Mario drives his car from the village of Carboneras (in the background) to the Mesa Roldan plateau where the lighthouse is, roughly 7Km away. Date: 28/04/2017. Photographer: Xabier Mikel Laburu.
On the coast of Almeria, a region where piracy and pillage still filled the headlines of the few local newspapers well in to the XIX century, a barren landscape dominated by bush and rough terrain which served as scenario for films like Laurence of Arabia and many Spaghetti westerns, up on the top of a plateau where cliffs plunge to the sea flanking, the eloquently called Cape of the Dead, stands the lighthouse of Mesa Roldan, guarding a stretch of sea that flows from the village of Carboneras to the next lighthouse in La Polacra cape. At the age of 56, Mario is one of the youngest lighthouse keepers in Spain. A civil servant profession that has lasted since the mid XIX century until it was declared to be extinguished in 1992. Mario is all but the typical lighthouse keeper. Originally from Vallecas, a neighborhood of Madrid, him and his brothers had a well known night club during the 80’s cultural boom. “- All started as a joke-” Mario says “- My wife always wanted to live by the coast”. Obviously living in a lighthouse at the turn of the XX century had little to do with those first lighthouse keepers, who lived isolated from the world, with no more than a mud track to go to the village and get groceries. The predecessors of Mario, had to guard the lamps overnight since they were powered by oil and later on by acetylene. The lack of electricity also made the light turn thanks to a system of weights and pulleys that had to be reseted every few hours and which moved the base of the lamp over a bead of mercury, being a health hazard as Mario says: “-It is very possible that manipulating and breathing the mercury could affect the mental health of the lighthouse keepers and deepen in the sense that they were strange people, in fact, more than one was fired for going literally crazy-”.
Size: 6000px × 4000px
Location: Carboneras
Photo credit: © Xabier Mikel Laburu / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
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