What I learnt from living naked in a medieval Spanish village for a month

“Nothing prepared me for living completely naked in a medieval village in Spain for a month with a conspiracy theorist who thinks chemtrails make you gay and a guy who drinks his own piss mixed with mandarin juice.”

There’s a Spanish medieval village, built a thousand years ago, off the grid with intermittent and limited power. Wells have dried up (I started drinking my pasta water, feeling too guilty to tip it down the sink) and there’s a four-kilometre driveway with no town at the end of it, just a road. No internet. No alcohol allowed, no clothes, no washing machine. I love to make rules for myself and I told myself I would spend a month there, naked.

Before we go any further, let me save you from the social faux pas you will want to commit: calling this place a ‘nudist colony’. That phrase died in the ’60s. This is a naturist community.

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The naturists’ thesis is simple: bodies are just bodies. But can a body actually be ‘just a body’? I wondered this, as I removed my op shop Laura Ashley dress in the apartment that would be mine for the next month. The only mirror was bathroom-mounted and brochure-sized, decorated with a constellation of toothpaste spatter.

The population of the village swells to 100 in summer and dwindles to around 20 permanent residents in winter. Every day, I’d mop my floor. I’d watch the sun move across my medieval stone walls. I learnt the goats’ individual personalities. When it was windy and therefore a spot of electricity was being generated, I’d run back to my apartment and plug my phone in to charge.

I quickly found the two people in the village who spoke English. These two men became my mildly problematic lifelines. One was a conspiracy theorist who believed that chemtrails make you gay. I’d go to his house in the morning and we’d listen to Leonard Cohen’s album Ten New Songs on repeat while building furniture. He’d launch into these elaborate theories about government mind control while measuring wood planks.

He’d tut and point at the sky with his screwdriver. “Look at the chemtrails.” I’d nod and hand him another screw. We built a table and a wardrobe together. I drilled into bathroom tiles for the first time, he listened to my suggestions of where to put up mirrors and shelves, and we did it there and then, clocking up many hours on the drill.

In exchange, he’d cook for me. Breakfast was eggs and one shaving of precious jamón serrano, bought in Barcelona, seemingly a million miles away from where we were. Salty miso soup was our working pick-me-up, and, if he believed we needed it, a couple of squares of milk chocolate. Most dinners were vegetable-rich paella. On site, a small shop sold fruit and vegetables delivered by farmers in neighbouring towns every few days. So, yes, I shopped in the nude!

The second English-speaking man was a self-described archetype of Christ who claimed to have seen a UFO from his window in the village. We would walk for hours around the 150-hectare property, every time in a different direction.

We went to the Witch’s Square, the two churches and fed the goats, all in the nude, of course. These walks became my education in alternative living philosophy. He’d speak about rejecting materialism while stepping carefully around goat shit. We would end at his apartment, which was even more off the grid than mine, with no power or running water.

One time, he poured me a tea, handed me two mandarins and disappeared around the side of his apartment. I could hear him peeing into a receptacle. When he came back, he told me he collects his urine so he can drink it with freshly squeezed mandarin juice.

When I asked why, he launched into a long-lasting monologue about the healing properties of urine, how it’s sterile and full of nutrients, how it connects him to his body’s natural cycles. He promised me that only his mug contained his urine. I sipped what I hoped was just tea.

When you remove clothes, you remove a layer of social performance. Conversations in the village quickly traversed beyond weather-talk and nude-talk. Without the signals of fashion, status or even basic coverage, people seemed to speak more directly. These weren’t profound conversations because we were naked, they were honest because we couldn’t hide. When you can’t conceal your body, you stop trying to conceal your thoughts.

The conspiracy theorist and I would debate politics while naked and sweaty from building furniture. The Christ-archetype would explain his spiritual theories while we walked naked through olive groves, his gestures completely uninhibited. And, as bizarre as both of these men were, I knew them and I loved them.

A guide to getting started

I’m sure you’ll agree that nude swims are superior to textile-clad ones. Maybe you’ll even agree that walking around the house with nothing on during a truly alone summer weekend, AC on, beats even the loosest pyjamas. Snorkelling is also better in the nude. What about playing cards? Or soft-boiling an egg with a perfect yolk that drips onto your nipple? Do you want to find out? Let me hold your hand through this.

I recommend starting with nude beaches. Go on a weekday if possible (it will be quieter) and keep your bikini bottoms on until you feel ready. Nobody’s keeping score. If the thought of outdoor nudity feels like a stretch, seek out a friend and an onsen or hammam. The structured environment might soothe you.

If outdoors, sunscreen everything. Your butt crack, the underside of your boobs, between your toes, SPF50 minimum, reapply every two hours, yes, set a timer. Bring a friend or make one quickly, because you’re going to need help. The first time you get naked in front of strangers, you may be convinced that everyone’s staring at and judging you. Don’t fret: they’re probably too busy worrying about their sunscreen schedule.

Keep your phone in your bag. If you absolutely must take photos (I get it!), make it obvious they’re of yourself or your consenting friends only.

Expect to see everything: stretch marks, surgical scars, cellulite, missing limbs, medical devices, tampon strings. Yup, that is my naturist menstrual product of choice but damn, free bleeding in the sea is something I beg you to experience.

The naturist’s towel is like their rosary. Some people personalise theirs with their name or pick a jaundice yellow that’s unmistakably their own. Learn from me and never put your bare bum on communal furniture without a towel barrier. This is a golden rule.

The heart of it

What I learnt in Spain is that these places aren’t just about nudity: they’re experiments in intentional living. The nudity, it turns out, is often just the most visible part of a much broader rejection of social conventions.

In Spain, the handyman designed his work schedule so that he would reluctantly leave nude living for exactly one week each month, scheduling back-to-back jobs in Barcelona from 5am until 11pm, crashing on friends’ couches between appointments. Seven days of city life would earn him enough money to cover food and electricity for the remaining three weeks back at the village. Money is just money, he told me. (Urine is just urine? Okay, I never quite got on board with that.)

In the village, I watched the sunset every single day. I had conversations that lasted days, the whole month, we’re not even finished. I helped build things with my hands. I learnt that my body, when not constantly managed and modified and hidden, actually feels like home.

I see you there, too. Biting into plums, juice dripping down your chin, jumping into the nearest river to clean yourself up. Your UE Boom plays Sibylle Baier’s first and only folk album, and sweat pools in your belly button. Drizzling extra virgin olive oil pressed from the thousand-year-old trees you lean against to read a book in one sitting. Pouring water onto the parched, hot pavers and them steaming ‘thank you’. Everything is better in the nude.

This article was originally published in Fashion Journal issue 198.

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