Orgiva Now

If there was a breed of people I disliked, it would be estate agents. As a relocation agent in the UK working for property buyers, we were inevitably at loggerhead...yet, in 2001 (to the great relief of my family and most of my friends), having failed to get my snail project off the ground, I found myself setting up, with 2 partners, the first estate agency in Orgiva. Our office was situated on the main road that leads in and out of the town. Small but it couldn't be missed.

It was amusing how passers-by flattened their noses, through the metal grills, against the glass of the large window to peep in curiously in an attempt to guess what kind of business was going to be run from this bright and shining office with a vase of silk flowers on each of the two desks. I overheard a woman once tell her husband it was going to be a "guiri" beauty salon.

Before the advent of "Granada Propiedades", real estate in Orgiva changed hands through "corredores": individuals who knew someone who wanted to sell, would hear of a buyer and put the two together. Each village in La Alpujarra had its corredor. To find him, you went to the local bar and asked.

On my first day at the office, I brought along a few books to entertain me while waiting for a buyer to come by...clients, I knew, were going to be few and far between. Not in my wildest dreams did I expect the phenomenon that turned the property market upside down and inside out; the whirlwind that saw that the books I had brought to the office came back home 6 years later...unread.

Chris Stewart had published his first book "Driving over Lemons", putting Orgiva and La Alpujarra on the map. Then Banco de Andalalucia opened its doors and introduced a new style of aggressive banking: we saw for the first time a Manager visit every office where he felt he could sell the bank's services. He lured them with commissions to get them to introduce and bring him their clients' custom. For the first time we saw at least one bank employee speak a foreign language (this is not to say you could understand them any better than others who didn't). Then came Chanel 4 and "A Place in the Sun". We appeared on at least 3 of their programmes. We were interviewed by property magazines from the UK. The Costa del Sol's glossies asked us to advertise with them and the "Olive Press" opened an office in Orgiva.

...Incredibly, a rush of foreign buyers began, mostly English. With the exchange rate in their favour, they paid unreasonably high prices for those cortijos I had seen some years previously and wondered who would want to live in them.

Prices shot through the roof and vendors, suspicious at first, would now come to the office asking me if we had any foreigners looking to buy...everyone wanted to sell and anything and everything sold.

Orgiva changed. Even the Guardia Civil building had a facelift. Nearby, a square, Plaza de la Alpujarra, was built with an exhibition hall at one end and benches all around. The old municipal market was closed and refurbished; it is now more like a mini mall than a village market. With funding from the European Community, the town acquired the Palacio de los Condes de Sastago which was renovated to house the Ayuntamiento. The Notario moved to a brand new office and so did the Registro de la Propiedad. Bar Santiago became Meson Santiago and then it changed hands, was extended and now has a new and modern rustic decor. Even the mercadillo now covers several streets. The only unchanged bastion of "the good old days" is Galvez, Antonio's supermarket. Antonio still calls by name his customers of old... or those of them that are still here and is the only one who knows how to prepare a Danish style joint with crackling (Floeskestig) for Xmas.

Orgiva claims the undisputed title of "Capital of La Alpujarra". Curiously, this small town, was, at one time, granted city status. No-one has been able to tell me definitely when, why and how.

Restaurants open and close, shops open and close, new people come and go without anyone noticing or caring, for that matter. Ole and the danes from the high villages have sold and gone. There are car parks, but not enough places to park and traffic fines are as expensive as those of central Granada. In fact, Orgiva is now like any other town anywhere, with no soul and no heart, yet it has something -a kind of duende- that attracts people and it is this same intangible quality that also drives them away.




Photo 1, The seven-eye Bridge by Dr Friedrich Hach
Photo 2, Orgiva Landscape by John Giddings
Photo 3, The Ermita of San Sebastian after its facelift, by John Giddings
Phot 4, Orgiva High Street by John Giddings