Malaga, Costa del Sol — There is a house off a main avenue in Malaga, that port city in Costa del Sol, where you wake in the morning to the sounds of birds. The chirpings of birds is sweet as it comes from the inside courtyard and the protected verandah where you’re staying. You know it will be a nice day as you see the breeze gently moving the drapes through the windows. You know that when your feet touch the floor beneath your bed the tiles will feel nice and cool under your feet.
It is April. The sun is gentle. The breeze is balmy coming from the Mediterranean. Across the street, when you venture on the porch with your café you can see the beach—3 minutes away and so close you can spend the week here like I and take it for granted. You see youths making a show of their physical exercises and adults jogging along the windy street that borders the beach. The beach faces south towards Morocco.
I strained to see Morocco when I went to the beach but couldn’t. I stayed in the villa to eat and read and talk to friends. What a luxury to have a pool in this house when the beach is right there. I swam twice in the pool underneath the palm trees. The water is normally too cold for me but at 3 PM the temperature was perfect. The house belonged to parents of friends and they had it re-done so it blended with the environs of Malaga. It felt local because it was.
I ventured with friends into old Malaga to see the old fort that used to guard the port. In Malaga, you can rest and feel a little the pulse of Spain. Locals shopped at the department store El Corte Inglés where I looked for shoes. They shopped at the European superstore Carrefour where I eventually found shoes. There are charming but non-Spanish owned hyper-markets like HyperCor that pop up all over the city that I understand are driving local business under; To my eyes, these stores are what American 7-Elevens could be if they were made charming, classy and situated in nice locations.
The fortunate thing about Malaga in April is that it is not the biggest destination on everybody’s itinerary. Grenada is that. From Malaga, you can take car trips to wherever you like on the coast. I wish you and I were in Malaga now.
Photo by Zilla-Boo. Creative Commons License
http://flickr.com/photos/zilla-boo/2097290109/in/photostream/
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