Way of life

The inaccessibility of Las Alpujarras that lasted from the departure of the Arabs and the Moors until the fifties when the road system was improved for tourism, has forced its inhabitants to retain a singular way of life and many unique characteristics. Their isolation was their strength in keeping until today, their particular customs and traditions, many of them a throwback to their Islamic past.

Simple, affable and generous, the character of the Alpujarreños was shaped by their surroundings. The impressive peaks of the mountains, the peaceful silence, the sounds of singing birds and flowing waters made a reflective, earthy and unhurried people. This simple, contemplative way of life attracted to Las Alpujarras alternative people, artists, writers and craftsmen, running away from the hustle and bustle of life in Northern Europe.

In Las Alpujarras they found the community life they had lost. Until very recently women were to be seen washing clothes in communal laundry troughs called lavaderos, or collecting water from the village fountain. These were social gatherings where gossip and news were exchanged and which brought communities together. None better than Gerald Brennan in his book “South from Granada” describes this unique way of life in this district.

People hand-made the necessary furniture, the farming implements, the cloth and the leather that they needed. There was no machinery and man and horse, mule and donkey worked the land together. Land measure still reflects that. An obrada, for example, is the measure of land that a man and his mule could plough in a day. There was very little money exchange. Until very recent times people bartered, those from the coast brought up fish and vegetables and took back meat and produce of high altitudes. This definitely was no consumer society.

Buddhist community O’Sel Ling

This attitude and meditative way of life attracted the Buddhists of Europe who founded a Buddhist retreat and monastery on the hillsides of the Barranco de Poqueira called O’sel Ling (Tibetan for Place of Clear Light); a name given to it by the Dalai Lama himself on his visit in 1982.