After Spanish class was Playa del Carmen. We baked ourselves brown that summer on her long, quiet, white-sandy beach with tranquil aquamarine waves. Our house-mother Mada would pack us bocadillos, always worrying that her hearty forearm-length sandwiches would leave us hungry. These crusty flour-dusted baguettes with salty slices of jamón or fried calf-liver, generous pats of butter and almost misanthropic amounts of sliced onions, were highlights in themselves on our day trips. In the afternoons we’d return home and sit in the courtyard with Mada, cool tumblers of arroz con leche in hand, her face beaming with pride and appreciation at our onion-breathed declarations of love for her, her food and her country.
After a brief siesta we’d get dressed and go out. Evening meals start late and end later in Vejer de la Frontera. Everyone and anyone is free to join in, go and come back as they please.
“Quiren venir a una fiesta?” he asked, no older than 15, a smoke casually hanging from his mouth. As soon as we answered “Vale” we found ourselves on the backs of growling motorbikes, our hearts and mouths exploding with exuberant whoops as we sped through the town’s narrow cobblestone alleys. We zipped into a shared courtyard heady with the scent of night jasmine and were led up and up; our hands brushing against the thousand-layered peels of white paint. With each step the aroma changed. What we smelled now was warm, spiced, and of the sea. Our ears perked at the sound of syncopated clapping and guitars. Generations, from newborns to stooped grandmothers were there. Over a fire pit in a huge wok-like pan a paella bubbled. And we were welcomed. The centuries old white-washed rooftop still glowed warm from the heat and light of that perfect august day. In that indescribable dusk, under that eyelash-wisp of a moon, with the stars just beginning to twinkle, we ate and drank in Vejer’s intoxicating alegria de vivir with our new friends. And everything was vale.
