Siesta by the Sea

Today was another day devoted to travel and the beginning of our long trek back to Albion.  We got up and had decided to make sure we could get to the bus terminal and thought we would have some breakfast if it was available in the bus station cafeteria. We walked back to the bus station, about a mile from our hotel, and Dave pulled both the suitcases, hoping to avoid having me fall on the uneven sidewalk like our walk there a few days ago.  the weather has turned a little cooler but as still bright and sunny. We made it to the bus station, found the "gate" our bus would leave from, and realized that nothing in the bus station cafeteria looked appetizing that early in the day.  Fortunately, neither one of us had an up and close incident with the sidewalk.  We had some granola bars with us, for just such an occasion, so we had a breakfast of some of those.

On all our other bus trips, we have been on bus lines that have run without stopping from point A to point B.  Today, we were on a bus that was going to make 7 local stops, lengthening the trip by about 1/2 an hour.  Our seats were in the front, so Dave can see where we are going, and we set off on time. Since we weren' t going direct, we also didn't use the highways, but drove on many local roads.  This allowed us to see a lot of small Spanish towns.  Most stops were just roadside stops, but one was at a bus terminal where we had 10 minutes if we wanted to get off the bus.  The driver got off and came back with a package that seemed to be freight he was taking to the end stop.  He took the tickets, walked to the back of the bus counting people, then restarted the bus and we drove out of the terminal.  I think we forgot someone, because as we rounded the side of the terminal, he stopped the bus, opened the door and tried to get someone's attention.  The police car behind us honked for us to go so he closed the door and started going, but got on his phone and called someone.

We arrived in Malaga, a coastal town into which we flew from Amsterdam.  The bus station is across the street from the train station, and our hotel for the night is actually in a town to the west called Torremolinos.  There were no buses going to Torremolinos this afternoon, so we walked across the street to the train station, which is also a shopping mall.  We stood in line for infomation about trains and were given a timetable for the local city trains.  These leave every half hour and we thought it might be a good idea to stop and have some lunch, since there were plenty of options at the mall.  We have been lucky in finding lots of restaurant choices, for the most part.

Travel at this point is a little sketchy, because while Dave has been meticulous with details about locations and modes of transportation to each place we ahve gone, this one slipped his mind a little bit.  He had a map and a general idea of where we were going, but he forgot to mark the train depot on his map, so when we got off, we knew the general direction we needed to travel, but we didn't actually know how far we needed to go.  We stopped and asked a taxi driver, the only one on the street in front of a large hotel, but he was waiting for another customer so couldn't help us. One of the options we had thought of was to just take a taxi to the hotel. So we kept walking in the direction of the tourism oiffice,  which was also on the beachfront, as was the location of our hotel.  The tourism office was closed, but there was a map with all the hotels marked on it.  We weren't that much farther and all our walking had been downhill ot this point.  We also realized we could have gotten off the train 2 stops earlier to get to our hotel, but at least it was all downhill.  It had now started to rain a little. We have figured we have been lucky to have had great weather the rest of the trip, and this is the first rain we ahve had in the past 2 weeks.  Unfortunately it has occurred where there is nothing else to do but go to the beach.

The view west from the balcony off our room.

We found our hotel and checked in. Arriving in our room, we realize we have been given a double room with a double balcony overlooking the Mediterranean.  We hung out and watched the surfers for a while and then decided it was time for a siesta.  Torremolinos is basically like Ocean City or Myrtle Beach - full of families on holiday and with trinket shops all up and down the beach.  It just happens to also only be 17 degrees, which is about 60 F, and rainy/windy.   We went down to the hotel cafeteria to see what they had for dinner - they have a very popular buffet for meals available here.  We looked like the only people without any family along.  Again, this is one of the biggest holiday weeks in Spain, the week before Easter.  They had plenty of selections and we were surprised to see that all beverages were included as well.

We are now chillaxing in the hotel, catching up on email and starting to think about what is on the docket for the trip back to the states and all the stuff we have to do when we get there - moving the girls home or wherever they are going for the summer, looking at cars to replace the van that was totalled right before we left, and getting the yard in shape for the summer.   Our TV has 3 English channels, enough to keep us occupied for the evening.