Gecko Towers
When many of us first came to the Marbella coast, on Spain’s Costa del Sol, there was a limited season of between three to four months – starting in late May and ending in early September – perhaps a little longer for the golfers – but there was a clearly defined “Summer Season”.
During this Summer Season, those committed to serving the tourist trade, needed to bank as much as possible to build fat to weather the ‘off-season”. Inevitably, a shortish Summer Season did promote the thought that prices were disproportionately high, and I suspect they were, and probably, they set the benchmarks, in tandem with the change for Pesetas to Euros, for current prices.
The traditional and less sturdy beach chiringuitos, having been ravaged by a stormy winter, would focus on a late May clean up and rebuild ready for a June relaunch. Historically, the chiringuitos owners would pull stumps in early September.
The nature of a limited period of commercial activity inevitably gave rise to a demand for the required staff to be on “part-time” employment contracts, and unsettling and unpredictable way of living. This now seems to have been solved as I am told that temporary contracts are now a thing of the past.
In the last twenty-five years the Marbella Season has virtually become a 365 day a year phenomenon, wall to wall visitors and residents alike, who’s various and evolving demands are catered for on a grand scale. There is no abatement in the number of visitors bringing wealth to the region with Malaga Airport recently announcing that its passenger numbers for January 2024 were record breaking and making it now Spain’s third busiest airport after Madrid and Barcelona.
Over this last weekend in mid-February, I was lucky enough to enjoy a lunch at a nearby chringuito who now expect to stay open for much of the year. Frankly, I don’t know enough about the licenses received from the Town Hall but their presence and an obvious demand, the restaurant was full, is being handsomely satisfied.
Above this, I mastered a skill I have been wanting to achieve for a while. The “Espeto” of Sardines is a very traditional Malaga method of threading sea-fresh and salted sardines onto a steel or wooden brochette for grilling in front of an open wood burning barbecue. The trick to avoiding the fish collapsing during cooking is to spear them upside down onto the brochette. Surrounding the fire is sand, and the Espetos are placed upright in the sand, closely facing the burning embers for around five minutes per side. Eased off the brochette and placed onto a plate to receive a liberal squeeze of fresh lemon juice and be eaten by hand ….they are simply delicious.
In preparation for the annual elongated Season, we are noticing that various resturant owners, particularly, in the San Pedro de Alcantara and Marbella areas, are closing for up to three weeks in February to give their staff some respite as it’s unlikely they will get any substantial time off until next year’s post New Year period. Throughout the months of January and February there has been a flurry of reconfiguring building work to various favorite restaurants, to have walls freshly painted in time for Easter, if not before.
Even with the current lack of rain water the local hotel operators, along with measures being taken by the, the Marbella’s Town Hall and the regional government, the Junta de Andalucia, How Marbella Is Solving its Water Crisis. are confident that there will be limited impact on tourism, which does seem a brave claim.
In a one-man contribution to abate a little the current water crisis, we have a number of plants that require light irrigation. Mrs W likes a bath. So I have devised a simple device with a hand pump and length of clear hose to use basic physics to empty her bath from an upstairs bathroom – which varies from around 50 to 75 liters a time – to then irrigated our plants with this source of “grey” water.
Called “Archimedes”, I have been asked by a couple of interested neighbours if I plan to commercially market the device, largely built from the resources obtained at our local hard-ware store but it has proved really quite effective and above all, environmentally compelling. It’s not the answer but all helps!
I guess that to both our visitor and resident friends alike, who will visit at various points during the year, we simply need to be more vigilant and acute in our water management to avoid wastage, especially, if we do not benefit from the often traditional Easter deluge to raise reservoir levels.
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