There is, in this locality, a Hippy Commune known as “The Beneficio”. A gathering place for those of an alternative worldview wherein living in wigwams on a flat earth and breathing in Government-funded gasses from the chemicals pumped into the atmosphere from passing airliners so that one’s mind can be controlled by Giant Invisible Lizards, can be shared with one’s peers.
From this redoubt, living on the food scavenged from rubbish bins is a political act and maintaining a dog for the purposes of begging, an attempt to be at one with the allegedley balanced and harmonious forces of nature…
Yet, something has occurred that makes me suspect that their peer-group comforted refuge from the forces of black-hatted world mind-control conspiracy, may be under threat.
Yesterday evening, in a fit of lassitude abandonment, I decided to take Linus the electric bike out on a ride up into the mountain on the Pampaneira road, which I plan to attempt (with considerably more preparation and time) on Pussy Riot, my mountain bike, in search of a long and no doubt exciting offroad downhill trail back in to town. After about seven kilometres of increasingly impressive hairpin-bend views, I stopped at a viewing spot to admire the mountains of the Lujar Sierras laid out before me, marching away south to the coast.
As I stood there with my back to the road, I heard a car pull up behind me. The motor cut out and I heard the noise of the electric window being wound down.
A voice in heavily-accented German said: “Excuse me sir, do you know the location of a Hippy Community called ‘The Beneficio’”?
I turned to see a smart BMW saloon in which two well-tonsured, fit-looking men of almost military appearance (albeit dressed in t-shirt and jeans) sat, speaking with that exagerrated and forced politeness found in those who seek to conceal some dubious purpose behind their innocuous inquiry.
“I know it is around here somewhere” I said, “but I have never bothered to find out where because it is not within my interest. Sorry, but I can’t help you…”
A shadow of mild irritation crossed the face of my interlocutor like the ghost of a water-soaked cloth and with an expression of mild dismay, the two Mittel-European strangers drove away.
It was only after I had resumed my ride that I suddenly wondered: how did they know I could speak English?
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