For most of the year, southern Spain’s Mediterranean seaport town of Águilas is an underrated travel destination. Thank heavens.
Words and photos by Jose M. Ripol
“Next stop, Murcia capital.” The regional capital’s bus station was the first stop on my journey from Madrid to Águilas, an unassuming seaport town in Spain’s southern Mediterranean coast where I would spend the week leading up to Christmas in 2019. The last time I visited in 2007, I had just wrapped up a year of studying abroad at the University of Hull in Yorkshire, where I met the only other Jose I have truly befriended. Jose is from Águilas, and he was waiting for me when I got off the bus. We sat down to grab a coffee at the station’s cafeteria before getting back on the road.
Much had changed since the last time I was there – in the world and in our lives – but I found comfort in the permanence of moments like this one. The familiar flow of conversation, the smell of tobacco lingering in the air, and the warm embrace of colorful, Spanish chit chatter engulfing us.
Few things in life are more wonderful than feeling at home when you’re far away from it.
Águilas sits sandwiched between two bays, the Puerto Poniente and the Puerto Levante. Its main monument is the San Juan de las Águilas castle, an 18th century fortress that flanks the western side of the city center’s seaside cafés and main port. It’s not a fairy tale castle adorned with frills and gargoyles. It’s a building designed with purpose, now outdated in the absence of threats from Turkey and Algeria. However, the city’s main attraction is not an edifice. Every year, from mid-February to mid-March, hundreds of thousands of Spaniards and foreigners alike congregate in Águilas for the city’s carnival—a display of popular culture and joie de vivre reminiscent of Rio’s carnaval or New Orleans’s Mardi Gras.
But in December, the city turns inward. Its scattered sons and daughters return home for Christmas and, although the air feels festive, the mood is charged with the intimacy of a gathering reserved for friends and family only. I am lucky to have been adopted as such.
The week elapsed in a rhythmic flow alternating between meals and boozy hangouts. Late homemade breakfasts of coffee and toast topped with grated tomato, local olive oil, and Serrano ham gave way to pre-lunch beers and tapas by the sea at Terraza Las Delicias—a spot popular among Jose’s friends where the waiter knows everyone’s name and order. Fresh mussels, grilled shrimp, and squid croquettes – cured olives, cheese plates and almonds. It all tastes better when you’re facing the sea. From there, it was back to Jose’s mother’s for a late lunch and a siesta, before repeating a similar pattern until dinner. A true vacation, even for the inhabitants of the town.
The city’s proximity to the Mediterranean is evident in the prolific presence of seafood on local menus. Jose’s mother, Maruja, is a woman of the region. Her family has owned plots of arable land in the vicinity for generations and she rents the one she inherited from her father to local farmers who harvest tomatoes and green olives. Her kitchen is an arsenal of local gastronomy, starting with the piles of red-ripe tomatoes sitting on a large bowl and following with a freezer overflowing with local fish, which she catches herself. There’s also the iconic leg of Ibérico, masterfully cured and ready to be sliced by anyone and everyone, as well as pots of saffron crocuses waiting for the pale purple flowers that will bloom in early Spring and Fall.
A matriarch through and through, she had been busy with preparations for the Christmas family feast. Whenever I offered to lend a hand, she pointed me in the direction of the ham as if to say, “Help me by making a dent in that leg, otherwise I’ll eat too much of it.” I happily obliged every time.
That evening, the family gathered around the table as a succulent parade of dishes marched out of Maruja’s kitchen. The intended pièce de résistance was a leg of lamb, seasoned with local rosemary and thyme and roasted to juicy perfection. Decorating the table were also trays of roasted potatoes, sea-salt-baked langoustines, sliced Manchego, cured olives, and a slow-braised octopus that, undoubtedly and definitively, changed my life for the better. The almost inappropriate culinary orgasm that followed my first bite confused Maruja. With the blasé air of someone unimpressed by wonders they’ve grown used to, she asked “Do you really like it that much?” before explaining that she caught the cephalopod herself. Her description of the feat is an image that will never leave me: A woman in her seventies (who, by the way, cannot swim) sitting on a pile of rocks in the shallow beaches of Águilas, catching an adult octopus and beating it against the rocks to kill and tenderize it. I asked if she was trying to seduce me. She burst out laughing and took my plate to give me another serving.
There are places that attract us for their worldly fame. For the grandeur of their buildings, the scale of their reach. Cities that captivate us with the romance of their history or the pace of their streets. And then there are others, usually smaller cities, towns even, where life has a refreshing magnetism. People hardly ever think of Águilas when it’s not carnaval, but there is true magic in watching a city when it doesn’t know it’s being watched.
For many of us, the best thing about traveling is getting to see how others live. How they eat, how they drink, how they celebrate. Because when someone’s mundane becomes someone else’s novelty, perspectives broaden.
Jose is a Venezuelan American advertising creative, writer, and NYU Food Studies scholar based out of Brooklyn, New York. His interests lie at the intersection of culture, history and identity. When he’s not writing, he spends time in his home kitchen, cooking for friends and family. You can follow him on Instagram at @ripall.
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