ZAHARA de la Sierra, Cádiz, Andalucia, Spain

PARQUE NATURAL, SIERRA DE GRAZALEMA

And the locals themselves? Friendly, generally small with bizarre Castillian accents, eyes deep and dark with mysterious gazes that send Arabia swooping over you like a desert sandstorm. That rapid look can judge you instantaneously, and should you cross that first expanse then you are in and integrated.

There are two central plazas where two old churches stand - each one of a differing architecture with beautiful colours and ceramic roofing tiles. Enter one and you may hear a Peruvian priest - El Cura - giving a sermon with Old World grace and qualities, enter the other and you will find the float of the Virgin Mary sadly and vacantly casting her wilted head and eyes downwards. She is carried through the streets during religious festivals.

There are many bars with outside seating. Bar Naranjos (Orange Tree Bar) offers a canopy with shade from the summer temperatures that reach 40 degrees. There is also a menu in English and a Moroccan waiter called Mohammed.

Bar Nuevo (New Bar) gives you the chance to meet and talk to the locals - and see if you can ever pay for a drink and tapa there. You are always an 'invitado'. Learn to say 'Muchas Gracias amigos'. Best place to have meat or fish paella. And on a weekday at 10am all the local artisans meet for breakfast - a very busy and noisy half-hour!

La Cabaña is on a corner by the smaller plaza and this is where foot to the floor bass drums muffle into the night and it is frequented by the youth - la joventud.

There is a disco on four levels at the lower end of the village. The music never seems to change from one week to the next and I have offered compiled CDs of some of my music collection. I guess that King Tubby, Kool and the Gang, Grandmaster Flash never had much of a voice in Zahara. The Flamenco tracks sound good though and the girls that do the twists of the wrists and hips - mmm, muy muy guapas están.

The place is rockin' with la joventud coming from many miles around. It doesn't begin until 1 am.

As the name al-Zahar implies the streets are lined with orange trees. With late summer/autumn comes the blossom, in winter the ripened fruit. But equally in winter comes the wrath of the surrounding mountains and I remember seeing the trees robbed of all fruit by such high winds, leaving the streets littered with fat and squashed oranges.

The river that once flowed through the valley, that was once crossed by a roman bridge - puente romano - was dammed. The valley took six years to flood and now a huge dam - el embalse - dominates the easterly view. This controversial construction provides much needed water for irrigation and livestock. The water is from high mountain springs and therefore clean and a beautiful turquoise colour.

Fishing brought me some weird results: a carp that reached as high as my kneecaps and later what I figured to be an old tyre. My rod was bent to breaking point, there was no struggle and the object was black. When we finally brought it to shore I was dismayed to discover a wonderful old turtle. After much care it was cut free but I have since questioned my motives: spending time in a nature reserve then harming nature. All this from myself who encountered Hemingway's original fisherman character in The Old Man And The Sea - Señor Gregorio Fuentes. I then wrote a separate book and concluded that the fisherman was only cleverer than the fish through trickery. And that only through the fish's painful struggle did it become the fisherman's own sense of pain and mortality.

El Embalse de Zahara is excellent for swimming and the water is warm to the point that you can splash around easily for an hour before feeling a mild chill. It is clean enough not to feel the need to shower down later on.

On the road that borders the Embalse, direction Grazalema - Ronda, you will see a rickety wooden sign with the Words 'La Playita' - the little beach. This place is fab and open from the beginning of summer until the end of September. There is a café-bar, real grass areas to sit on, trees for shade, permanent BBQs, benches and tables.

The community of Zahara has made this into a mini resort at the foothills of the steep mountains. The cool, cool mountain spring water has been dammed providing for a wonderful afternoon's swimming (up to 4 metres deep with benches built on stilts in the water), eating, basking in the sun, reading, drinking...a great recreational space and frequented by whole families, individuals and lovers.

The lower mountainsides are used for cultivating olives. Olive trees - Olivares - seem to run away like stitches in an old leather belt.

Mediterranean food is tasty. What I appreciate most is that the fruit and vegetables are brought to market by local producers, making them available only when in season. As it is a nature reserve the use of pesticides is prohibited maintaining clean and healthy land and watercourses. This is refreshing and gives one a sense of 'seasons' by which to measure your own life.

I love seeing the people in the fields beating the olives from off of the sagging branches and collecting them on blankets and bags laid under the trees. Generally a rounded Señor then loads up his motorcycle pannier baskets and heads back home along the mountain roads, cigar in his mouth, the whine of a tried and tested motor echoing off the mountain sides behind him.

One local told me that Olivares are subsidised by the Spanish Government. As a consequence the number of trees appearing on a plot of land have often been exaggerated. Then came the aerial photographs followed by many red faces and great tales as to where the hundred or so missing trees might have gone!

Zahara is one of the famed white villages of Andalucia - Los Pueblos Blancos. Strolling the irregular, narrow streets is intriguing and permits you to catch glimpses of old Spanish doorways and porches. Don't be fooled by the tranquillity of the siesta hours (1 - 5pm) as there will always be many hidden eyes on You.

There are many festivals throughout the year and the dates change slightly depending on the calendar. The Centro de Visitantes de Zahara de La Sierra is the best place to contact for a more precise update.

Address: Calle San Juan No. 1, 11 688 Zahara de la Sierra, Cádiz, Spain. Tel: 00 34. 956 123 144

A personal favourite is the festival of Corpus Cristi falling usually in June. It is the one time when the village is radically transformed from white to green. Branches - las ramas - are brought in from the mountains and fixed across the façades of the houses and the roads are lined with leaves. Street musicians, Flamenco guitarists and dancers, food and drink stalls, religious floats and thousands of people parade the streets for 2 days.

It is worth noting that the locals earn their living from the land, construction work, restoration work, archaeology, carpentry, bakery, tourism, catering, hardware, teaching, market trading, environmental protection groups...It is a fairly self sufficient community. There are two supermarkets successfully integrated into the community. There are also two banks and a cash dispenser open 24 hours.

A new health centre is under construction now, a local doctor is on call and the pharmacy is lit up with the usual green flashing light.

Behind the biggest church is a quiet little corner draped in climbing ivy that appears naturally in the recess of the overhanging rock. There stands a wee marble statue of a lady with her hands clasped together. Below her is written an inscription: