Our Work Away Experience in Tabernas, the Texas Hollywood of Spain.

Written by: Clara The Exploradora

While Patrick and I were planning our trip to Spain we knew that we definitely wanted to do some kind of work trade thing and we knew that we wanted to do this work trade thing in an olive orchard. A couple months before we left for Spain we started getting on to all the websites that offered work trade. We looked at WWOOF, HelpX, and WorkAway. We ended up picking WorkAway and found our job to work in Tabernas, Spain for two weeks while staying with Jean. Jean is a nice and accommodating man from France who moved to England with his partner and ended up buying land in southern Spain to get away from the crowds. He picked a good place because there are no crowds here. 

We took a BlaBlaCar to Almeria, Andalucia where our host picked us up and drove us to his home just outside of the town of Tabernas. We absolutely loved this area! Our biggest regret was having not stayed longer. That night we were able to get situated in the beautiful all white Spanish style home surrounded by desert bluffs and olive trees. There was an awesome ruin of a Moorish castle right across the way in the village that we could go look at or run to. 

Apparently they film movies here. ^

Jean does not like working outside and he does not like olive farming. Not one bit. And he spoiled us so much. We got to pick all the food we ate from the store and he bought it for us as long as we cooked. Every night Patrick cooked us something delicious and we would eat on the patio. Almost every night we would all hang out and watch a movie together in his cozy lounge area. We were able to watch the entire Bourne series because I had never seen it and we also watched the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly. Did you know that was filmed down the wash from where we were staying? Because I didn’t! Apparently this is where a lot of western movies are filmed because it’s cheaper and looks almost exactly like Southern Utah/Texas/Arizona/New Mexico/Nevada/California. 

One evening while Patrick and I were walking down the wash we came across a sign that actually read “TEXAS HOLLYWOOD’. No joke. In the exact same lettering as the California Hollywood sign. It was so random. Right by the ‘TEXAS HOLLYWOOD’ sign there was an old west town replica that they use for movies sometimes. In fact, there are quite a few around the area. That is not something you would know unless you were there. You can pay to go see them and learn about the movies that were filmed there.

We worked three days on one day off. I would wake up every morning before work to go on a run and explore the surrounding desert and then get to work. We would all eat breakfast together then go get our plastic rakes, plastic containers and olive nets, go to where we left off and start picking and raking olives off the trees. It was tedious work but to literally see the fruits of your labors falling into a net that you set out is inspiring. I was standing in an olive tree trying to reach the farthest limbs when I realized that we should force all high school kids to work on farms for free for x amount of time per week to make them learn the value of hard work and food. I believe that would solve a lot of problems in our country including ignorance. After we had filled up ten crates we would take the olives to the local olive place that would measure the olives and dump them into this thing that loaded them into the truck. At the end of the process an old Spanish man would give Jean a paper with how many kilos of olives there were and then Jean did something with that. 

During our two weeks with Jean we had two neat experiences. One was that we got to help this British environmental activist on his mission to clean up the desert. If you ever want to hear someone trash talk you to your face or the Spanish people, go talk to this British man because he will do it. He wasted no time telling us that all Americans were lazy and stupid and the Spanish were also lazy and stupid AND inconsiderate of the environment. So of course we showed up bright and early for his “clean up the desert’ day. He even bothered to tell us that we were lazy while shoveling piles of glass and unwinding plastic bags from the shrubs. But that’s fine. One British man’s opinion doesn’t mean much to me at this point. We helped clean up the desert and that was great. Anything I can do to help my planet, I will do. 

The second neat experience we had was Thanksgiving dinner. Jean took Patrick and I to the market so we could buy food to cook for American Thanksgiving. Patrick made one of the best dinners of all time and we invited the snobby British man, who reminded us that we were lazy, and his worker and they came. We had a great time talking and eating and sharing stories of our lives, giving thanks for the things that we get to do. There was nothing in this moment to not be grateful for.  

I daresay that this was my favorite experience we had in Spain. Maybe it’s because I was tired and just wanted a consistently quiet and comfy bed to sleep in or because the weather was beautiful or because we were being productive or simply because I’m a desert girl at heart, but it was amazing. I would suggest a Work Away experience to anyone. 

Patio

Separating good from bad olives

My Favorite View from the Work Away.

Artistic Olives

Our last day of work pruning branches