Olive Oil by the million litres

The top photo, taken a few days ago, shows Mount Maroma beyond Lake Vinuela.   It is a little over 6,000 feet above sea level.   Yesterday, driving from Alhama, we found we were much closer than at any time before.   It has quite a lot of trees on its lower slopes which are incredibly steep.   There is a very noticable scar on the mountain and to the left, as you look, a village.   With this closer view there was a very strong impression of Mount Maroma threatening to collapse and bury that poor village.   It really did appear to pose a threat from our angle view.   This morning saw a mist obliterating the mountain except for its peak.   This was because a few clouds had appeared there and were fairly low in altitude.

Earlier than this we had visited Zuheros which is situated in a very important olive growing area.   The second photo shows this very clearly.   Bear in mind, of course, that this is a tiny fraction of the entire olive producing area.   In turn this is a tiny fraction of the olive oil capacity of Spain.   Since arriving here, this year, we have seen an amazing number of olive trees.   I was reading today the third book of a trilogy by Chris Stewart, The Almond Blossom Appreciation Society.   Chris mentions his personal involvement in the production of oil.   He tells how he went into an olive grove and picked a single olive straight from a tree.   His reaction to the taste was not good because as a fresh fruit they are very bitter.   Some are grown to be bottled whole or stuffed with anchovies and the like whilst others are destined for pressing into oil.   Each version goes through quite a process, so don't think it is just a matter of picking and pressing them!

The original way to harvest olives after the October rain has swelled the fruit was to take a long stick of wood, fashioned from a long straight branch and start knocking the olives out of the tree where they land on nets spread on the ground below.   Modern times changed the sort of stick to a long dayglo coloured stick made of fibreglass.   The advantage here is that the colour helps you find a stick dropped in the undergrowth.   But the most modern way is to dispense with sticks and use a mobile generator with a vibrating attachment.   You grip a tree and the vibration gets every olive from the tree.

Our abiding memory of our two holidays in Spain will be its beauty.   This is a country with a breath-taking landscape which changes dramatically as you drive from the north to the south.   It was an expensive way to come this year, but having driven all through the land we got the experience we sought.   Some of the hills and mountains are quite the usual expected shape but many are very surprising indeed.   Some appear to be more like a single rock weighing thousands of tons.   They are every imaginable shape and keep on surprising you as you round a bend in the road.   If you love landscape then this country needs to be visited.

Our plan for this evening is to drive over to Comares, the white village on the hill across from us.   It has beckoned long enough.   Now we must go and see it close up.   It is understood to be very pretty.