pirates

Hornachos. How you play with my heart! You, who the Moors adored in this land of endless fields, are indeed beautiful; the purple heights of the Sierra Grande soaring out of the earth like the broken spine of some great ship upon the shore… Home of the golden eagle and his imperial cousin, the fierce boar and the mighty griffons, the guardians of this beautiful kingdom… The twinkling lights of your houses, seen from afar to be floating in the night like the island of Laputa…

…why on earth do you only have one fucking bus per day?!

That’s right. One of the most beautiful towns of Extremadura is hamstrung by its virtual inaccessibility. Centuries after the departure of the Moriscos, the mountainside town remains as unapproachable as ever it was under the rule of the soon-to-be pirate kings, albeit for slightly more mundane reasons.

Hornachos is served by one bus line, which is perfectly suited to the Hornachego with a job in the outside world, but virtually useless for the interested day-tripper. Two buses make for the town at 15.15 and 18.45 on weekdays (with the notable exception of Fridays), and one leaves for the outside world at 7.15am. And that’s it. It wouldn’t be so bad if there were any cheap accommodation offers, but with a slew of casas rurales, 50€ per night is the standard. When nearby Villafranca – which has almost nothing to see, by comparison – has a hostel for 10€ a night, it seems a little ridiculous. Not least of all because I would happily spend as much as 50€ every month (or more) if it meant I could be in Hornachos every weekend. Because I would. As for BlaBlaCar, the distance between Villafranca is too long to walk (and then hike), but too short for a popular carshare. You can’t free camp either, because of local laws. Goddammit.

Simply put, day-tripping to Hornachos is simply not possible without a car.

Its inaccessibility, however, is my sole complaint. Because, besides a lousy bus service, Hornachos has it all: the ruins of a tenth-century Moorish castle, a Mudejar church, an enormous sierra with vast fields of rolling dehesa stretching out for miles behind, a history so bitter and intense it might have been written in lemon juice and a super-friendly Casa de Cultura. I fell in love with Hornachos from the moment I first laid eyes on it. The unmistakable silhouette of Olvera, my old hometown, still strikes a chord or two in my heartstrings whenever I see it, but the Sierra Grande has long since overshadowed its place at the centre of my heart.

I was lucky enough to hitch a ride with a couple of friends who wanted to go hiking in the Sierra, so I leaped at the chance. We didn’t have long to stay in the castle, because as we arrived atop the ruins, the shrieks and shouts of an approaching school trip sailed up the hill to meet us, like a colourful besieging army. Amber didn’t hesitate to let them know we were English. I replied to their questions in Arabic. Brownie points go to Amber for being a decent human being, where I just wanted to be difficult, I think.

It did drive home to me just how deceptive the mountains are, though. We had no idea there was a forty-strong school trip coming up the mountain to meet us until we’d reached the top, though one might have heard them for miles around. It’s a dangerous place up there, and little wonder the Moors made a beeline for the mountains when they reached these lonely parts.

I had a private lesson in the afternoon and a language exchange at the EOI, so I had to be back in Almendralejo for four o’clock, which didn’t give us mountains of time to explore (ho ho). We fitted in the usual circular route, albeit in reverse, as well as a cheeky yoga session at the end – needless to say I remain as flexible as a dinner plate – though this time I scaled the first leg of the Trasierra route which crosses the Sierra Grande and winds down into the fields below. Further exploration is definitely required.

The church, sadly, is closed to the public. Like the museum, if you’re interested, you have to ask for the key from the local tourist information office. I suppose this is the normal way of things; you take things for granted in the outside world, where Seville and Marrakesh whore their finery to the lowest bidder. Hornachos retains some of that ancient-world mystique. As much as it bothers me, perhaps that’s the secret to its survival.

You’ve got to hand it to the old town for its tenacity. Who’d have thought that this quiet gathering of houses on the side of the Sierra Grande was once home to the men who would go on to become the infamous Sallee Rovers of Robinson Crusoe fame? I wonder whether there were any Hornachegos amongst the corsairs who took part in the equally bloody Sack of Baltimore in 1631, only twenty-one years after their expulsion from the Iberian peninsula… Rabat sure does seem like a world away from this flat, flat world…

‘We’re not in Hornachos anymore…’

I will make you famous, Hornachos. When the world knows of El Gran Hornachego and his adventures across Iberia and beyond, you will get the fame you deserve. I will write you back into history. That’s a promise.

Also, after my sour-grapes episode about cold and snow, we did actually have some frost yesterday. Not much, and only in the shaded ditches at the side of the olive fields, but it was something. I hear Durham’s been looking beautiful in the snow lately, like Spain did last year. Why do I always manage to miss the snow wherever I go? BB x

Oh thank heaven. The air con has just come on. I’ve been sitting here on the bus for the best part of an hour now, under the mistaken belief that it was the 11:30 CTM service to Tetouan, but of course it’s the local equivalent, complete with irregular timings, sleazy touts and the train of peddlers, preachers and beggars, all of them out to make a quick buck to a captive audience. This was an unexpectedly cheaper alternative, but right now I’m wishing I’d walked that 150m more and made for the pathetically-small CTM station just down the road. Rabat may be Morocco’s capital, but it’s bus stations are about as inconveniently located as its humanely possible to be.

Rabat this weekend. The opportunity presented itself and I took it, motivated more by my desire to see the old pirate republic of Salé than anything else. Sadly, despite its dark and fascinating past, there’s nothing to tell you about the city’s pirates. No museums, no street names, not even an information board. Just a few scraps of evocative graffiti.

I might have known. Google didn’t turn up a thing. I was inclined to disbelieve that, but as is so often the case, Google was proved right. No sign of Murad Reis or his pirate republic anywhere. And there was me hoping that it was still possible to view the Web as a pack of lies. Perhaps that’s human history.

Salé itself is a pretty seaside town. I’d say it’s a welcome antidote to the bustle of Rabat, but even Rabat isn’t a very hip-and-happening place. And that’s good. Maybe it’s antidote to Marrakech or Fes, then. The capital of Morocco just seems to shunt along at its own pace, unhurried, unharrying. True, Ramadan could have something to do with that, as ever, but compared to Amman, it’s a relaxing city break. And I’ve learned a fair few things for the book just from wandering around, so that’s good. It’s what I came for.

It’s been a rather human weekend. What do I mean by that? I mean that I’ve spent most of it talking and making new friends, so much as is possible on the road. They’re always fleeting encounters; most of the travelers you find in Morocco are the spit-and-sawdust kind, the ones who bought a flight out and are musing along at their own pace; free spirits without a care in the world. One such wanderer, a New Zealand trader, had been wandering around the country for five months and more, learning Dārija, trading his belongings and doing odd jobs here and there to get by. The social skills of the Gods, truly.

People often have me down, falsely, as a die-hard globetrotter. Perhaps that’s because of my self-professed love for the world more than my aspirations for a life on the road, per se. A firm knowledge of the world and its people is a great start for any adventure. But in truth, I’m nothing like these shaggy-haired, baggy-pants free spirits I so often meet on the road. They’re the ones who are quite happy to let go; to set out from home with no desire to return. There’s a fair amount of that fire in me, I guess – at least one of my ancestors was a merchant sailor – but I know where I belong. Some people spend their lives looking for home, a place that calls out to them, a special space. A sanctuary.

For me, that’s Spain. I’ve known that for years. I think I found my home too soon.

Ignorance is bliss, but if I could look into the future, I might just risk that knowledge on a whim. Will I end up in Spain? Or will the hurricane of life carry me elsewhere, far from the lighted path? I’m my very good at putting my heart and soul into something and then watching it sail away on the waves, quite beyond my control, sometimes through no fault of my own, and sometimes so. Clubs, dreams, relationships… So many of them float away on the tide. Perhaps that’s what’s so captivating about sunsets: the end of one dream, the beginning of another.

The air con has got me musing all over the place; the air con and my frustration at the speed of this bus. Travel at one’s own leisure is a wonderful thing, but when you have a time limit it’s such a stressful endeavor. Here’s to that day when I find myself on the road again with no plans to return, at least for a month or two. Here’s to freedom. BB x