Cave Houses in Spain

I was in the middle of translating Lorca's Romancero Gitano, or Gypsy Ballads, and I couldn't understand what the heck he was writing about. I translated the words, but they didn't mean much.

"A sky of white sheep covers quick-silver eyes." Oh yes, surrealism. No problem. Only it wasn't surrealism. Maybe Lorca was a mate of Salvador Dali, but he was never a surrealist.

A friend of mine, Al Lloyd, that great collector of folk songs, and still dearly missed, told me that Lorca was just describing, albeit somewhat violently and vividly, the world of nature.

I was sitting on the roof of a cave house in Guadix looking up at the night sky when I first saw those white sheep covering quick-silver eyes. I'm sure you've seen those bunched-up, slow-moving clouds that look like the backs of sheep. They roll gradually over the stars (those quick silver eyes), extinguishing them.

I had my back to a chimney stack. I sat there and suddenly started quoting lines from the Ballad of the Sleepwalker. They suddenly made sense. The father of the dead girl and the smuggler go up to the balconies of the moon at the top of the house. There they sadly realise that everything they ever wanted will never materialise and they are stuck in some frozen reality. It's frozen because it never changes. Day after day things go on the same, and one's dreams are just as far away as they ever were.

We have wonderful descriptions of the moonlight like an icicle suspended in the cistern. I quoted the lines out loud, and then went on to the chorus line:

    Verde, que te quiero verde --
   Green, lo i love you green;
   green wind, green branches;
   the ship on the sea
   and the horse on the mountain.

I suddenly stopped, looking across the little square between the rock houses below me. Behind me a deep voice continued on with the next stanza of the poem. Then he stopped. I carried on with the following stanza, and we both declaimed the chorus again together.

There was a moment's silence. I turned, we smiled. The moon came out from behind the clouds. Below us in the square it was very quiet. It was magical. The horizon of dogs barked endlessly. There was a glow from the cave bar at the end of the street. Everywhere I looked I could see images straight out of Lorca's poems. "Thank god the civil guard aren't banging on the door", I said, and we walked down to the street, and across to that small cave bar where, over the course of the evening, it seemed I got to know half the population.

Later on that evening I was taken back to my new friend's home. He explained how it came about. The rock is hard, but if you cut into it you find it is very soft. Once you have started digging it is easy to continue, but after being exposed to the air it quickly hardens.

You must choose your spot carefully. You need to be on a ridge. You dont want to build in a gully. You also need room around you so you can dig in any direction. Ideally you want the side of a hill with the top of the hill as your roof, and one side as the front of your new home. You dig into the hillside creating as many rooms as you need. You then build a wall in front with a door and a couple of windows. That front room will be your living room. Behind will be a kitchen and bedrooms. You cut square panels into the wall as pretend-windows. You place things on the cill and put up a curtain, which of course, is always pulled across the space. The doorways are usually arched. The walls are dressed, and then painted white, using that special mixture they use in southern Spain.

Distemper is mixed with a little lime, a little cement, and some water, and the resultant muck is stirred around and then painted on the walls. It turns out a brilliant white, becomes quite hard, and has antiseptic qualities.

If you are a growing family you can always dig further into the hillside when you need another bedroom.

My new friend's house had three bedrooms, all quite tiny, but large enough for a bed, a dressing table, a little niche for a crucifix, and a chair.

The kitchen had a doorway into two more rooms which were used for the animals. There were chickens and even a couple of donkeys. These rooms then led into an enclosed yard where the folks kept their farm implements and a cart. The whole was perfectly set out with everything close to hand.

I sat and chatted with the family. The little man boasted that his chimney was 25 feet in length, and had been hacked out with a pickaxe. As you reach the outskirts of the village you have to wend your way around the chimney pipes. There is usually a mule track which descends between houses down into the main square.

The place is generally warm in winter and cool in summer. Cooking is done on a stove, but combustible materials are not abundant in this area of Spain. When I was there it was almost a capital offence to steal someone's wood supply. I dont remember a single tree anywhere in the village.

"We are married nine years," the man said. "We have eight children. Every year a child. Next year we have nine children." He was very small, about five feet two inches tall, and his wife was smaller. They looked to be in their fifties, but obviously they must have been in their early thirties.

Then they talked about the local boy that had made good, the famous bullfighter El Cordobes. He is an illiterate gypsy, and the only Spaniard with long hair. Our new friend told us that he earns two or three million pesetas in one afternoon, and flies everywhere in his own helicopter.

At night men would sit on their roofs; their high balconies. Most nights you could see three or four of them, silent, with small red lights blazing and then fading as they draw on their cigarettes.

Today these cave houses are either meticulously kept up, or totally abandoned. There are many such houses out in the fields away from the villages. Nowadays they are used to grow mushrooms. Closer to the main population areas there are many that could be brought back into use. You are effectively just buying the land, so they are cheap. Building costs are negligible. You just need a pick-axe and a shovel, and some muscle power. Your biggest expenditure will be on bathroom and kitchen gear, paint, and a front door.

It's the ecological way to live. You dont need heating in the winter. You dont need air conditioning in the summer. The resources needed to construct the house are minimal. And you certainly fit into your environment. I guess you can even park your car in an underground garage. But do buy a copy of Lorca's Gypsy Ballads, and occasionally sit on the roof in the moonlight and read a page or two while you listen to the dogs barking around the long horizon.

    Verde, que te quiero verde --
   Green, lo i love you green;
   green wind, green branches;
   the ship on the sea
   and the horse on the mountain.

I suddenly stopped, looking across the little square between the rock houses below me. Behind me a deep voice continued on with the next stanza of the poem. Then he stopped. I carried on with the following stanza, and we both declaimed the chorus again together.

There was a moment's silence. I turned, we smiled. The moon came out from behind the clouds. Below us in the square it was very quiet. It was magical. The horizon of dogs barked endlessly. There was a glow from the cave bar at the end of the street. Everywhere I looked I could see images straight out of Lorca's poems. "Thank god the civil guard aren't banging on the door", I said, and we walked down to the street, and across to that small cave bar where, over the course of the evening, it seemed I got to know half the population.

Later on that evening I was taken back to my new friend's home. He explained how it came about. The rock is hard, but if you cut into it you find it is very soft. Once you have started digging it is easy to continue, but after being exposed to the air it quickly hardens.

You must choose your spot carefully. You need to be on a ridge. You dont want to build in a gully. You also need room around you so you can dig in any direction. Ideally you want the side of a hill with the top of the hill as your roof, and one side as the front of your new home. You dig into the hillside creating as many rooms as you need. You then build a wall in front with a door and a couple of windows. That front room will be your living room. Behind will be a kitchen and bedrooms. You cut square panels into the wall as pretend-windows. You place things on the cill and put up a curtain, which of course, is always pulled across the space. The doorways are usually arched. The walls are dressed, and then painted white, using that special mixture they use in southern Spain.

Distemper is mixed with a little lime, a little cement, and some water, and the resultant muck is stirred around and then painted on the walls. It turns out a brilliant white, becomes quite hard, and has antiseptic qualities.

If you are a growing family you can always dig further into the hillside when you need another bedroom.

My new friend's house had three bedrooms, all quite tiny, but large enough for a bed, a dressing table, a little niche for a crucifix, and a chair.

The kitchen had a doorway into two more rooms which were used for the animals. There were chickens and even a couple of donkeys. These rooms then led into an enclosed yard where the folks kept their farm implements and a cart. The whole was perfectly set out with everything close to hand.

I sat and chatted with the family. The little man boasted that his chimney was 25 feet in length, and had been hacked out with a pickaxe. As you reach the outskirts of the village you have to wend your way around the chimney pipes. There is usually a mule track which descends between houses down into the main square.

The place is generally warm in winter and cool in summer. Cooking is done on a stove, but combustible materials are not abundant in this area of Spain. When I was there it was almost a capital offence to steal someone's wood supply. I dont remember a single tree anywhere in the village.

"We are married nine years," the man said. "We have eight children. Every year a child. Next year we have nine children." He was very small, about five feet two inches tall, and his wife was smaller. They looked to be in their fifties, but obviously they must have been in their early thirties.

Then they talked about the local boy that had made good, the famous bullfighter El Cordobes. He is an illiterate gypsy, and the only Spaniard with long hair. Our new friend told us that he earns two or three million pesetas in one afternoon, and flies everywhere in his own helicopter.

At night men would sit on their roofs; their high balconies. Most nights you could see three or four of them, silent, with small red lights blazing and then fading as they draw on their cigarettes.

Today these cave houses are either meticulously kept up, or totally abandoned. There are many such houses out in the fields away from the villages. Nowadays they are used to grow mushrooms. Closer to the main population areas there are many that could be brought back into use. You are effectively just buying the land, so they are cheap. Building costs are negligible. You just need a pick-axe and a shovel, and some muscle power. Your biggest expenditure will be on bathroom and kitchen gear, paint, and a front door.

It's the ecological way to live. You dont need heating in the winter. You dont need air conditioning in the summer. The resources needed to construct the house are minimal. And you certainly fit into your environment. I guess you can even park your car in an underground garage. But do buy a copy of Lorca's Gypsy Ballads, and occasionally sit on the roof in the moonlight and read a page or two while you listen to the dogs barking around the long horizon.

© John Clare 2013

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Cave Houses in Spain

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Cave Houses in Spain