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At a thousand meters above sea level, Cortijada Los Gazquez is an 'off-grid' destination for creatively minded travellers high in the mountains of Andalucia. In the heart of the 'Parque Natural Sierra Maria-Los Velez' this eco-chic guest house and farm resides within a place of extreme natural beauty, profound peace and tranquillity and an awe inspiring wilderness, in one of Spain’s most dramatic alpine deserts.
Los Gazquez combines two of the principle ideas fundamental for people who love peace, inspiration and the natural world. Ecology and creativity.
 Ecology... A 'carbon neutral' guest house sitting in a valley of almond and pine. Heat and light from the sun, thermal winds and wood from the land combine in a system of solar panels, wind mills and fires to cook and create energy. Rain water is harvested from the roof. Waste water is managed and utilised through a system of reed beds and a grey water recovery system is used to irrigate the dry land. This Cortijada sits benignly in the mountains and when you look aloft to the Golden eagles in the sky, living at the apex of the food chain, you can be confident that your stay here will no more effect the natural ecology other than to serve it. Creativity... Los Gazquez is also a retreat for the creatively minded. Should your compulsion be to draw or paint, photograph, write poetry or music, to exercise any multiple of creative disciplines, Los Gazquez provides the space, time and opportunity to make a holiday a deeply fulfilling one.
And should you wish to share the experience of this creative retreat, Los Gazquez runs a series of art and design courses throughout the year. The ethos of these programmes is to tailor your experience of this environment in a way which allows you to maximise your understanding and creative response. Los Gazquez has designed five courses under the following titles...
Botanical Illustration - An informal week of walking, field studies and studio work allowing the artist to explore new flora and new approaches to representing flora in their art work. This week starts with an introduction to the ‘Parque Natural Sierra Maria-Los Velez’ from the environmental education officer of the botanical gardens of ‘Umbria de la Virgen’.
Alto Caminos - A week dedicated to the walker and the lover of landscape. Los Gazquez has planned routes through the mountains giving artists access to some of the most beautiful settings and places to be found. The opportunity will be made for artists to stage their trek in order to capture whatever scene catches their eye. And at the end of each day there is a small informal discussion so that you can share the day’s encounters.
Art Forms in Nature - This is an ‘applied arts’ programme where one can explore the nature of form and pattern occurring in the natural world. One then has the opportunity to consider and develop a practice of manipulating these forms into ‘applied or ‘decorative’ arts, be it for wallpaper, ceramics, furniture, graphic design or textiles. The choice is yours.
Ancient and Popular Architecture - So many tumbled down farm houses populate these ancient terraces of almond and pine. Los Gazquez seeks to explore these abandoned buildings and through ‘art’ attempt to paint and draw an illustrated history of the architecture. And the ‘ancient’ refers to the Moorish watchtowers that are perched on so many peaks.
Las Ramblas - One of the most beautiful geographic features in these areas are the Ramblas or dried river beds. They meander majestically through the outcrops of limestone, an invisible torrent of water carving a line through the landscape. And these are beautiful places of dramatic geology, beautiful flora and wild life. This will be a week of exploration and field studies in your preferred medium.
 The atmosphere for these courses is very much for the guest to bring their knowledge and skills, their passions and enthusiasms to a group of people in an atmosphere of camaraderie and sharing, should your abilities be professional or yet to be discovered. Los Gazquez is here to guide you, to encourage you, to help you to access the creative and ecological opportunities you need to have a fulfilling and inspiring experience.
Cortijada Los Gazquez is situated in a place evocatively called ‘La Hoya de Carrascal’ within the Parque Natural Sierra Maria-Los Velez. Hoya being bowl or basin and Carrascal is a plural of Carrasca, the Kermes Oak (Quercus coccifera). It is more of a shrub than a tree and its leaves are small, shaped like a holly, and the cups for its acorns bristle with spines.
Here run the wild boar, the ibex, the genet, the roe deer and the mongoose. And scratching above, on the trunk of a pine tree, the half meter long occilated lizard, a flash of green and blue, hunts for the eggs of the woodchat shrike, the european black redstart, the jay and the jackdaw, the black eared wheatear and the golden oriole.
 Walking through our terraces of almond you see hoopoes in their swooping flight, their crests raising and falling, searching for insects amongst the tassel hyacinth, tangier pea and pitch trefoil. Then above you hear calls, repeated calls, binding armies of bee-eaters together, only breaking their exploratory flights in a ‘prise de fer’ on their quarry.
Rarely a day will pass when the ground isn’t crossed by the shadow of a griffon or black vulture, often so low you can hear the air brush through the flight feathers.
And when silence falls upon this wild menagerie you know that in the middle distance, between the baked earth and the kettle of vultures searching for thermals on the Sierra Larga, comes the eagle. Golden, Short-toed or Booted they call and call as if abandoned before changing tack and quartering the forested slopes in an ambush on prey.
Over the sierras from Los Gazquez, passing the peaks of limestone, the cliffs where the peregrines battle for purchase, the clattering of choughs tumble to cave mouths. Caves that have kept an illustrated record of this land’s first inhabitants. Over 6000 years ago ‘prehistoric’ people painted scenes which have changed little in that time. Now a Unesco World Heritage site the caves of Los Letreros and Ambrosia contain drawings of animals and birds and shamanistic figures of men.
Other men too left their mark on this landscape. The Berbers and Arabs, known as the Moors, built the terrazas for the olives and almonds. They built the irrigation canals called acequia, the covered wells called aljibe and the once fortified pueblos like ours, Velez Blanco.
Velez Blanco, for hundreds of years history has fallen on this place. Abundant with water, the Moors first settled here, building their alcazaba, defying gravity by making it perch on a pinnacle above the village. It was partly destroyed by an earthquake in the 10th century only to be replaced in the 16th by the fantastically beautiful Castillo de Los Fajardos. And on a summer’s evening standing high on the loggia of the Marquises de Velez Blanco you can look out over the blue mountains and ridges, watching the swifts, swallows and martens fly by, oblivious to the motionless falcon, tirelessly pushing his luck.
And what do we mean by 'eco-chic'? Well, at Los Gazquez, being environmentally and socially responsible needn't compromise beautiful design. These were once five old farm houses, a cortijada, now converted lovingly into one very beautiful space. On the one hand great homage and respect has been given in its restoration to the simple vernacular architecture of the building, and on the other hand a crisp eye for detail has been employed which makes the place seem stunningly modern. This is a special place whose design authority pays its respects to a different creed. A creed that stands true to its very genuine creative and ecological principles.
Here you will find uncomplicated luxury with minimal intent. And here you will find peace of mind, body and spirit in far more profound ways than the phrase was intended.
Find out more about us at www.losgazquez.com
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