The last of Spain (Friday)

Kim and I had been told that Frigilliana was one of the most beautiful little towns in Andalucía. Known as the “White Village” and set in the mountains, it sounded like a must-see. So, with Kim at the wheel once again, we headed to the nearby village and were pleased that this was how we had chosen to spend our morning! It is apparently written in their laws that the town has to be kept up in its traditional style. We could see some touch-up painting being done to keep these beautiful villas in shape and almost blinding white. The winding streets and the scenery surrounding the village made for a wonderfully relaxing and gorgeous walk.

We had heard that Nerja was also a nice place to see- right up on the water- so we got back in the car and made a quick jog down to the beach. As it turns out, Nerja is actually a pretty big place. And since we were planning on eating lunch with Robert and Mercedes for our last day, we simply did a walk along the beach, again enjoying the warm sun, and then headed back to the car- not really exploring the expansive town.

We got back to Villa Mercedes and our hosts weren’t exactly ready to eat, so Kim and I took a towel and a book and headed out the back door to go lay on the beach for an hour. With the wind it was slightly chilly, but still so lovely!! Then we headed in and enjoyed lunch with our fabulous hosts. :)

We had planned a hiking outing for the afternoon. Emily, the Spanish assistant (see blog from Spain-Tuesday), had originally planed to go with us, but as her plans changed she gave us the name of the place we had thought to take us and wished us luck. We used trusty google maps for directions again and headed on our way.

It was at this point that we decided that Round-abouts weren’t sources of anxiety, but were more like a breath of reassurance. Round-abouts are full of signs telling you what is in each direction. And unlike a cross-roads in the States, if you don’t know where to go, you don’t have to block traffic or make a quick decision that turns out to be wrong and then find a place to turn around… no no no! You can just go around and around until you figure out where you need to go!! How wonderful!! They are also places to turn around when the roads themselves are too narrow for u-turns and there aren’t any turn offs. Round Abouts are wonderful things!

So… taking a little bit longer than google maps let on, we made it to what we think is where Emily was telling us to go. We parked the car and headed up to find the path. We started out ok, on what we believed was a path. But it became apparent relatively quickly that this was not actually a path… well, at least it wasn’t intended to be one. We were hiking/climbing up a rather steep portion of the mountain-side that looked sort of like an avalanche path with plenty of loose rocks to be watchful of. It might have been smarter, once we realized we weren’t on a path, to go back down the short distance we had gone up and try again. But no! That would be quitting! We had started; we would just make our own path and enjoy ourselves!! We saw a deer and decided we would try to get up to where he had been. Except that the further we climbed, the further away that point, or the top for that matter, seemed to be… and we just continued to climb, realizing that going down was going to really really suck!! Hahaha.

But then, like a beam of light to the lost, we saw something man-made! A Hut!! That HAD to mean that there was a path afterall! Anything had to be easier to go down than this!! We made it up to the hut and sure enough- footprints everywhere!! YAY! As it turns out there is some sort of water system someone is installing up there- there is a pipe that runs a course around the side of the mountain and we could hear the water flowing through it.

It hadn’t been the easiest climb/hike, but it was so worth it!! The view was amazing!!

Then it was a matter of finding out how to get down… there was the path that the water pipe took, but we could see it follow the mountain side and it didn’t look like it went down anywhere… there was another path that was less frequented, but there were a few footprints… we decided to try that. Remember, we also had the goal of not just getting down the mountain, but getting down somewhere near the car. :)

As it turned out, we had discovered the right path for heading down. Following footprints as guides along the not-very-well-kept path we made our way down. Turning around to look back up at the path we were supposed to have taken up, we knew why we had not found it in the first place: 1. it didn’t really look like a path… just a spot in the woods that had a little less growth and not too many rocks… and 2. there was a gigantic fallen tree of the start. Oh well, our way was more of an adventure anyway :)

A little tired and thirsty from our hike we stopped in the nearby town for a coke. The fun part of this town is that the streets all go in one direction—you enter the city from one side and exit from the other. We had to drive through it to get to the hiking path and when returning we found we had to take an external road to get back to the other side of the town and re-enter. Kind of neat/funny.

There also seemed to be old ladies in groups of 3 everywhere! When we first drove through, at the round-about at the very end of the town, there had been 3 old ladies just hanging out on the side of the road. We saw those same three ladies walking back towards town as we were driving back for our coke. Then another group of three old ladies walking along the street; then after the coke, one more group of three old ladies walking—these ones all with matching shirts (different colors, same style). It was pretty amusing. It’s the town of 3 women. :)

We drove back to Villa Mercedes, packed up our bags so we would be ready to leave early the next morning, then headed out with Mercedes and Robert to a dance show they had bought us tickets for!! (Talk about sweet!!!) It was a Tango-Jazz concert put on by a Argentinian dance troupe that had been working and traveling in Spain for a few years now. It was very interesting and while Kim and I enjoyed it, I’m not so sure Robert did and Mercedes didn’t like it at all. Being the ballet-snob I have recently discovered I am I realized that I understood what happened much better than my cohorts and I ended up explaining a few things… the relationships and the details of what was going on… there was a whole drug-doing portion of the concert (present in several pieces) that went over a lot of heads I think… oh well. I found it interesting. :)

We returned home, had a delicious BLT (or Bacon, lettuce and Cheese for Kim and I since we don’t like Tomatoes), watched a little news and then hit the hay. It had been an absolutely stellar week!!! But the taxi back to the bus station and airport was coming early on Saturday morning- and thus our adventure came to an end.

In the taxi the following morning I said goodbye to the sun and the sea in recognition of my return to the grey chill that is Lyon. What an all around marvelous week it had been!

Quotes from the trip:

“Sunglasses aren’t gonna do anything against this mother!”

“Tengo una problema… ingles?”

“I think the beer was back that way” – says the guy inside the palace at Alhambra

“Guapa”- frog-like voice of the old man in the street… twice! Plus the guard at Alhambra—all to Kim, the beautiful one :)

“For you Princess” – and the waiter hands me a pink carnation