Fig picking with Joachim

During the Yoga teacher training at the Cortijo Casería del Mercado in South Spain close to Granada
all Yoga students were invited by Joachim (the farmer and owner of this place) to help him pick figs in the fields. As a reward he had planned a big breakfast during the picking and seafood paella for everyone afterwards.
What a great invitation!

Of course I wanted to join them!

We met on Saturday morning at 8am in the corridor between our appartments. Joachim had already prepared buckets, boxes and snacks on a truck and a tractor. The delivery truck had 2 seats in the front but there were 20 of us wanting to help!

"Vamos, vamos alto!" called Joachim, gesturing everyone to climb on the tractors loading area. It took me a moment to realise that we were really all supposed to get a lift on this funny vehicle!

Everyone was really excited to climb on the loading space. We had to move close together to fit all in, then Joachim started the motor and drove us along the street through the mountains and on a gravel road further into the middle of his fig tree fields.

Our job was to first shake the trees gently, then pick up all the good figs from the ground.

I picked one and a half buckets full of wonderful sweet little brown figs. Then everyone had a break and we ate a super delicious breakfast with fresh figs, pears, tomatoes, bread, peaches, honey, jam and goat cheese right there under the sky in the shade of a tree!

After this generous breakfast we picked some more buckets and boxes full of figs, until all trees were done. It was now four hours later.

Back at home, Joachim cooked the most delicious paella that I have ever had in my entire life! He served it alongside incredibly delicious salads. We set up at a long table with many seats and everyone was invited.

I ate a huge plate full of paella even though it had a lot of seafood (which I'd usually never eat), but it was totally worth it! The taste was insane! And the atmosphere as well! That was a great start in the weekend!