San Pedro, Manu Chao and Melilla
I first came across Manu Chao late, in 2000 actually, whilst travelling to San Pedro in the province of Almeria, Andalucia, Espana. Sue, Ellie, Ruby and I were in a small fiat van driven by a recently met Robert, with Manu Chao`s album, Clandestino, booming out of the souped up stereo he had fitted to his van.
A week or two earlier we had parked up our home near Mojacar. The head gasket had melted whilst red lining down the N341, somewhere near Huercal Overa. We had parked up at a campsite run by an old German hippie and his friends and were awaiting the local garage to send a mechanic down (as agreed?) to sort the van. It was our home, so, we couldn’t leave it at the garage to be fixed. It also meant we had to slow down the pace of travelling in Spain. We wanted some hash, and, Robert offered to take us to San Pedro to score. We drove down the N340, through dry desert interspersed with small pueblo’s and garages. Manu lifted our spirits and heightened my awareness of the influence of the joint. We turned off and headed towards Las Negras, through the breathtaking Natural Park of Cabo De Gata, heading towards the coast and Las Negras.
Here we parked up and began walking along a track for about 8 km. Ellie and Ruby didn’t enjoy the walk – we stopped frequently to take on water, and, once we got to the coast, we made coffee on Roberts gas stove and ate sausage and fruit. Eventually we navigated a tricky coastal path, with inches away, a 150m drop into the sparkling and clear Med below. Fishing boats inched their way to places I knew nothing of.
San Pedro was only accessible by foot, helicopter or boat. It was a group of old ruins situated in a large cove. The sun shone alike a bastard; the path down into San Pedro was steep.
We met some people there, a mix from all parts of the world – it seemed all were either hiding from somebody or something. They lived in isolation, self sufficiently, in caves, tents or in reclaimed squatted ruins. There were no shops, buses, taxis, garage, or electricity. No queues or TV. No advertising. It was beautiful.
We sat on the beach, swam, talked, gazed, smelt, tasted and felt. And scored some hash from a naked, curly haired fella from Germany . Robert and Sue went back to his old mini castle style cave ruin, tucked into the cliffs. Robert spoke German and left Sue with this fella, whose face was covered in tattoos. Sue got out of there as soon as. The hash was good.
The walk back was hard, but such a fantastic trigger to meditate on previous cultures, history and past lives of the inhabitants of this area. Very stoned in the van on the return journey, we listened to Manu Chao singing about the desperation of African people and their attempts to cross into Andalucia for work. His album Clandestino is full of such stories. Almeria was only 35k down the N340. There, a daily boat to Melilla, Morocco was only 8 hrs away from the people Manu sang about. That stayed in my head for a long time, still does actually.
Paul H
allcontents©hesterglock/paulhawkins2007
"tactical guerilla facilitation within the (+/-)pop culture Dow Seng"
