Camping La Campiña near Santaella was run by Matilde with the help of her parents. The family had moved from Madrid when Matilde was a young girl and Papa had purchased an olive grove with the idea of building a country house for the family.
In the 1980s times were hard and, much to the puzzlement of the neighbouring olive farmers, they decided to turn their olive grove into a camp site. It was just half an hour’s bus ride from Córdoba and Matilde also offered tours of the traditional industries in the area – wine producers, market gardeners and olive and olive oil producers.
Pre COVID, Mathilde had led camper van tours to Morocco but these stopped abruptly when COVID struck. At that time there were several vans long-staying at La Campiña and the consensus was that the visitors would be safer if they stayed were they were until the crisis passed. A few days later the police turned up and ordered the site to be closed immediately and the travellers had to head off. This left Matilde with no income (and without a € of government support) whilst all around the olive growers would hardly have been affected.
But by the time we arrived, La Campiña was almost back to normal and busy with with campers coming and going – just leaving Matilde with a much larger bank overdraft.
