Searching for a Neighbour — Two South of Granada

It has been a surreal week in a year that has already thrown in its fair share of surrealism.

Last Sunday, one of our friends in the village knocked on our door to let us know that the cortijo of one of our villagers had burnt down the previous evening. The house is located in the countryside between our village and the next village, Puerto Lope, an area where we often go walking with Alfie. The owner of the house is a sculptor who we know a little, but not very well. Manolo (or Manuel) tended to strike a lonely figure, as he more often than not stayed put at his house and forge where he created beautiful works of art, frequently inspired by Spanish literature, including works by Lorca and Antonio Machado. We did, however, meet him nearly two years ago when our friend, Karen Considine, made her trek across 100 miles of Andalucia on horseback, following in the footsteps of Penelope Chetwode. Karen had been in touch with Manolo as he knows a great deal about the history of Moclín - its people, its culture and art - and knew some of the families whose relatives would have met Penelope when she did her own horse ride through the village in 1961.

Manolo Caba was once the owner of the 16th Century Posito del Pan in Moclín, and another property that he ran as a museum housing a fascinating collection of ethnographic artefacts, and his sculptures have been sold to many international clients; one of his works can be found in Manchester.

Last Saturday evening, at around 21:15, his cortijo was gutted by fire and Manolo has not been seen since.

We went for a cursory look in the surrounding countryside on the Sunday morning, as the friends who had told us of the fire had offered to go and help search the immediate area. Walking up the hill opposite the blackened cortijo was an eerie experience. Our Christmas picnic was spent on the summit of the hill that looks down on the property and its adjacent workshops in which Manolo created his sculptures. The scene, at this stage, was very calm and there appeared to be very little activity.

However, as Monday arrived, the mystery of Manolo’s whereabouts started to mount. Over the course of Sunday and Monday, there was no sign of the sculptor and we received updates from the town hall - police dogs had been employed to search the remains of the house, but no body had been found. The property that had been rendered unsafe following the fire was gradually demolished to make it secure and still no body was found. According to the latest news, it has been determined that Manolo was not in the property. The municipality of Moclín was, until today, in tight lockdown, so we were not permitted to leave the perimeter of the parish and Manolo didn’t have a car. His radius really extended to Moclín in one direction and Puerto Lope in the other.

On Wednesday, an appeal was put out for neighbours to come and help with a search for Manolo and so Andrew and I set out for the 09:30 rendezvous outside the cortijo. An estimated 150 people turned up to help with the search that ran throughout the day. Officers from all police forces were present, and incident vans were present in the grounds of the cortijo, maps posted on screens as the search efforts were co-ordinated. The start was fairly slow as the assembled volunteers divided themselves into groups, and names were taken. It was a chilly day, with a keen wind blowing from the west. The clouds were low and there was a persistent drizzle. The weather over the past week has not been kind, and we have been generally shrouded in an oppressive cover of cloud and it has not been warm. The ground that is punctuated by thousands of olive trees had become claggy; clinging clay that coats shoes and boots making hiking doubly difficult.

After an hour of organisation, we were eventually led past the cortijo to the olives fields behind the house, and spread out in a line, with 2 people each in the gaps between the neat rows of trees. Then began the slow process of covering the land surrounding the house. The terrain here is mixed, with acres of olive groves punctuated by craggy hillsides and dense patches of woodland. The olive groves appear friendly enough, but the areas in between conceal rugged secrets that look as though they have been undisturbed for centuries, penetrated only by wildlife. Manolo would know this area like the back of his hand, and frequently walked from his home to either of the neighbouring villages.

The initial search went on for 3 hours, with the various groups of volunteers scouring their designated zone in a co-ordinated approach. The thick mud was something of a metaphor for the very heavy task of trying to look for something in a landscape that really doesn’t give up many clues. Walking through this undulating, historic and often wild area it became clear that looking for someone here is like looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack.

We stopped for lunch, very tired after a 3 hour yomp up and down hills and through sticky mud. The TV crew from Andalucia Directo was drifting through the growing crowd of returning searchers; Andrew and I didn’t quite make it onto the evening news bulletin but Alfie did! The search was called again for 4 pm that afternoon, but we couldn’t quite manage a second stint. I had a tooth removed on Tuesday, and the exercise was making my bruised jaw throb, and I needed to have a rest.

We reconvened on Thursday morning, by the village cemetery, and the start of the search was much more organised than it had been on the first day. Lists of volunteers were taken very quickly, and groups taken to their search zones. Our morning search took in some of the areas we had already covered the previous day, but then in a landscape like this it makes sense to ensure that every corner is covered as thoroughly as possible. That said, there are areas that are all but impenetrable, with thick clumps of Holm oak and unfriendly rocks that lead to sudden drops. If someone were to stumble through this terrain, disorientated, in the dark and with rain falling persistently, it would be easy to imagine that one wrong foot could result in a bad fall.

As morning turned to afternoon, our group was given another zone to search and the clouds parted to reveal blue sky and sun. It was surreal to catch up on social media in the evening to see friends elsewhere posting about the glorious spring-like weather when we had been trudging through fields looking for a missing person. As the clouds lifted, a helicopter hovered overhead and it has been reported that thermal imaging cameras have been used to try and identify any possible locations to search. More dog teams also arrived from Madrid to continue the search. By lunchtime, once again, nothing had been found and the search continued yesterday (Friday) and today; we joined the afternoon efforts as we needed to catch up on other work in the mornings.

The circumstances are mysterious, very sad, and undoubtedly concerning. However, there has been something life affirming about gathering with 150 of our neighbours, friends, villagers and their family members all with a common goal. It is very tiring work, and the concentration lapses after 3 hours of hiking across the land, but no-one complains. It is a thankless task, and there are areas of the landscape where you would be hard-pushed to believe that anyone who knew the area would ever deviate, even if confused or disorientated, but it is a process of elimination. For us, the search has provided us with an escape from the alternative and relentless ghastly news that pervades all our lives right now. Being with our neighbours has provided a bonding experience, a coming together at a time when nature otherwise dictates that we should stay apart. Despite walking through rows and rows of olive trees, with mud plastered inches deep on our boots, there was a moment on Thursday when I felt more at ease than I have done for a while. The sun took off the chill that has been present for a good few weeks; wisps of cloud still clung to the rugged hillsides and the thick, white plumes of almond blossom bore the irrefutable promise of Spring.

We will be back tomorrow, Alfie by our side, for another scour of the countryside in the collective hope that, soon, something will turn up and the whereabouts of Manolo Caba will be discovered.