As Daisy and I went for another long walk up the rambla, I realized the only thing I could hear were a few birds and the crunch of the fine, dry riverbed gravel under my feet (and Daisy dashing through the shrubbery)…that’s all, seriously. That’s when it occurred to me the only thing one hears in Las Negras are the birds.
There are, however, the occasional, jolting breaks in the silence which include:
1) The Propane Delivery Guy…. Cook tops, gas grills and those enormous paella burners all run on propane and every home has these portable, knee high, orange propane tanks that need to be refilled. There is a company that comes to town to refill them and their way of letting you know they’re here is to drive through the
neighborhood beeping the horn along the way! (or, as my brother Mark says of horn beeping.…it’s the Puerto Rican cell phone method!) They do this on Thursdays and they do this on every street in Las Negras…it seems to go on forever. You can always tell where the truck is and how much time you have to drag the tanks to curbside for the refill. I guess it beats having to make an appointment.
2) The Wind…..We have had our share of windy days here, and I’m not talking windy, I’m talking WINDY! Many times I thought we were going to blow away and I was thankful that all of the houses here are made of concrete, it’s that bad. Surprisingly there have not been any downed trees although one of the palm trees in the center circle of town has been decapitated by the wind…the trunk is till rooted but the portion of the trunk that holds the beautiful fronds is now laying by its side.
3) The Vegetable Delivery Guy…..sounds lovely and old world and quaint, doesn’t it? It is except……he makes his deliveries on a motor bike; a motor bike with no muffler that seems to have come from a communist bloc tag sale. It you’ve ever seen photos of communist era peasants taking produce (or chickens) to market, or just
taking their loved ones for a Sunday outing (piled five and six to a bike), this is what this man reminds me of. He is adorable but that motor bike just ruins it. Fresh veggies just don’t seem as fresh when delivered from the back of a loud bike that also spews clouds of black smoke. We have also heard that he will deliver eggs from his hens but sometimes, when the hens aren’t laying or maybe when he’s promised more than the hens can accomplish, he’ll buy eggs from the store and deliver them as if they were his own. The problem with that is two-fold, first it’s dishonest and you see, here in Spain, store purchased eggs have an ink stamp on every egg (I assume it’s to tell you the freshness) and this farmer’s eggs sometimes come with that ink stamp. He says his hens make them that way…whatever!
And finally……
4) That F***ing Dog Across the Street! It rarely shuts up! The sun does not come over the mountain until 8 every morning which makes mornings very conducive to sleeping in. But, this dog starts barking before the sun rises, he is Las Negras’s alarm clock (this is a very small town and noises echo through the little canyon). He’s a beautiful shepherd type dog, almost like a Belgian Trevuren but he has this
neurosis about guarding his property. I can understand where he’s coming from but I can’t understand the owner’s lack of respect for the rest of town. The bark is a monosyllabic (can one even describe a bark that way?) sound that is repeated, non-stop, without a breath until whatever is prompting him disappears from his sight….a person walking the street, a car driving by, etc. Here’s the best part, the property is on a corner, actually on a bend so he patrols three sides of the property; triple our listening pleasure! I have seriously considered asking Tony “Manolo” Soprano to take the dog out (if you know what I mean).
Other than those breaks in the tranquility, town is very quiet. There is no road through Las Negras so the only traffic (which comes into town on the other side of the mountain from the house) is destined to be here; it’s the off season with only 200 people in town and the town in a protected park which means there is minimal construction which is not really happening at the moment, maybe due to the time of year or the economy or both.
It’s just the birds……. and in the morning, if the air is still and the sea is a little rough, we can hear the waves crashing on shore.
It’s pretty fabulous.
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