Welcome to Montebello

We live in an urbanization (neighborhood development) called Montebello, which means "beautiful hill," and there is indeed a small incline on the street we walk to go up to the neighborhood recycling center. We are part of the municipality called Algorfa, though we are closer to some urbanized parts of the town of Rojales, namely Ciudad Quesada, than to the commercial center of Algorfa. Our mail comes through Ciudad Quesada, and I can see the lights on the Quesada hill from my office window at night. There is talk that our urbanization may be reassigned to Rojales in the future, though I'm not holding my breath waiting for that to happen.

There are 177 houses in our urbanization; about 40 of them are holiday homes, and the rest are used as primary, or at least secondary, residences. The area started development nine years ago and was marketed heavily to the British, so we hear mostly English voices while sitting in the sun room, working in the kitchen with the back door open to catch a breeze, or when we stop in at the local bar-cafe after taking the trash and garbage out in the evening. Several houses are for sale now; this reflects the worldwide economic situation that the Spaniards call simply La Crisis, the fact that in recent months the British pound has fallen drastically in relation to the euro (the US dollar managed the same feat much earlier), and a natural generational shift that I have observed marks many retirement communities, whether European or American.

We live on the edge of the urbanization, on Avenida del Tomillo. Tomillo is a variety of thyme. The other avenida surrounding the development is Romero, rosemary. I have looked, but there is no Parsley or Sage. But we do have streets named Olivo, Mimosa, Eucalyptus, and a couple other types of vegetation that I will need to commit to memory on a later walk around the area.

We have a neighborhood swimming pool, two pétanque courts and soccer field, children's play yard, and a couple park areas on one side of the development. At the entrance is the aforementioned bar-cafetería, Monty's, a hairdressing salon, and a locale to rent--there used to be a corner grocery but the proprietor died, I am told. A big five-year project has been started to build a huge shopping center on the road leading to our development. This will be within two kilometers of our entrance and I look forward to not having to get into the car every time I need to go out to buy some little thing. The project is on hold for a time during La Crisis, but we have been assured it will resume when the economy improves.

The shopping mall will replace a cement factory. The orange grove on the opposite side of the urbanization remains, for as long as we are here, I hope.