Way back in 1969, shortly after man had landed on the moon, the first hippies made an appearance in one of the remote mountain villages behind Nerja causing a good deal of head scratching as to what they might be.
The two individuals arrived on a Sunday morning and made their way slowly up the main street to the square, heavily laden with rucksacks. Exhausted, they settled down on the church steps, took their boots off and sat there staring back at all those who were staring at them.

Neither could be said to be pretty, nor handsome nor, indeed, unattractive.They had very long, light coloured hair, not blonde, but certainly not dark and both had blue eyes. The reason they caused so much interest was that no one could make out whether they were male or female. Both could be men, on the other hand they might both be girls, or then again maybe there was one of each, but there was nothing definite to give anyone a clue.

The riddle of what they were was so intriguing that Sebastian, who ran the only bar and hostel in the pueblo, received his first bet shortly after they were seen to comb their hair, at eleven o’clock that morning.

Manolo, the carpenter, said they were women because their hair went down to their shoulders. Emilio, the mule-basket weaver, thought them men because they had no tits. Ramon, the mason who maintained the cobblestoned streets, thought they were flat chested women because they had high heeled boots. Felipe, the electrician from Velez who knew more about the modern world than anyone, was of the opinion that they might have come from outer space considering that man had only just disturbed the stratosphere by sending a few astronauts up there. It was decided that the betting would end the moment someone talked to them as the pitch of their voices would give them away, or if they did not talk, then when someone had actual proof, like seeing a definite shape.

Everyone agreed that both had very acceptable culos seemed passive enough and definitely dusty, which was understandable if they were travellers, Alfredo, however, who claimed he had a great deal of experience of estrangeros because he drove the bus that went down to the coast, complicated the matter by explaining that young people from distant countries now wore their hair long if male, high boots if male and that the females were proud not to have any boobs at all, which increased the betting, much to Sebastian´s delight as he seldom lost when in charge of the book, and even side bets were taken as to who would be the first person to discover what they were. Ricardo, the baker, was the favourite because the first thing anyone ever bought was bread. Ricardo and two witnesses in fact waited patiently in the bakery most of the morning, but the foreigners did not move at all from their position on the steps of the church, not even when the village widows, all dressed in black, came out from confession and had to step over their various bits of luggage.

Clearly, Alfredo explained, the visitors were hippies, students with no money, little intelligence and certainly no sense of decorum. By two o´clock everyone whisper reached the bar that they had got up and were coming to get something to eat.

Emilio, who had gone right up to them and peered into their faces reported that one was showing definite signs of having a beard, while the other did not, but it was all still very speculative. Then both hippies walked in, made their way silently to the back room and sat down at a table near the little balcony overlooking the view of the valley and the sea in the distance.
Sebastian went to take their order. They asked for two portions of gambas, a large tortilla, an ensalada mixta and two bottles of ice cold beer.
As though sensing that Sebastian doubted their ability to pay, one of them dug a purse out from the depths of his or her rucksack and put it on the table, casually opening it to check that there was money in it but clearly showing that there was, plenty, mainly thousand peseta notes.
‘The one with the money has a purse, ‘ Sebastian informed everyone in a whisper.
Those that had betted that one of them was a woman slapped each other on the back.
‘They are rich, and yet not rich. ‘ Manolo remarked. ‘ They roll their own cigarettes, one very thin, and pass it to each other. . If they can afford gambas why can´t they afford tobacco ?’
Foreigners were a problem.

‘So do they speak?’ someone asked.
‘ One mumbled the order, ‘ Sebastian said, ‘ I think they come from France. ‘
‘I think they come from another planet, ‘ Felipe stubbornly repeated.
Conchita, Sebastian’s wife, busied herself in the kitchen as the bar filled up with the Sunday regulars. Manolo and Emilio were a bit taken aback to find their domino table occupied, but said nothing. Ricardo, thwarted at the strangers not buying his bread, sat with Ramon at another table and sipped his wine and watched them intently.
‘They still haven´t spoken a word to each other, ‘ the report went round.
‘They’ve just smoked the one cigarette and gazed out of the window. ‘
Sebastian got the order from the kitchen, put it on a large tray and took it to them with the ice cold beers. They looked up at him with doleful, cloudy eyes in way of thanks and sat there for a further two hours eating very slowly, very slowly without speaking.
Finally one of them got up, ambled to the bar and, in understandable but not quite correct Spanish, asked whether they could have beds for the night.
Sebastian, delighted, took them straight upstairs and showed them what he called the honeymoon suite.
After that he forgot about them. Sunday was the busiest day, always, and he was very relieved when he was able to have his well earned siesta.

At seven he came out of his deep sleep, aware that he had to get the bar ready and on his way to the bathroom remembered the hippies and wondered if they had gone out. Unknown to anyone but himself and Conchita, there was a crack in the door which enabled him to have a good look half way across the room, and as he peeped, he saw that no one was in the bed, it was made up, untouched. Clearly they had just left their rucksacks and gone out, probably on the same insane trek to the base of El Cielo, the mountain where all the visitors went to look at the view of the surrounding district.
He opened the door and was astonished to see both his guests, sitting cross legged on the tiled floor, their backs to the wall, their arms down the length of their bodies, their hands crossed over their crotches. They were quite naked and one was clearly a man, the other clearly a girl. Their eyes were closed
’Pardoneme....señor....señora...’ he blurted out very confused.
They did not answer, they did not bat an eyelid. Indeed they did not even open an eye, and it occurred to Sebastian that they might be Indian, from that part of the world were Yogis existed.

By eight o´clock, as neither Indian had shown up, Sebastian asked Conchita to go and knock gently on their door. For all he knew these fakirs might be in a trance and goodness knows what problems that might cause.
So he waited downstairs in the bar with wealthy Miguel Angel who always came in the evenings for a few glasses of cognac and was admired by most because he had cut down the whole of his olive grove to build a modern villa with aluminium doors, a black tarmac drive, a surrounding metal fence and a swimming pool.
Conchita eventually came down and did not seem to know whether to laugh or cry.
‘They´re mad ! They are lunatics !´ she said. ‘ They are both standing in the shower now putting mud on their hair. They have a plastic bag full of mud and they are pasting it on each other´s hair. Do you think we should call a doctor, perhaps they’ve escaped from an asylum ?’
‘They sound like students to me,´all-knowing Miguel Angel suggested. ‘ There are many around. They roam the countryside during the holidays and go to the farthest places they can find to get away from everybody else. They are flower loving people and will do you no harm and the mud is probably henna from Morocco. It is apparently good for the hair. ‘
’They do have nice hair,’ Cochita conceded and, sighing, went back to the kitchen.
‘Are they reliable people ? ‘ Sebastian asked.
‘Niños de Papa. Rich kids dependant on their parents. ´Miguel Angel said.
‘Why the one cigarette then ? ‘
’Marihuana ? It would explain their silent behaviour.’
And it occurred to Sebastian that though he had seen them with quite a bit of money, they might leave without paying for the room, a thought which caused him a littlle anxiety.

Just then, however, the two hippies came down still wearing the same dusty clothes, but the girl now had a cluster of bougainvillaea in her hair which she must have plucked from just outside their window. She looked very pretty, had quite beautiful skin, very fair, yet sunburnt. Incredibly, Sebastian thought, he had seen this feminine creature in the nude, sitting cross legged on the cold tiles and had not given it a thought. If that happened again, he realized, it would quite unsettle him, and if he were younger, he decided, he might well become a hippy too.
‘Where are you from ?’ Miguel Angel asked them.
‘Washington D.C.’ They answered in unison.
The fat, cigar smoking old fool then moved up close behind the girl as though to breathe in the scent of her hair.
‘That is very far away,’ he mumbled.
:You live here ?’ the boy asked. ‘It´s very pleasant.’
‘Yes it is pleasant, and I do live here, yes.’
Any second now he would invite them to go and swim in his pool.
‘ I hope the place isn’t discovered by tourists too soon,’ the girl said, ‘there’s already some insensitive idiot building a modern villa on the outskirts with those terrible aluminium doors and concrete everywhere. I could kill people like that, ruining the environment.’
And Miguel Angel stepped away to stub out his cigar, gulped down his cognac, made some excuses and left.
Then to everyone´s surprise the two hippies requested the bill for the room, explaining that they had only wanted it for a siesta and shower. They paid Sebastian and asked which was the best way to get to the top of El Cielo.
‘You want to go all the way to the top, or half way ?’ Felipe asked.
‘To the top. The skies are so clear here at night we want to get as near to the stars as possible to commune with the universe.
So Emilio, Manolo, and Alfredo all told them different routes, argued amongst themselves as to which was really the best then agreed on one, and watched the travellers pick up their rucksacks and leave after bidding everyone goodbye.
‘They want to get near to the stars and to commune with the universe ! ‘ Felipe piped up victoriously the moment they were out of earshot. ’Now tell me they are not from outer space !!