Olive Picking in Spain

Our friends Csaba and Jackie have been inviting us for a couple years to go with them to their daughter Csilla and son-in-law Shaun's place in Monachil, Spain and help them with the annual olive harvest. Csilla and Shaun run RideSierraNevada, an awesome mountain bike tour company based in the middle of a national park. There is a great promo video (scroll down the page to the second video) about riding through the Sierra Nevadas to collect snow for "fresh snow mojitos." The Tour de Espaňa  cycle race goes past their front door. Csilla and Shaun have two sons, Concho and Ossian. The teenager Concho is one of the top 5 young mountain bikers in Spain. The younger Ossian also competes, but prefers snowboarding and is a talented drawer.

We finally made it this year! Our colleagues at Aggtelek National Park were under the false impression that we were going as paid workers - but no, honestly, we were happy to volunteer during our holiday. In fact, it was our first real holiday together, first foreign travel together, and Kata's only second time on a plane. Akos and Nori let us leave the car with them in Budapest - thanks! We flew Wizzair - not a great experience. You get what you pay for, not even complimentary water, seriously?! 3 euro for a small bottle.

Faced with a 5-6 hour wait for an overnight bus, I had contacted old Budapest hand Jennifer Howard who is still in Madrid and who was kind enough to put us up for the night. She gave us perfect directions. Our only difficulty came when we tried to find the exit out of the metro! The yellow airport bus is a bargain at 5 euro to one of 3 points in the centre. Both the bus driver and the man at the ticket window for the metro where friendly and helpful. Jennifer met us at the metro station and took us for a walk through the centre back to her place. The first order of business was handing over the big bottle of Unicum Jennifer had requested. For those unfamiliar with this Hungarian drink, it comes in a dark green bottle shaped like a cartoon bomb, and with a big red cross on the side. It is an acquired taste, similar to, but better than Jagermester or Hubertus. At Jen's suggestion we went shopping for food for the bus the next day, and went in search of a bank machine. We tried several, but it seems not all of Madrid's services are tourist friendly as none of the ATM's I tried had an English language option.

By this time we were all ready for a drink, and Jen took us to her local dive, Café Pasquale near the San Francisco Cathedral, one of the biggest cathedrals in Europe. This was our first experience with tapas. With every round of drinks we got free food, and vegetarian was not a problem. The original tapas were the slices of bread or meat which sherry drinkers in Andalusian taverns used to cover their glasses between sips. This was a practical measure meant to prevent fruit flies from hovering over the sweet sherry. Kata also ordered some fried calamari. The waiter was fantastic. We thought he was the owner, but it turns out he was the neighbour. The regular waiter had gone off to Ecuador for 3 months and the neighbour was asked to fill in. The bill for 4 small beers, 2 small wines and some calamari was staggering - especially at a dive bar - compared to Hungarian prices. This set the tone for the entire trip - extremely friendly and helpful people and service, no being cheated or taken advantage of, but expensive. A small beer at a bar is almost 2 Euro.

We easily flagged down a cab on the street the next morning to the bus station. Although the national carrier ALSA is operated by the British National Express, and you can book tickets online in English, the system would not accept either my or Kata's passport or ID numbers. Jennifer was able to buy us our tickets ahead of time and we boarded an almost empty bus to Granada. The bus was clean, comfortable, and the on-board WC open and operational. Kata slept most of the way, which is understandable given that she had worked two night shifts in a row and then travelled all day. I watched for the dawn, which came surprisingly late at almost 9am compared to home where it broke around 6:30am. For the first couple hours the landscape from Madrid was filled with vineyards and orchards and solar panels as far as the eye could see. We stopped after 3 hours at a restaurant and gift shop. We should have done some shopping here because we never saw the beautiful ceramic items and other gift options again. From here the landscape shifted to olives - thousands and thousands of olive trees perching on every square inch of land and crag. It made me wonder about this monoculture, its vulnerability, the effect on the ecosystem, and where the locals got their food from.

Csaba and Shaun picked us up in the bike van where we shared the seat with a full-length mirror they had just dumpster dived, and proceeded to Granada airport to wait for Shaun's sister Tracey coming in from the UK. Before we had even unpacked, we were off to one of the tapas bars, Tito and Sabrina in the town square. It comes across as a dive bar, but the tapas were excellent, especially the fried eggplant in tempura dribbled with pomegranate syrup. All the bars also had olives - all different, all delicious.

Monachil is a beautiful town. In keeping with the local style, most houses were decorated with stunning tiles. Orange, lemon, pomegranate, medlar and other fruit trees grow wild everywhere. No one seems to pick or use the fruit - it just rots on the trees. Perhaps they just view such wealth of fruit as decoration. The town is riddled with caves, and many people still live in houses that front these still-used living spaces. Businesses and bars also take advantage of the cave houses. One of these places is the La Barberia Cafe (Calle Carlos Carreras) run by the smiling Sousa. Many of the house gates feature small statues of nursery story characters like Little Red Riding Hood, and also more adult stories such as Romeo and Juliet.

The weather was not very cooperative with the olive harvest. The unseasonably cold weather, 10-13C and rain meant that we had to put off the harvest until the last 2 days of our stay. The family's 50 olive trees are organic. If they brought the olives in small batches for pressing, in between the rains, they would be mixed with other non-organic olives. If we picked one day and then it rained, then another day, etc. the wet olives would begin to rot before we could get the entire harvest to the olive press. Therefore, we had a lot of free time on our hands.

One day we went into Granada to see Concho play football, a game in which he scored the first goal. We took a walk around Granada with Csaba, Tracey and Ossian but it started to pour. We did not see the Alhambra because we needed to book in advance. We thought we would have time before the bus on our way home, but the bus schedule was not ideal. Next time! Csaba actually asked for Jackie's hand there almost 50 years ago. We had lunch in the town square just starting to get fitted out for Christmas. This is where we tried churros for the first time. Churros are like a long donut, or maybe more like an éclair, that is eaten by dipping it into hot chocolate first. Decadence!

Another day we went for dinner at El Puntarrón Monachil. The family restaurant was closed mid-week but opened up just for our group of 10. We only found this out later. Csaba and Csilla ordered a tableful of dishes for everyone. The fresh salads and spinach croquettes were particularly delightful. The place is filled with huge pumpkins, and large fire places quietly blaze in the two rooms.

Perhaps the best day was when Csaba went off for a massage with Rakel, and then Kata went in for her bad shoulder. We all waited at La Barberia with Sousa next door. I was quite chilled and asked Sousa for something warming. My surprise drink was made with Galician aguardiente, lemon peel, sugar and coffee beans and lit on fire. Sousa patiently stirred the drink for several minutes until the flames died out. Still, the alcoholic fumes were so powerful I could not get the cup past my nose for a long time. The Queimada was delicious, and definitely warming. More drinks and the dancing started. Tracey got behind the bar to spin some great classics from Soul Train like Jean King and the Average White Band. We basically had the pub to ourselves and danced and partied all night. We have not let off steam like that in ages, and Kata's shoulder began to feel better.

We missed the flamenco show the next day because of several hangovers, but the following evening we caught jam session at La Chistera where several residents switched off playing drums, guitar, bass guitar and singing while the sax player and pianist stayed on stage. The place is family friendly and the music was good.

Another day we visited Los Cahorros gorge for a nice walk along a roaring river and over hanging bridges. A local dog adopted us at some point and accompanied us most of the way. The route to the gorge starts below the El Puntarrón Restaurant.

With finally a break in the weather, late one afternoon we picked a few buckets of the best, unblemished olives for jarring. The next day we got about 6 hours in, but that was our last day. Even so, we helped pick 9 sacks (180-270kg) in about 8 hours over 2 days. Nets are spread below the trees, and the trees are then bashed with long sticks or raked. While supposedly more efficient, I had little luck with these methods. Much to Shaun's chagrin, I preferred just using my hands. Csilla cooked a fabulous lunch featuring what she called Lebanon rice - easily the best rice I have ever eaten. There was also a yummy vegetable pie and of course, her fresh wine and olives. Until they had taken over the land, there was no sign of any birds or insects because of the previous intense chemical use. Now the land is alive again, not just with olives and birds, but also cherries, walnuts and almonds. This last night, Jackie and Csaba took us up into the Sierra Nevadas for a hot chocolate and to watch the brilliant sunset. Last year the family harvested 500kg, but this year they picked a record 709kg over 5 days. Pressed, the return in olive oil is about 20%, or 128 litres.

We did not worry too much about getting bus tickets for the way back because the bus was so empty on the way there, but we looked online anyway. There were only 3 seats left! We attempted to make the reservation, and everything seemed OK this time, but the system would not accept a foreign phone number. Then we called the company and Csaba heroically wrestled with the language and the customer service until we got to the payment stage and the system would not accept a credit card on a foreign bank account. I do not remember how, but we finally resolved something and were able to get the tickets at the bus station. All that panic for nothing - the company had added a second bus.

The one taxi driver in town is the father of one of Ossian's classmates, and he drove us the 8km back to the bus station in Granada while the rest got on with the olive harvest. Amazingly, the handsome taxi driver gave Kata a kiss goodbye. Kata had done some research on Madrid, and we had a few hours before we got to the airport. Unfortunately, we had to carry my hiking boots whose sole had fallen off, and about 3kg of olives Csilla and Shaun gave us to take home and jar. We only had carry-on luggage so could not take the olive oil offered. It was a lot to carry, and a long way to walk, but the route was fairly clear. We had wanted to see the Egyptian Park, but Information at the bus station had never heard of it. We set off to see another park Kata had read about that was in the direction of an airport bus stop. The entrance to the park was lined with cute wooden kiosks selling books. We found a bench in the park and ate some mandarin oranges while observing a black swan in the lake. With some difficulty we found the airport bus stop, but again, people were helpful. The bus stop found, we went in search of a lunch/dinner place before the trip to the airport. There was not much in the area, but we found a place advertising churros and went in there. The floor was covered with crumpled receipts which they must sweep up occasionally. Unfortunately, the churros were all gone by breakfast, so Kata had the recommended (and yummy) almond pie and I had a slice of Spanish tortilla (potatoes, onions, egg).

We arrived in plenty of time to the airport. We could not find out where to go with our online tickets because the gate is not printed and we had no desire to stand in line at check-in for an hour just for this. I asked a couple that had just checked-in on the Budapest flight and they told us that once we pass through security, the gates are posted. Kata's small bottle of homemade perfume had burst on the way over, so we looked at perfumes at Duty Free. I thought she meant to buy, but was astounded when she finally found one she liked and just spritzed herself and that was all. By this time, I was hungry again. The only option we found was a Burger King and I had to pay out an outrageous 8 Euro for a chicken sandwich. Forewarned, we also bought a bottle of water from a vending machine. Akos picked us up after midnight at the airport, our hero! We slept late before doing some clothes shopping with the bonus clothes money I got from the national park. We spent the day at KÖKI, but managed to get coats, shoes and everything else we needed.

We followed Csilla and Jackie's directions and got ourselves a big plastic container for the raw olives and soaked them in cold water for 30 days. We changed the water every day, and the bitterness began to wash away. After 30 days we prepared 3 brines:

Brine 1:

-       apple vinegar

-       a little lime juice

-       rosemary

-       oregano

-       yellow mustard seeds

Brine 2:

-       cherry vinegar

-       lemon juice

-       fennel seeds

-       coriander seeds

-       lemon pepper

-       chilli

Brine 3:

-       vinegar

-       lemon juice

-       rosemary

-       oregano

-       sage

-       a little lime juice

We did not find any recipes giving recommended amounts of herbs and spices, so we will just have to wait and see the results after 3 months.

Thanks again to the whole family for such a marvelous time!