I awoke the second my alarm clock on my watch went off at 7am. How? I don't know. I'm a light sleeper. Erin was already awake. The other three - Shawn, Casey, and Monica - were still sound asleep from the walking marathon throughout Granada. As stiff as my body felt, I managed to get right up and get ready to catch our 9am bus. Feeling tired disapates once excitement or adrenaline sets in, and our new destination consisted of a beach - Malaga. I'm not particularly fond of the beach, but it can be fun and it is the Mediterranean.
We managed to make it to the bus station with enough time for a quick bite to eat and some "cafe con leche." Let me tell you, the coffee here in Spain is amazing. Certainly makes anything back home taste like piss. Anyways, after shoveling breakfast down our throats, we found our bus and prepared for a relatively short ride of an 1 1/2 hours to Malaga - a piece of cake compared to the 6 hour ride from Madrid to Granada. My seat-mate was an elderly woman with several large shopping bags. She seemed a little annoyed at having to move them as I got situated in my seat - a foreshadow of her asking me to turn down the music on my ipod or sit somewhere else. At least that's what I think she was trying to say. I only made out "fuerte" as she indicated my earphones and pointed to the back of the bus. I responded with a simple "lo siento" and turned it down.
Aside from that incident, this bus ride was much more interesting: a) it was daytime so I could see outside (and sitting in the front row was great because I could look out the giant wall of glass that made up the front window of the bus); b) I had a decent nights rest in the hostal, so I wasn't dog tired; and c) as a result of "a" and "b", I could enjoy the beautiful countryside of Spain with it's rolling hills covered in patches of green and light brown or tan. Absolutely beautiful. As we made our final approach into Malaga, the horizon changed from the sky joining the road we traveled to the water of the Mediterranean Sea, with a cluster of buildings in the foreground.
It was obvious that Malaga is a beach town right off the bat. People roamed the streets in bathingsuits and flipflops with towels slung over their shoulders or arms, and the smell of the salty sea lingered in the air. But we weren't looking for the beach at 11am. We first wandered around the busy streets, in true "backpacker style," looking for the Picasso Museum. If you don't know, Malaga is his birthplace. After viewing some of his works we ate lunch, then we finally hit the beach.
The sand was rather dark and rocky, but nothing excessive. The bottom of the sea, however, was very rocky. Luckily they were round and dull rocks, not sharp and pointy. The water was pretty cold, but water is always cold to me. I stayed in for a decent length of time though. We hung around the beach for a few hours until hunger set in again. We found a nice little cafeteria just up the street. I ordered some pork-filled ravioli (2 times b/c I was starving), some cerveza's and coffee. I might be skinny but I can eat! Everyone on this trip seems to know, considering they all ask me if I want their leftovers. After dinner we walked back to the beach just to hang out on the shoreline. The sun had begun to set so it was chilly and the beach was nearly empty, unlike when we first arrived. But we just skipped rocks in the sea and goofed around. There's something to say about five people who are nearly strangers to each other running around and acting silly like that in a foreign place, but I don't know what it is at the moment. Perhaps our pictures will reveal it at some point in the future.
Around 9pm or so, we walked all the way back to the bus station to prepare for our ride back to Madrid. I must say it was the best weekend ever! I'm so glad that we went about our travels the we did. I could care less about spending the night in some four or five-star hotel, ordering room service, and being driven to the places we wanted to explore. What a lame way to travel. We walked the streets of places built hundreds of years ago, if not more. We bumped shoulders with the people who call these places home. We proved ourselves as fearless travelers overcoming unfimiliar territory and language barriers. No one can ever rob us of this experience as it will forever remain lodged in our memories.
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