A Taste of Authentic Spain: Hiking and writing in La Ruta de Agua, Sella.

BlogCreative non-fictionSpainTravel writing

6 May

*Winding mountainous roads of Sierra de Aitana, Costa Blanca.*

I was lucky enough to go to Sella, in the Costa Blanca, as part of my MA in Travel and Nature Writing at Bath Spa University. We spent a week hiking, admiring almond blossom and speaking to the residents of the 600 strong mountain community. And writing.

The piece I ended up with, the one below, wasn't functional, more a sentimental portrait of my reaction to the place. It's hard when you write pieces that don't fit a genre, will never find a home, but are the most sincere way you can tell your truth. I've been sitting on this piece for a year. But why brand myself as Candid Kelly if I can't let loose on my own platform?

The sun-dappled light was different now that spring had arrived. Traces of delirium hung among the almond blossom. There was give in the ground; just as well, because I had forsaken my hiking boots. It’s frugal to forego cabin luggage. It’s aesthetically pleasing to be in slim-line canvas.

It does that to you; a meagre smattering of sunbeams, turns your head. I’m not practically inclined. I forget my notebook at the writer’s home. Aware of the irony, I had been so preoccupied with the fantasy of journaling like him, I neglected to write a single word. Intimidated by the mural he’d had built into his floor. Truculent about staining a page. The sea will bring forth language I tell myself.

*Kelly hanging out in the bakery with the matriarch of the family*

“Sylvia Plath honeymooned here, withTed Hughes” we tell a waiter that doesn’t care. He shrugs, returns to unloading Guinness. Package holidays and the literati just don’t mix. Havana’s Floridita has Hemmingway leaning on the bar, albeit cast in iron, mutely reminding you genius lies at the bottom of a Daiquiri. Benidorm’s romantic apartment “is closed” and used as storage for peanuts and pint glasses.

We assume our accepted parts; buy rose-sculpted ice-creams and an apron that’s well-endowed, for someone who would hate it, naturally. Blur the harsh lines of tourist and traveller for a few hours. Drop some Euros into the busker’s keyboard case. Apparently the church choir practices on this very promenade. “Not all morbid like at home” states a sunburnt widower.

Retreating the way of the “bandits”, (or did he say “vandals”?) from shore to mountain, it’s ok to linger over the goods here. Nobody to notice fingers skimming lemon skin. Mostly none of it laid claim to.

I frame a question, it ruminates upon itself for hours: Why do I lack any real knowledge of this earth? The seasons, the grapefruit’s worth? The words unwind themselves and are gone. Departed unanswered, a spectre remains though, nagging that I need to do this more.

*Narrow cobbled street going down the mountainside, Sella.*

Be aside from life.

Two bakers, two streets, two bakeries; both the strands of one family. Aged hands turn the bread. Neither the children nor grand-children will take over the shops. The cities are ushering in the supermarkets. Sella is but the remnants of an old moon’s phase. We visit and marvel, indulge in the dying light. I imagine their factory counter parts, the same 4am starts with those same matriarchs being told to remove their gold rings for hygiene purposes. The sea will bring forth opportunities the locals tell themselves.

A spring where the water brings health, even if a local has dropped his trousers in broad daylight just 200m away. Dogs, with blunted legs, the result of decades of limited mating options. A mill, with an owner whose name means kindness, although he omits that translation, his eyes concur.

Serins, the first I’ve ever seen. birds with breasts of buttercup, the runts of the Finch family; another translation comes to mind, a word from home, ‘Seren’ is welsh for star. And, here. We. Are.