We arrived in Baza on a bank holiday. They seem to have a lot of those around here, and sometimes even Spaniards are surprised by them.
Our Airbnb was 2km north of the city, so we grabbed some groceries at the only 'grocery store' that was open on a holiday, an alimentación (aka a 'chino', as the Spanish call them). Most alimentacións stock the bare-bones essentials and candy, but this one even had 'fresh' vegetables, though it was a sad collage of cabbage, onions, carrots and potatoes.
Our Airbnb host was kind enough to give us a lift home for our first day. This Airbnb was a cortijo, basically a farmhouse, on 13 hectares (1 hectare = 2.5 acres) of olive and almond trees.
This English family's ranch included an 8-year-old daughter, chickens, a turkey, a duck, a donkey, three dogs, at least one cat that I could see, and also their friend's horse. It. Was. Amazing. Our apartment, adjoining their 200-year-old farmhouse, had a woodstove and that charming ranch house feel with its stucco walls and wood beam ceiling.
We sat on the patio in the sun and had coffee with our hosts in the morning, then after our excursions in the town, had a beer with them in the evenings before dinner.
On recommendation from our hosts, we went to restaurante Kaliskka, worth a 5-star Google review and a paragraph here. The menu del dia (13,50/person) included two plates for each of us, a drink and a dessert, and absolutely everything was good. Though they don't bake it themselves, they had gluten free bread to give us, and were kind enough to make one of my dishes with rice instead of noodles.
We didn't aggressively explore Baza, simply because hanging out at the cortijo was so much fun (Babs spent our last evening watching T.V. and playing Spanish twister in her new friend's room), but we did stumble upon a fiesta in the central plaza with dancing and free food.
The Wednesday market is held over by the old train station, and its many stalls offered candy, cheese, cured meats and lots of clothing, not that we bought anything. Baza was cute, it has some historic points of interest, like the Arabic baths, which we never did make it to, and of course all the churches and plazas. But you can get that history in many other little Spanish towns. No, the best part about Baza was our Airbnb experience on the cortijo because it was so different from anything we'd done up to that point.
Babs was not afraid of the horse, so much so that she didn't get out of its way and when it knocked her over got a bloody nose. Nose not broken, but now she snores, should I be worried?!
She was over the moon to have met a dog small enough that she could carry in her arms and toted this poor, patient dog around all over the place.
Since we toy with the idea of being ranchers ourselves, we were giddy to stay on a farm with an actual donkey and pick our hosts's brains. Mr. Go tried to go to work for them, but an ice storm had ravaged the olive trees weeks ago, and they'd decided to delay the harvest.
While walking the 2km into town, we saw the harvest of surrounding huertas (orchards) in progress. An 'ancient method' as described by our host: you beat the tree with a stick and the olives fall off.
Charming.
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