole delta ecosystem is clogged with little brown fish with bulging bellies.

Further up the same river, in 1974, another type of fish was let loose. A type of catfish (Siluras glanis) was put into the water to improve sport fishing in the area. But these were no tiddlers. Growing to over two metres in length the wels catfish turned into monsters. Carl Smith, a Briton, hauled one out of the water in 2006 weighing 102.7 kilograms – the largest freshwater fish ever caught in Spanish waters. It is not known whether Carl Smith ate the wels catfish, but it is well known that the wels catfish eats a lot of other fish and has been known to destabilise ecosystems around the world away from its native eastern Europe. Females lay 30,000 eggs for every kilo they weigh.

But not all introduced species are so spectacular, although the effects they can cause are often dramatic. Take the aptly named assassin algae (Caulerpa taxifolia). This was first noticed in the sea at Monaco in 1984, covering about one square metre. Now it has spread around the Mediterranean, coating the fronds of the protected sea grass (Posidonia oceanic). This sea grass covers large areas of the seabed and is akin to a rain forest in terms of the great biodiversity harboured within. Scientists are so worried about it they warn of irreversible changes to the Mediterranean coastal ecosystems and large scale efforts are afoot to contain its spread.

Other invaders take the form of beetles, weasels, mussels, crayfish, ducks and turtles. These species are often termed “aggressive invaders” but there is nothing particularly nasty about them. They are so called because of the way they exploit a particular niche in the ecosystem that had previously been off limits to them. Given the slow nature of evolution every species we see today is a survivor in its own particular patch. Not many species are able to travel long distance without human help – and even in the case of lone specimens travelling across oceans on coconuts they usually die out when they reach land due to a lack of mates (in the reproductive sense of the word, although it is not inconceivable that they might die for lack of friends).

This is why the world of plants and animals is so diverse. Up until now (i.e. in the last few hundred years) the world was truly a world of islands. Human engineered travel has mixed things up so much the entire biological world is currently fighting pitched battles as one wave of invaders sweeps in after another. Some invaders have proved very successful and can thank us humans (think of rats and rhododendrons). Other less so (think dodos, Puerto Rican flower bats and the West Indian porcupine).

If you want to see an unwelcome invader in Spain look no further than your local river - the Rio Guadalfeo will do fine. Here in Andalucía there has been an explosion in the number of red eared terrapins (Trachemys scripta elegans). These fresh water turtles eat almost anything and are another invader from America – in this case the Mississippi Valley. Cute and toy-like when young, the terrapins are often sold to children or given away as prizes at fairs. When they reach adulthood they become snappy and are not as much fun. That is when they find themselves being booted out of the family home and chucked into the local pond or river (sometimes via the sewage works). It is a method of dispersal that works so well for the terrapin there are now huge populations of them all over the world from Australia to Israel. The popularity of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles did for the red eared terrapin what Jaws didn’t for the great white shark.

And what can we do about it? The answer is: not much. We must do our best to try and contain the worst of the outbreaks and try to prevent any further unwelcome organisms entering areas where the local population has no defence against them. Things will take a few million years to settle down again – and there will doubtless be a lot less species around. In the meantime we can sit back, throw another giant red crayfish on the barbie and watch that huge flock of Jamaican ruddy ducks fly off into the sunset.

Jason Heppenstall remembers the toddler Molly May, who died in a tragic accident last week

Midnight in Órgiva. A few damp but spirited revellers stand outside the church as the bells ring out announcing a new year with all its possibilities and hopes. Among them are Lucy and John with their sleepy toddler Molly, cuddled up against her mother. We all wish each other happy new year and raise a glass to the future. How terribly wicked it seems that a few short weeks later I am offering my condolences to a broken and traumatised John and Lucy outside the church at their beautiful daughter’s funeral; those same bells that happily rang in the new year now mournfully ringing out the death knell to a shocked community.

I first met John and Lucy when I was covering the annual W

alk for the Children of Tibet for this newspaper. Molly, newly emerged into the world, seemed excited as her proud parents carried her for hours up the Poquiera Gorge to the Buddhist retreat at the top. Raising money for unfortunate children was important to John and Lucy: they simply love children.

In the year and a half that has elapsed since then I have often bumped into the couple around town or in restaurants. John’s forthright manner was consistently refreshing and Lucy would always have time to stop and talk – even though she would often have a lively Molly dashing around pulling packets of biscuits off the shop shelves. One of the last times I saw them all together was whilst helping clean up the Rio Seco, where they live. Molly was no doubt Spain’s youngest environmental volunteer, helping Mummy and Daddy put rubbish into sacks and joyfully skipping around with the family dog Jake.

The news of her tragic and untimely death came as a shock to everyone who knew them, and many others beside. Sheer disbelief replaced shock. How could someone so young, bright and vivacious be taken away from her loving parents so cruelly? It is every parent’s worst nightmare: a child goes missing. Usually it is a false alarm. Only rarely does fate strike so brutally.

The church was packed for the funeral. Foreigners and Spaniards attended, united in their grief. The service was conducted in Spanish and English, with a screen displaying pictures of Molly alongside the prayers. In an act of immense courage John, bent low with grief, took the pulpit and, in a voice crippled by emotion, told the congregation of their loss and thanked everyone for their support.

John and Lucy had asked that as many children attend the funeral as possible. At the end of the service Molly’s friends, including my daughter, stood at the front of the church and sang Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – Molly’s favourite nursery rhyme – to the little velvet clad urn containing the ashes of their friend. There was not a dry eye in the church.

Molly is now gone, but her memory will live on.

John contacted me shortly before this article went to press and wanted to make the following statement:

“Although we are really grieving we are trying to focus on the happiness Molly brought us and all the people who comforted us in the church on Tuesday. It is very important to us that Molly’s special life is valued and cherished for the way it brought so many people and communities together. It matters most to us that we can feel that something positive will arise out of this tragedy.

In particular I would like you to emphasize that Molly’s passing brought together the communities and people of El Morion, Ciggarones, Beneficio, Orgiva, Whitby, Kyoto, Den Haag, Chicago, and all other “estranjeros” in harmony, in one place to celebrate Molly - who belonged to everyone in her own special way. It was her great legacy.”

RIP Molly May Counsell 2006-2008

Messages of condolence can be left at www.molly-may.com

It’s Friday morning in Jaen Province and I’m driving a Renault Twingo at speed through what looks like the largest olive grove on Earth. Sitting cramped up in the passenger seat is the writer and art historian Michael Jacobs. Bearded and genteel, and a wee bit tired from a late night at an art exhibition in Malaga the previous evening, he is eager to get home. Home, in this case is Frailes; a typical Jaenese village of a few thousand souls in the Sierra Sur. “I’ve got to let the dog out,” he frets, “it’ll be wondering where I’ve got to.”

It started with a coincidence. Having just turned the final page of Jacobs’ book The Factory of Light I fired off an email to my commissioning editor Jon Clarke, suggesting a potential interview and travel feature. Jon, meanwhile, a hundred kilometres from home, had apparently just bumped into the author, who was sitting at the next table in a restaurant. And now here we were, a month later, hurtling through Jaén. But then, one soon learns, Jacobs’ life seems to be ruled by coincidence. It was, bizarrely, in a Slovakian police station that he first heard about an obscure slightly run down village from a pair of agitated Australian Armageddon-preparing pensioners. They claimed a mysterious saint-like figure lived there who could perform miracles and cure sick people.

Spooling forwards a few years, Michael then found himself billeted in the “only remaining holiday rental in Andalucía” one hot summer – in Frailes. Something aligned in the stars and from that moment on, his and the village’s fates have been interminably intertwined. “I don’t want to sound like a crackpot,” he cautions as Frailes comes into view, a cluster of white houses with red roofs nestled in the folds of the surrounding hills. “But I’m convinced there’s something special and pure about this place.”

We pull up in a small plaza at the foot of a small cliff and get out of the car. Arriving in Frailes after reading The Factory of Light is akin to arriving on the film set of a favourite film – but with the mind-bending reality that the characters are real and are going about their daily business before your very eyes. There’s a bar at the foot of the cliff to which we repair for a coffee. Inside we step into a limestone cave and I realise that this is the tavern which sees much of the “action” in the book. He describes in his book the moment of his first entry into the establishment: “Only after my friends had threatened to give up the search did one of us finally notice the words “Bar La Cueva” peering faintly behind a cover of ivy. A bead curtain obscured the broken pane of a glass door that we had reckoned to be the entrance of an abandoned dwelling. A firm push, however, led us into the gloom of a cavern filled with smoke and mumbling voices.”

Michael rubs his eyes and sips his café con leche. Since he wrote those lines a few years ago since he has become part of the cave bar’s fixtures, spending much of the year in this village and dividing the rest between travelling and London where his partner lives (“I speak with her every day.”) Having just finished a heavyweight translation from Spanish of a popular guidebook, he is now free to continue writing up his next travel adventure about a journey along the length of the Andes undertaken last year – some of it with his friend and fellow writer Chris Stewart. “At one point we were trapped in a revolutionary Bolivia,” he says matter of factly, adding that it “would have been more fun if I hadn’t been guiding a bunch of elderly tourists at the time who were worried about missing their afternoon tea.”

Out on the streets of Frailes again and it’s market day. Fraileros greet Michael and stop for a chat with him every few yards and I wonder how he ever manages to get any work done in such a convivial place. We meet up with Michael’s friend Manolo Ruíz López (better known as ‘El Sereno’), a sprightly 83 year-old who plays a leading role in the book – just as he does in village life. El Sereno is famed for, amongst other things, building and operating the smallest mechanical olive press in the world. His extraordinary character quickly becomes apparent as I am whisked off to his house to be given a full guided tour of the many peculiarities that lie within.

The house is situated at the centre, next to the church on a rocky outcrop that commands views over the village. “Look, look,” he says as I am shown around a large garden featuring a casita, which used to be Michael’s study. He shows me some swings he has just made, as well as a see-saw fashioned from old beams and I’m not sure if they’re for children or himself. We are led inside his house and I soon find myself kissing a diminutive and elf-like old lady on each cheek – El Serono’s remaining sister whom he shares the house with, having never married.

The mini olive press is in a small room off the kitchen that might normally be reserved for a larder. El Sereno demonstrates how it works before pushing a small bottle of the famed “Serenolivo” oil into my hand as a gift. We traipse upstairs, our guide chattering all the way and pointing out all the extraordinary certificates and letters that line the walls, such as one from the ex-mayor of London. “Manolo knows everyone,” explains Michael. In the library I am bombarded with seemingly every book written about Spain, each one with a personal inscription to the old man from the author. Next it is the ornate guest bedroom I am shown. “This is where [the legendary] actress Sara Montiel stayed when she visited,” he said, motioning at a voluptuous mahogany bed “and this,” he said pushing open what appeared to be a secret panel leading to a luxurious en suite bathroom, “is where she became stuck and I had to leap through the window to rescue her.”

After the tour we head up to Michael’s house, a handsome restored farmhouse slightly above the village. Over sherry and a tapa of remojón de naranja, prepared by my host (who is a member of the Illustrious and Noble Order of the Wooden Spoon – one of Spain’s leading gastronomic societies) talk turns to writers, and in particular people who have written about Spain. Michael, it turns out, is a great admirer of writers such as Norman Lewis who could write ‘without ego’ but is less fond of certain modern travel writers and the generally insipid state of print travel journalism. The early British adventurers to Spain such as George Borrow and Richard Ford, as well as Gerald Brenan later on, are of most interest to him. He misses the genre of ‘opinionated guidebooks’ such as was written by Ford – although in my reckoning his own guidebook Andalucía is an indispensible tome and I rarely venture out without it. “Oh, that’s so out of date, it’s embarrassing!” he says.

For those who have not yet read The Factory of Light a brief synopsis follows. In it, Jacobs moves to Frailes on a metaphysical hunch and finds himself drawn into a slightly arcane world of revered custodios (roughly translated as guardian angels) where he can seemingly make it rain by singing publicly (and badly) at the top of his voice in Italian. Living in a rented room above the dismal Discoteca Oh! he discovers an old abandoned Franco-era cinema and sets in motion its reanimation, which is crowned in a gala evening where the once-foxy Sara Montiel is coaxed from Madrid to appear at a screening of the revered 1957 romantic movie El Último Cuplé (which, on its first showing in the village caused the aisles to “flow with rivers of semen”, according to El Sereno). A Hollywood director gets to hear about it and the whole increasingly chaotic affair is made into a Buena Vista Social Club style documentary, bringing fame, if not fortune, to the village. It’s an excellent book and the Sunday Times said of it “A welcome reminder that close encounters of the Mediterranean kind don’t have to be all froth and bubble.”

We’re standing outside the cinema (the eponymous “Factory of Light”) but unfortunately it’s all locked up and Michael doesn’t know where the owner has got to. Like a lot of places in Frailes, there is nothing outwardly special about it: you could mistake it for a nondescript house. We walk down to Bar La Cueva for an afternoon coffee and discover it to be full of smoke and cloth-capped old men concentrating on card games. Standing at the bar are some more of Michael’s friends, in this case Merce and Manolo Caño, with whom Michael begins to chat in his fluent Spanish. It’s a rare thing indeed, in my experience, for a foreigner – an Englishman – to be so integrated into a Spanish community in the way Michael Jacobs is. But he’s not the only foreigner living in Frailes now, since the book several other British people have bought houses in the village.

El Sereno appears again, seemingly he wants to get the last word in and give me more gifts (I already have my hands full with olive oil, fig bread and books). I take a picture of the two of them in the cave, but the light’s appalling and El Sereno keeps unintentionally pulling faces. Before I leave I ask Michael what the attraction is of Andalucía to so many British writers down the years. He replies after a moment of consideration, “Spain has the effect of liberating us and bringing us out of our shells.” He adds, “We’re really just shy men.” And with that I bid them farewell and leave the gloom of the cave for the harsh brilliance of the Frailes light.

Spain, it is often claimed, was once covered in a thick mantle of forest. By the time the Romans arrived most of these trees had already been cut down by the native Iberians and they likened the parched yellow country they found to an old lion skin, pegged out to dry in the sun. Today, with an ever-rising awareness of the damage we have wrought on the environment, many individuals and organisations are working to restore the integrity of once-bountiful ecosystems. I went to meet a few of them.

Kaj Aage Helming, a Danish seaman who found his land legs in Andalucía in 2003, is on a mission. The idyllic finca on which he lives is set in the rolling green hills of Mijas Campo, just inland from the Costa del Sol. Despite his mild manner Kaj is, in fact, a guerrilla gardener and he’s fighting a war with nature on his side. We’re standing on a hill next to the static caravan he calls home and surveying the scene around us. In one direction lies the urban sprawl of Marbella, punctuated by unnaturally green blobs that Kaj tells me are over-watered golf courses.

In the other direction the unspoiled hills are crowned by a large billboard announcing the imminent construction of an industrial park. But how, I ask, could they possibly build an industrial park in these rolling hills. “Oh, they’ll come in with heavy machinery and flatten the terrain in no time. They’ll blast the tops off and dump the debris in the barrancos to level the land. The river will disappear and the land will become parched.” As if to illustrate this depressing prospect the sound of a large controlled explosion suddenly reverberates across the valley and a dust cloud rises into the clear blue sky. “Road widening,” mutters Kaj, shaking his head.

But the great Dane is taking a King Cnut-like stance against the tide of concrete flowing his way. Thinking ahead, and knowing the insidious nature of urban sprawl, he wants to protect his land from any future development. By joining with others to protest against the industrial park on neighbouring land, he may indeed have helped to halt its construction - for now. What’s more, he has planted around 1,500 cork oaks on his land, which will in time grow into a copse. Cork oaks are protected under Spanish law, so he hopes to protect this corner of Andalucía from the ever-advancing bulldozers in this way.

As we stride around his land, the smell of wild aromatics suffusing the air, Kaj points out all the trees he has planted. “This one,” he says, indicating a six inch high bushy twig “will eventually turn into something like that over there.” He points at a gnarled old oak that stands out on the hillside – a granddaddy of an oak tree reminiscent of Treebeard in Lord of the Rings. “This is one of the oldest corks in the province. It’s mentioned in a Spanish guidebook on trees.” I ask how old it is but Kaj can only guess “Up to 150 years, nobody can be sure.”

Cork oaks, along with their cousins holm oaks (holly oaks, or encinas in Spanish), I discover, are the ideal tree to plant in Andalucía. They have evolved here over millennia and are extremely hardy when it comes to drought; they actually hibernate in the summer when it’s too hot. Their bark has been harvested as a renewable resource for centuries, and is used for everything from bath mats to wine bottle corks. What’s more, the trees are ideal habitat for birds and insects and the acorns are a favourite for wild boars. “The first Autumn I collected acorns and planted them in pots. They grew well but died when I planted them outside. So the next year I planted them outside from the start and now they are thriving.”

I wonder whether I’m meeting a modern-day Elzéard Bouffier, the semi-mythical French sheep farmer featured in the book The Man Who Planted Trees. Bouffier, wandering alone around the denuded foothills of the Provencal Alps, planted acorns wherever he went, creating over the years a forest full of birds and wildlife. The French authorities, baffled by its appearance described it as “miraculous” and refused to believe a lone committed man could be responsible for its creation. I ask Kaj to explain how best to plant acorns in order that other people may copy his example and contribute to the greening of Spain.

He explains how you harvest the acorns in October or November, collecting only the good ones that have fallen to the ground as these are the mature ones. Find a good spot to plant them; preferably sheltered from harsh winds and perhaps in the shade of a small bush to stop the emergent sapling dying during its first summer.

Then, when the first substantial rains have fallen, dig a hole 20cm (8 inches) deep and put a bit of compost in, mixed with soil. Put about eight acorns in – sometimes only one will grow and other times all eight will, Kaj says. Fill the hole in and wait. The acorns will put down tap roots up to a metre long before sprouting upwards the following spring. Don’t plant them any closer than 10 metres (30 feet) apart because eventually they will have huge root systems. If you can, try to protect them for the first summer, and make sure goats or sheep can’t get at them.

As if to illustrate the point I notice a nearby sheep gazing wistfully at the tiny saplings from behind a wire fence. Overgrazing, says Kaj, is why the trees are unable to reproduce without a little human help. He has asked the local goat herds to keep their animals off his land for a couple of years to give his trees a chance – something that they are happy to do. Instead he clears the land by hand with a pair of shears and a handsaw; a Herculean task for anyone, let alone someone who, like Kaj, is recovering from an operation. “It keeps me pretty fit,” he says.

A three hour drive away, in the beautiful valleys of La Alpujarra, another foreigner is putting roots down. David Tonge, a translator from England, lives next to a dusty river called the Rio Seco, just outside Órgiva. When he bought his house two years ago the river was a grubby wasteland of garbage bags, dumped fridges and tons of building rubble. David swung into action, goading the local mayor into providing refuse trucks and skips to contain the waste.

But the task proved too big for just one man so David enlisted the help of local volunteers to scour a stretch of river and remove as much waste as possible. I joined them one Sunday morning while they were heaving out rotting and rusting refuse – including old television sets and a microwave oven - from the river. Cleaning the river was one thing, but nothing was growing along its banks, save for the poisonous and beautiful oleander. What the river needed was trees.

They provide habitat for birds and insects - They prevent soil erosion and hold moisture in the land - They create natural beauty and shade - Planted in enough numbers they create their own micro-climate “One day a group of foreigners appeared on the river bank carrying spades and saplings and practicing tai chi movements as they worked,” David recalls. These meditating arborealists were, in fact, holidaymakers from the local alternative holiday centre Cortijo Romero (see article on page…). Now the banks have been planted up with saplings and one Andalucian river is coming back to life. The trees will help maintain the water cycle, shading the river to prevent evaporation and releasing cooling moisture during the hot summer months.

Mario Robles del Moral, a 37 year old nurse from Malaga, is another individual working hard to green Andalucía. Concerned by statistics stating that 44% of Spain now suffers from chronic soil erosion and that 2,000 square kilometres have turned to desert in the last 15 years alone, Mario founded the Ecological Research Institute in Malaga (www.iniec.com). Since its inception, Mario has networked with local mayors, forestry officials and leaders of environmental organisations to initiate the Bosques de España (Forests of Spain) campaign, which has so far planted some 110,000 trees. Mario now plans to take the scheme nationwide and is looking for volunteers to become local ‘forest rangers’.

But it is not just in the south of Spain where reforestation efforts are underway. In the damp north a project is underway to preserve some of Galicia’s remaining forests. Conservation is the keyword here and native Galician Pablo Oitabén has founded a project whereby ‘green speculators’ can buy up threatened land cheaply in order that it is protected from development. So far some 3,000 hectares have been added by around 1,000 international ‘investors’ and the forest is a haven for all forms of wildlife from wolves to butterflies. Oitabén has garnered a kind of green celebrity status for his efforts and featured in a documentary about the wolves he protects. (For more information see www.asociacion-ridimoas.org)

So the next time someone tells you about how inevitable it is that Spain will become an annexe to the Sahara, spare a thought for the quiet legions of tree planters out there, working diligently and without pay, in order to try and make the country a little greener.