Shoveling poop.

When we arrived at the train station to make our journey from Seville to Castilla la Mancha, we noticed something worrisome. All of the clocks said 8:20 instead of the 7:20 that read on my wristwatch. We approached the ticket desk to redeem our train passes, and he told us that we better run to see if could catch the train.

For three days in Seville, it had actually been an hour later than we thought it was because we didn´t realize that there was a time change from Portugal to Spain. Now we were trying to catch a train that was the only train for another six hours. Not to mention that we needed to make another connection, and we would have ended up slumming it on the floor of some gross suburban Spanish train station.

So we made a run for it, dragging our duffles and exhausted from only a few hours of sleep, we saw the train slowly pulling away as we got close. Tammy jumped onto the last set of stairs with her suitcase still dangeling from her arm on the platform beneath her. Her life flashed before my eyes, as I imagined the bag getting caught under the wheels and Tammy being dragged to an unfortunate body mutilation. Thankfully there were people standing on the platform, and a man hoisted her bag up onto the moving train.

She yelled out in Spanish, "There´s one more! Help her too!!" I took a leap of literal faith onto the train, flinging my bag ahead of me hoping someone would pull through and throw it up. Sure enough, another lovely Spanish person came to my rescue. Of course, once we were on the train, the conductor realized what happened and stopped the train. We caught our breathe and sat down to avoid having a heart attack.

We didn´t miss our train, and we ended up travelling for the entire day to reach our next farm in Spain, Viva Iberica. We ran into a bunch of crazies along the way, got served a ham sandwich when we specifically asked for just cheese, and lugged our suitcases halfway across a town to find out that the bus station we were looking for was right next to the train station we had just arrived at. All in all, a frustrating day.

The farm is two kilometers outside of a small town called Tobarra in Castilla la Mancha (yes, Don Quijote-ville). The owners rent a small flat in the town for the WWOOFers, so Tammy and I have our own rooms. Another WWOOFer, Shane, Philly native, has been here for 3 weeks, so it´s nice to meet someone else that is on a similar journey.

Basically my job consists of shoveling horse poop. The farm has around 15 stallions and probably 40 mares, a small veggie garden, a chicken coop, and a goat. So every morning, we feed the horses, muck out the stalls, and end up smelling like ass. After the horses are taken care of, we milk the goat, Carmen, and do any other task that the farm owners Sue and Richard ask us to do. It´s definitely more strenuous than O Monte, but I think a little hard work is good for us.