(Extract from The Entertainer - a local weekly webmagazine - click here)

Mojácar – or for English pronounciation 'Mohacar' – comes from the Arab name ‘Muxacra’, which comes from the Roman name ‘Mons Sacra’. This ‘sacred mountain’ refers to a pyramid shaped hill which is just below the current site of the town. The hill, now known as ‘Old Mojacar’, has an Arab water deposit on its summit, innumerable ruins on its approaches, bronze age remnants about its feet and the dry river ‘Aguas’ to its rear. Whether it is in fact the old settlement of Mojacar is perhaps unlikely, as the current location is sited on the front of a range of mountains called the Sierra Filabres which extend way into the interior – a much more defensible site with available water and retreat routes. The town overlooks the Mediterranean at around 400 Metres above sea level and a kilometre inland – making for good defence from corsairs. Settlement here can be traced back to the Year Dot, and include Phoenicians, Greeks, Trojans and the Icini (the original ‘Beaker People’).
  

Mojacar was a fortified town in the Moorish era, and fell to the Christian Kings – Isabel and Ferdinand – in 1488. Everyone was promptly slaughtered. Or left in peace, if you believe the plaque located at the ‘Moorish fountain’ (built in 1930 with channeled water from a fountain above the town). The town regained its strength during the following centuries, after being re-populated with Christians from nearby Lorca, and became the local capital during the following centuries.
The town, according to a 1912 encyclopedia, had a ‘castillo inmutable’, which means an un-knockdownable castle, and a population for the 1910 census of 6,000 souls. By 1960, the population has dwindled to 600, and consideration was underway to absorb Mojacar into the municipality of Carboneras. Worse still, somebody had knocked down the castle.
  

The Civil War had undoubtedly taken its toll, Mojacar being enthusiastically ‘Red’, and many had been obliged to take off for foreign climes after the Nationalist victory. The water table had also fallen after strip farming practices in the hills had removed all the vegetation. By the early ‘sixties, there was some tomato plantations on the beach, and little else.
  

Mining in the Bedar hills had been re-introduced by the British in the late 19th century – mainly iron and copper – and some small industry had made its way seawards, with a rail-head in next door Garrucha, and heavy strip mining further along in Cuevas. A small community of Europeans had settled locally, and Garrucha – essentially the only way in or out, as there was no roads in to the area – became the foreigners’ capital. By 1930, there were even Dutch, German and British consuls in the port town.
 

Mojacar passed much of this by, although in 1915, a British citizen in Garrucha bought and piped much of Mojacar’s fresh water over to Garrucha, where he sold it to the townsfolk. Mojacar’s main claim to history during this period was the birth on December 5th 1901 of José Guirao Zamora to a local ‘loose woman’ in the small farming hamlet of Campamento. The child was taken to Chicago by the mother, and adopted by the Disney family. You’ll know him as Walt. Well, so the story goes. Another story, perhaps with more basis in fact, was the departure of Pascual Artero from Aguas Enmedio (another local hamlet) to the Pacific island of Guam, where he provisioned the American army during the Second World War and inherited the nickname of ‘The King of Guam’. Luis Siret, a Belgian archaeologist operating in the area during the ‘thirties, is credited with ‘discovering’ the local totem – the Indalo – amongst prehistoric drawings in a cave in Velez Blanco. The name comes from the first bishop of Almeria, Indalecio. The totem however – a stick figure holding a serpent over his head – can be traced back in Mojacar at least as far back as the sixteenth century, and it was known as the ‘hombrecillo mojaquero’. It’s probably a fertility goddess, but who knows.
 

 In the early ‘sixties, the provincial ‘Gobernador Civil’ promoted a local man, Jacinto Alarcon, to be mayor. Jacinto managed, with nothing short of genius, to turn the town’s fortunes around. A group of artists (including Canton Checa, Jose Luis Perceval and Rafael Lorente) had ‘discovered’ Mojacar – a brown cubist village in ruins as the 1954 ‘Sierra Maldita’ melodramatic film shows – and founded an art movement named after the Indalo, calling themselves the ‘Indalianos’. Jacinto encouraged their activities, and hit on the idea of giving away land or ruins to those who were prepared to come and repair or build. By the end of this project, around 1965, many well known characters and wealthy people had taken up the offer, including bullfighter Antonio Bienvenida, diplomat Sir Michael Adeane, actor Charles Baxter and concert pianist Enrique Arias. Soon, others followed, and with prices to laugh at, Mojacar became a small but well known bohemian colony by the end of the decade. Future property handouts to various soon-to-be senior socialist politicians, like Julio Feo, Jose Bobadilla and Alfonso Guerra (later vice president of Spain) helped the town’s fortunes.
   

The mid-air crash of an American B52 bomber nuclear armed plane with a fueling plane over nearby Palomares in January 1966 brought Manuel Fraga Irribarne, the then tourist minister, to Mojacar, where Jacinto persuaded him to build a Parador hotel and to dub the (by this time painted) town with the ‘White City of the Year’ prize for 1966. A never heard of before or since award. Greed and poor planning by those who followed Jacinto brought the tour operator Horizon to the town, and poor quality hotels, cheap package tourists and get rich quick apartments soon helped Mojacar’s growth while trashing her international status.
  

Today, Mojacar has around 7,500 full time inhabitants, with perhaps another 15,000 summer visitors. The village remains attractive, with narrow ‘Moorish’ streets, stunning views and cubist architecture: while the beach has expanded into the main business of the community, and stretches as a solid line of hotels and apartment blocks from Garrucha to well past the Hotel Indalo, with new projects planned for Macenas. Some basic infrastructure is now going in, like a ring-road behind the beach urbanisations, and a widened avenue from the beach to the town. A promised theatre (the old one was demolished in the ‘seventies), and cinema (ditto), may bring culture back to the town.
  

While poor politics (and indifference in civic affairs from the foreigners) has complicated Mojacar’s appeal, the beach, weather, location and social life remain attractive. House prices are rising, and by ‘old timers’ considerations, are now very expensive. Expect 100,000 Pounds for a decent two beds apartment with a view. Inland, prices drop rapidly, although many promoters will offer small and often unreachable ruins at ludicrous prices.
   

English is the most spoken language of Mojacar today, followed by ‘mojaquero’ (an impenetrable form of Spanish). The local school is about 50% foreign. Finding work as a foreigner is hard, much beyond house-cleaning and bar work, although many set up their own businesses. Spaniards don’t generally patronize foreign business, and rarely employ foreigners. It’s best to live here on income from abroad. There are many ex-pat clubs, theatre groups and associations here, and making friends is easy. There is not much inter-cultural strife, and the warm weather and easy going lifestyle soon soothe away any anxieties.

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Having decided to check out the Costa Almeria in South-East Spain as a potential location for a holiday home, our research came up positive on the town of Mojacar - as you may have read about above. We arranged a short holiday whilst in Europe in September 2003, contacted a few local estate agents beforehand and had a tight schedule sorted out to view available properties.

An initial few days in Mojacar left a very good impression that this area had a lot going for it, from the Playa and long sandy beaches, the general low rise / density of development, the higher end properties and facilities, a good range on restaurants, the lack of British & oher Euro yobbos, more Spanish people on holiday, and the wonderful countryside. A range of apartments were shown, and we narrowed it down to a couple for serious consideration. When one we had about settled on fell through at the last minute, our agent had a call that a top apartment in the complex of Marina de la Torre was available. We had seen this complex on the first day and no apartments were available - so a quick tour around and another look at the fantastic views available from the apartment made up our minds to go for this one. Only one day left on our trip and we had to be quick, so arrangement for legal documentation, banking, etc were all arranged very efficiently and a contract of sale was signed before we left for home.

It eventually took 3 months for all the banking and legal work to be finalised, with our agent, Gavin, doing some excellent work to keep everything going and letting us know what was going on.

A return trip to Mojacar was set for the Chinese New Year holiday from mid January 2004, where we had expected to be able to walk in with furniture, etc all arranged. It was fortunate that the date of final signing was delayed until 2 days before we arrived in Spain, as we had lots of 'fun' during our 2-week stay to fully equip and furnish a 2-bedroom apartment for holiday rental - including a 'Mediterranean' interior decoration paint job.

To see the results of our handiwork and photos of the apartment - click on the photo to the left.

So, if anyone is interested in renting our apartment - golfers would have a great time - please contact us for availability and terms.

 

          We are in Mojacar during February 2005 - click here for some photos.

Over to Mojacar, Spain, to spend 3 weeks in our Apartment - After our week's visit to Athens, we continued our tour onto Spain. Leaving Glyfada around 7am, we killed an hour or so at the new Athens airport, before boarding a 'junky' Olympic Airways flight to Madrid. Arriving in Madrid Airport, we transferred to the local flight down to Almeria, picked up our hire car and drove upto Mojacar in about 1 hour to unload our bags and take in the sunny Mediterranean view from our Apartment sundeck. Wonderful weather for the first ten days or so, the highlight being a terrific trip upto the Sierra Nevada mountain range to see the snow and ski-slopes - click here for photos. After our first week, we decided to book a short trip over to Glasgow to see the Macfarlane Family crew and headed off to Scotland for 5 days. On return, we seemed to have brought the cold, rainy weather from Scotland, with about 4 of the remaining 6 days in Mojacar being spoiled by the cold wet conditions. Our planned trip to Granada to see the Alhambra had to be cancelled due to Granada being snowbound. Never mind, there will be another time. However, we had a wonderful time here in Mojacar, our Apartment was well cared for by our long-term tenant, Lucia, in our absence for the past year. It is still a wonderful place to visit and sitting out on the terrace on a winter's morning, with the warm sun on your face, having a breakfast of strawberries and croissants, the wide Mediterranean coastal view, golfer's bashing around the golf course below - all makes it a wonderful relaxing, peaceful holiday.