Hills of Slaughter

Felix, Andalucia, Spain

36.86931° N, 2.65686° W

Today is a national holiday in Spain. It’s the ‘Feast of the Immaculate Conception’.

Read more ….

We’re restricted from accessing the boatyard, so instead we’re heading inland to explore the region.

The small village of Felix …. is nestled amongst the arid and rugged, steppes of Andalusia - around 10kms inland from the coast. The mass of white houses, presided over by the ruins of an 11th century Arabic castle, are hewn from the surrounding rocks and seem to occupy every nook and cranny of the broken hillside. They roll down the hill like a cascade of falling dice. The current population is around 640 – there used to be a few more. Legend tells that the old castle ‘el castille’ is ‘de la matanza’ (‘of slaughter’) because the Moriscos who fought against the Christian troops in 1568 threw themselves to their death from the top, as they chose to die rather than convert to Christianity. Not us though! Instead, we threw ourselves into a tiny local café for tosdadas swathed in queso e jamón and the usual café con leche double. To my mind, a far better option than either certain death from jumping from the ramparts, or conversion to Christianity.

We aimlessly wandered around the village and soaked in the sense of time and history standing more or less still. Dogs ‘perros’ barked and cats ‘gatos’ soaked lazily in the sunshine on their windowsills.

The architecture nods decisively towards its Arabic past and the little box dwellings squeeze into the tiny lanes and cobbled pathways, restricting passage mostly only to those on foot. Once upon a time there were 5 lead smelting complexes in the village but today the locals cultivate olives and almonds for their own consumption and make a living of sorts from working in the vast acres of greenhouses that surround nearby Almeria.