(and other assorted animals)

We have seen olive groves ploughed by a pair of enormous white cows a wooden yolk around their necks and each with a red and black woven headband like a miniature Turkish carpet.

. . . they will all continue and look up as they pass beneath the overhanging rocks and search for the silhouettes of wild goats. For, without fail, whenever they are not up on the pastures in the high mountains, the animals come out to watch the old people watching them.

Both animals now shuffle their back hooves in the dust, impatient to be off. Then they swing their necks towards us and I hear the slow clop of hooves behind me. I wait until the sound has drawn level and then see it is the elderly man from the farm further up the track; he is wearing a grey trilby and the bright blue, thick cotton workman's trousers that are the European equivalent of the cowboy's demin. He returns our 'holás' and ambles past until he can stop and have a chat with his fellow muleteer. We get closer and take more photos; three mules now - one brown, one white and one with a dalmatian-spotted rump. Perfect.

Left alone, the mule idly licks at the stone of the windowsill until the man returns carrying crop spraying equipment.

All extracts from White Mules and Mountains: Snapshots of Alpujarran Life. © Ruth Wade 2004