sunandseaspaces.com

MOJACAR, SOUTHERN ANDALUCIA, SPAIN

Mojácar is a beautiful white-washed hilltop village situated in the south east of the Province of Almería in southern Spain, bordering the Mediterranean Sea. It lies about ninety kilometres from the province’s capital Almeria, and the local airport receives many direct flights from the UK and Europe. Mojácar enjoys more than three thousand hours of sun per year with rainfall seldom and the average yearly temperature is around 20 °C reaching the mid to late thirties in the height of the summer with very mild winters.
The Indalo, or Mojácar man, is a magical totem said to bring protection and good luck and in the past was painted onto the fronts of houses once the whitewash was dry with the belief that it kept away the evil eye and protected those within from storms. The figure interpreted as a man holding a rainbow between his outstretched arms is thought to be around 4,500 years old, and the earliest known one appears among other prehistoric paintings in a cave in Vélez-Blanco.
The name, Indalo was coined by a group of artists and intellectuals who settled in Mojácar in the early 1960s, attracted by the atmosphere of the town, and who commercialised the totem which today signifies the whole province of Almería. Due to tourism, the Indalo Man has spread in popularity and has been seen on houses in various parts of Europe such as Brittany in France and Cornwall in England.