Pizza parties & goings

Seth and Richard made a Cobb oven out of cement. It's right on a old BBQ spot that over looks the Mediterranean with benches that preexistent. We built up the benches with wood and put two tables in and a umbrella. Now we have pizza parties every Saturday night. We each make our own pizza and share with everyone. Fun doing it that way. You taste something you would of never thought you like. Pizza toppings come from the market and our garden. I especially love our lemon basil, oregano, Spanish chorizo, homemade tomato sauce, and cheese on my pizza. Samuel is from Italy and makes the dough from scratch and the sauce. He's also a expert on cooking in the Cobb oven. Gabriel also helps him out to make bread to bake after the pizza. Love the Italians. Getting spoiled by their food. So proud of Seth and Richard to make such a good working Cobb oven. We take a donation if other people join us and they make their own pizza. We provide beer and sangria. Sangria here is delicious and cheap. We add melon and fruits. Beer is 2 euros for a 12 pack. Definitely not as good as Asheville or Portland's beer though. It's super light. There's a pop up bar on the beach not far from us. They do live music Thursday thru Sunday. Great for us cause we get to hear the music clearly from our place so we even have toons besides our own. Love pizza party Saturday's.
On another note.... The kids who used to steal our donations every day, set a fire outside our perimeter. The cops, firetrucks, ambulances, even helicopters showed up. It's very dry all around so the fire spread pretty quickly. Everyone from here was running with water jugs to try and put it out but it got to big to quick. Richard luckily caught two kids and held them down until the cops and everyone got here. All the personnel was really friendly and helped us out. Great to see our community pull together out of no where and react. The kids since then haven't come back. Out of the fire, we have some amazing soil to use for our gardens.
Long time members of Isla Bonita are continuing their travels. Billy and Rose took off and Ulrick and Vincent. All these guys have been here since the beginning. Billy is heading for Australia on his bicycle and Rose is going back home. Ulrick and Vincent headed back to  France. I hope all of them come back in the future. We had such good times. Isla Bonita wouldn't be how it is today if it wasn't for all of their help and creations. The longer people stay the closer you are to them. Sad saying goodbye. I especially hate goodbyes. We all take the picture in front of the Isla Bonita sign and clap them off. That's the way of the place. We're all traveler's. When it's time to go, it's time to go. Big giant hugs to all who's left.

Garden's and Independence Day

We had a lady named Rosa stop by and tour our place. She represents the Garden Association of Aguilas. She is super excited for us and our plans for the place. Rosa had given us excellent advice on what to grow where. We have a lot of factors here with the sun, wind, and sea salt air on what veggies and aromatics we can and cannot grow. Then she introduced us to Kika who is the president of the Garden Association. He took a few of us up to his place in the mountains and hooked us up with seeds. This time of year is great for aromatics. We've been in trial and error with our gardens.  With the sun being so hot out we're having plants die one by one. We have straw down around the plants to provide shade. Tomatoes are doing great and the herbs are taking off. A bird also has a watch on our gardens as well. It ate all the onions out of the ground and the tops of all the just planted zucchini. It's no wonder that out of the 100 flower seeds I planted never came up. We caught the bird on video and then it all made sense. It's time for a scarecrow or a sling shot. Gabrielle, a guy from Italy, is our seed starter. He made a nursery area that is naturally shaded by a few trees. A perfect spot on the terrace. It all has to do with working with the sun on building shade for the already planted herbs in such. We move them around as the sunlight changes month by month. Pretty much full on sun n hottness until 9 pm now. With donation money we were able to purchase the minimal amount of water. We filled 3 water tanks that we also got donated, and our sistern underneath the house. Water for our gardens is a huge advance. Our sistern collects the rain water but unfortunately it hasn't rained here in months. The lands here are very similar to California. Dry dessert. We swim in the ocean every day now to cool off. The Mediterranean is warming up as well. The water is  just perfect.
We went to the city council to get a permit to sell art and to tell them what we're up to at Isla Bonita. We want to be good citizens and go about things the right way. As long as the city likes us and the cops, then we can stay as long as we like. The city told us there's good news and bad news. The bad news is that they can't help us with our water, electricity, or a sellers permit. The good news is that we're our own independent place. We're not part of Aguilas or the next town over. The coastal guard is in charge of us. Basically we can do or sell whatever we want to. We celebrated our Independence Day on May 5 ( Cinco de Mayo) with sangria and a big feast.

Romeria, Abel, Mitchell, and before and after

Romeria is a festival is where carriages travel around town to town with people following and partying behind them. They dress up in beautiful attire and feast along the way. One carriage still had the cows towing it but most are towed with tractors and trucks now a days.
Isla Bonita is advancing every day. Billy finished the Throne Room with a grand table that everyone can eat at together. It's made sturdy enough to walk across. That way if your sitting in the middle and need to get out you just strut it across the table. Billy also added a golden throne in the corner of the room and filled it with a cactus. Joe did a cool painting behind it all with the Ace Of Spades. The Throne room turned out awesome all together. Rose painted a beautiful cow painting in the entry way. The entrance is coming along now. Color's everywhere. I set up a art for sale table to display the different crafts we do here. There's also a donation art table as well. Traveler's leave a piece of their art to donate for Isla Bonita which is nice.
Two guys from Spain came within the same week, Mitchell and Abel. Abel had many extravagant stories which were a blast to listen to. He was also so full of ideas that we couldn't keep up with him. Mitchell on the other hand was such a hard worker and contributed so much in general. He even spoiled us with crepes every morning. A long story short, Abel took advantage of Mitchell and barrowed money from him. A large amount and Abel never came back. Mitchell had to return home to Barcelona and cut his trip short. We all felt so bad that it happened. It's actually not the first time. You have to beware of travelers who are Gypsy's. They usually travel by themselves and beg for money in the streets. Most tell big crazy stories and get you to trust them. Just trust your gut. We've had 2 now and it all broke our hearts. We're here just trying to do good and give people a piece of Paradise to live at. For most of us, we are each other's family.