House of the Poets - La Finca de Los Poetas

 

Have you ever slept in a cave? I guess, at least you must remember school history lessons that mentioned about prehistoric humans who used to stay in caves. That was all that I knew about the cave experience. However, thanks to my friend Baptiste, I recently got a month long opportunity of an unusual cave séjour in the Spanish Canaries Island (Gran Canaria). The work from home smoothly transformed itself to work from cave….:) 

The Canary Islands, located around 100 km west of Morocco is a Spanish archipelago comprising of 8 main islands that were formed through volcanic eruptions, some millions of years earlier. In fact, during my stay one of these islands, the Palma Island was witnessing volcanic eruptions. But it is on the Gran Canaria Island that Baptiste has a beautiful place named La Finca de Los Poetas (House of the Poets)! Baptiste runs here a guest house offering a unique experience of staying in rooms that are carved out inside the mountain. The caves, facing East, are located on the slope of a mountain, and look at another mountain with a valley in between. The surrounding is very green with many local tree varieties, a small kitchen garden and a pond. To give you company there are 4 cats, 5 hens and soon a dog!

Baptiste is an artist, a poet at heart. In the last more than 20 years he has travelled to many beautiful destinations around the world. Rather, it is his peculiar approach to travelling that has made these visits and experiences so marvelous. His trips could be summarized as prolonged stays in which he devoted himself to listen, observe and absorb surroundings of an alien land, people and culture, often lived on a bare minimum budget. For instance, he spent more than a year exploring remote rural regions in India that included a bicycle trip in the south, spanning several months! 

If you are someone who appreciate beauty, you will find its manifestations at every corner of the La Finca de Los Poetas. You will notice that the beauty here is coupled with some remarkable simplicity and ease. The place invites you to slow down, relax and contemplate. Then there’s some magic that’s brought by nature as well. Every day, it is a lovely sight to watch the Sun rise from the mountain in front, filling the entire valley with its liveliness. While at night, it is the moon that rises (Moon Rise!) from behind the mountain, and bathes the whole valley in its glow. If you are one of those early birds you could also enjoy doing Yoga in the morning on the roof top, under a star lit sky and the bright “milky wave” to guide you! 

Another feather in the cap is the extraordinary culinary experience on the offer! Baptiste’s many travels around the world, coupled with a passion for organic, vegetarian, fermented, nutritional and creative culinary fusions transport you to an another world. What is remarkable is not just the choice of imaginatively concocted dishes but often a daring mix of flavours. The sour, tangy can mingle with the light bitter, the sweet with the chili, the raw, fermented could mix with the cooked or sprouted, fruits with vegetables, and at times, all of these flavours in a single dish! The idli could be made of buckwheat flour and sunflower seeds, the chocolate muffins can have a dry fig, coriander seeds and chili powder, while the salmon textured watermelon pieces, dipped in spicy sauce, could be cooked in the oven! Here, flavours are friends and they constantly play with each other, quite uninhibitedly. Essentially, what’s offered on platter here is pure passion! Many of Baptiste’s inspirations come from the Indian, Japanese, Indonesian, Thai and other oriental culinary cultures. Add to it is his French art of aesthetics!  If food could have a broad minded and playful personality, it is at the Finca! And it goes without mentioning that all this takes hours of careful preparation and hard work.  

What’s also not lost to the keen visitor is the environmental consciousness that Baptiste so committedly and effortlessly puts into reality. He would gladly explain you his inspirations if you enquire. Baptiste’s caves are equipped with dry toilets, consuming no water at all! The soaps, the disinfectants used are carefully chosen to cause least environmental impact. Many lights run on solar panels.  A lot of the construction material used here comes from the immediate surroundings. Most of his vegetables make their way from the backyard kitchen garden, and the eggs from the henhouse! The slow food, low on consumerism and almost spiritual environment of this place is a true antidote to the frenzied lives that most of us live now a days.                                                   

Finally, a word about the sleeping experience in the caves. Personally, I can’t remember any other nights in the recent past that offered me such deep and healing sleeps as I had here. The kind caves lovingly engulf you as if you were in mother mountain’s womb!  Baptiste once said to me that his life mission is to beautify the world around him. If you visit his Finca you would discover how magnificently he does it…Beautify like Baptiste!