In Gaucin, in Spain

From the Beginning to the End of the Days

In Gaucin, November 20, at 7:30 AM, taken from the kitchen window of our rental. Just beneath the sharp drop of that mountain’s right flank is the little town of Casares, about halfway from here to the southeastern coast of Spain.

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November 21, 11:22 AM. That’s looking down the “main street” of Casares, on our way up to the castle.

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November 21, in a Casares cafe, for coffee and an improvised substitution for my order of churros, which turned out to be fried bread, and delicious.
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A local resident and his dog, from inside the cafe.
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December 1, 3:01 PM, outside Gaucin on Smuggler’s Trail, the path taken by contraband and its handlers from Gibraltar and Algiceras to Gaucin and other towns in the mountainous province of Malaga. I was actually “hiking” when in Spain, also just walking like a normal person for the first time in ten years. That’s John McClure ahead of me on the trail, my old friend from the Rutgers English department; along with Mary Lawlor, he’s a part-time ex-pat with a little house just north of Gaucin.

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Speaking of Gibraltar. November 26, 11:53 AM, on a clear day you can see the Mediterranean. From the castle atop Gaucin, one of the last Muslim holdouts in the 15th century.

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The chapel tucked beneath the castle, in the proper, unassuming relation to that superior structure.

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December 5 at 6:37 PM, facing south and west, from the balcony of the rental. Most of the town is down and to the left.

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