I arrived in Spain to spend a month where I usually go in the Spanish mountains.
The day I arrived up to my abandoned cottage was the same day I was told Spain was about to go on lockdown.
I had to make a choice, try and get back down to the airport and head to uk or stay up here. I decided being as coronovirus was already also in UK i might as well stay up here as it would be warmer and I had plenty of things to do out in the forest rather than cooped up in my cold flat in UK.
The next day I was told buses were no longer running down to the train station and so the only way to get to supermarket was a long walk to Ardales 9 km away. I decided that I probably had sufficient bushcraft knowledge to survive even without supermarket.
5th April 2020
Well my friend Jill says I should be keeping a diary of my time stranded in Spanish mountains so thought I better get back into my blog. So it's been nearly 4 weeks since I found myself stranded up here. The days have been a bit frustrating not being able to get back to UK.
I planned to use my survival skills to survive up here and go fishing most nights for bleak. Then supplement this fish diet with wild plants such as nettles, bramble leaves, fig leaves etc. This I did for a short while until my Fishing rod was confiscated by a security guard. Thankfully another security guard has been bringing me food out of kindness of his heart. The restaurant here has been letting me charge my phone and keeping me fed with toasted jamon sandwiches and various cakes and snacks. Every day I sit in the restaurant and keep up to date with friends and family on WiFi Facebook etc.
Being here has allowed me to watch the wildlife. Yesterday I think I spotted a Roller ( a colourful blue Mediterranean bird) flying near the dam. However I only got its sillouette and couldn't see it's colours but seemed the right size and shape.
Down in my abandoned cottage iv made a bird table in the garden and have been getting 2 great tits, a robin , 2 black caps to the table. I'm just giving them scraps of bread. A grey heron flew from the lake below and landed in the top of the tree near my cottage. At night I often hear a tawny owl hooting nearby in the woods.
Some days several Griffon vultures soar overhead on their way somewhere.
Mammal wise there is a brown rat in my garden that's getting quite tame and I spotted the resident tame red fox near my cottage one evening. Two days ago the third of April a herd of Ibex were on the water shoot of the dam and later that evening I disturbed them up in the neighbouring gardens possibly feeding on people's ornamental plants while everyone is on lock down. One of them ran incredibly nimbly through the bars of the fence and into the side of the cliff at great speed. If that had been me I would not have been able to stop with such momentum and tumbled over the cliff but not this Ibex there so incredibly sure footed.
As I sit here now in the restaurant I am looking across the lake at two great crested grebes fishing.
The house Martin's have recently returned in a big flock two or three weeks ago.. They build their nests on the dam wall under the overhang.
texts I sent to parents and friends
Text to dad. 13 march 2020: ( I had just found out I'm stuck in mountains due to buses stopping)
I'm probably in the safest place here, the more I think about it. You can eat fish for months before getting the disease with bow legs and there's pine cones galore with pine nuts in plus plenty of wild spinach and asparagus growing in the woods. So that's all the nutrients you need Xx
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