Fruit Trees

For Spring Break '09, I wrote about our trip around Spain. It started out taking a train from Mérida to Madrid. We sat next to an elderly man who Dan began to talk with. The man lives about 30 mins from Mérida and is a retired fruit farmer. He was on his way to Madrid as well and then Egypt for vacation. He travels everywhere! He invited us to call him sometime and visit.

Dan called last week and we visited today. It cost 5.60 to take the train and Emilio met us at the train station after our 20 min ride to Montijo. He showed us many of his farms that his sons now run and we ate peaches, nectarines, and pears off the trees. He took us to his hacienda that is now not lived in, but it is full of his hunting trophies, photos, and has a huge swimming pool in the back. He had a cold bowl of cherries that we munched on until we were sick. He showed us some of his bronze age axes and Roman cooking ware that were found on the property. We found that he had not lived there since his wife passed away in 2005.

Emilio also took us to his fruit warehouse and showed us how they store, package, and ship the fruit. Then he took us into town to show us around the big church and have a beer with great fried potato chips. Yum! He decided to give us a ride back to Mérida to top off his kindness. I am so thankful for this little day trip. He is too kind and I don't know if I'll ever see him again. I sure hope so!

To end that trip, we had him drop us off at CarreFour (our big grocery store) and we carried groceries home for a mile in the 95 degree sun. Uff dah! The Mérida summers are back!