Andalusia

 

   The world's first surrealist movie is called The Andalusian Dog. It was released in 1921. It’s a series of unrelated scenes, supposedly inspired by the director's dreams. Salvador Dali was somehow mixed up in it.

  Our week in Andalusia was a little like that. To fill in the time after our hike along the Atlantic coast in the west and our week in Barcelona in the east, we hooked up with a company that booked us in a hill town in Andalusia in the south. 

  We flew from Barcelona to Málaga on the Mediterranean coast and picked up the car that came with our “tour”. We got out of town fairly easily but it was weird for Google maps assistant to say “Take Massachusetts 21.” The assistant was interpreting the MA21 of Málaga province as a US state. It was a nice touch of home though.

  The jumbled hills north of Málaga looked exactly like Arizona. After half an hour the hills evened out and were covered with olive trees. Old olive trees, little olive saplings, and between-size trees all in neat rows on a beige soil. Only the most rugged hill tops were free of olive trees. Spain produces half the olive oil in the world and this is its most productive region.

  Our contact, Pablo, met us at a restaurant a few miles from Priego de Córdoba where we would be staying. That was good because we never would have found our lodging on our own.  The highways and secondary roads are just like the roads at home, but driving in the ancient towns is mind boggling.  The streets are narrow and twisting and you're never quite sure if you're going the wrong way on a one way street. Even Google maps is pretty useless in the towns.

  Ivan, our host directed me into his cramped underground garage and once I got in place I lost all desire to ever take the car out again, especially after Ivan told me I needed to do something to prevent the overhead door from coming down on the roof of our car as we drove out. Ivan's English was good but not good enough to make clear what that special thing was.

  Our apartment had a fantastic view of the olive tree covered hills and the mountains beyond. Ivan's place was one of a connected row of buildings perched on a high cliff. Our apartment was a good size with a sink, refrigerator and microwave. There was a common area kitchen with stove and oven. This was good because getting what we wanted in a Spanish restaurant was problematic. First there was the language barrier, and then you never knew if their hambueger corresponded to our hamburger until it was set before us. When we had the chance to cook, we bought pasta and sauce along with the excellent bread. A cop-out but a satisfying one.

Olives of Andalusia 

  Priego has a population of 22,000. It has a big baroque cathedral and many smaller churches. It has a big castle preserved from the Moor fighting days of several centuries ago.  There's a pretty walkway along the high cliff which leads to those narrow twisting streets which are fun to wander on foot. 

  Pablo took us to lunch the next day. We had been disappointed to find the grocery stores closed that morning. Pablo told us it was Spain's National Day (also Columbus Day) and everything was closed except the restaurants. It was good to have Pablo to help us order something we were sure to like. Also present was a woman using the same tour company. Carol had been traveling alone in Europe since April. We admired her stamina.  She had declined the rental car and taken the bus to Priego. If only we had known you could do that.

  The theory of having a car was that after seeing all of Priego, you could drive a couple of hours to see the sights in Granada, or Córdoba, or Sevilla. We stretched out the delights of Priego and finally decided to give driving a chance. We chose Sunday figuring traffic would be light. Ivan conveniently did that thing needed to prevent the door from coming down on the roof and we carefully picked our way out of town.

  There was a town a few miles away with Roman ruins. We drove right past the ruins and into the heart of the quiet town. We parked in front of the church and walked back to the ruins. There was just enough English on the plaques to let us know this was the villa of an olive growing estate 2,000 years ago. It was still quiet in town when we got back to the car. Google tried to get us out of town an a long narrow street that ended in a set of stairs. Was I in donkey mode?

  Back on the highway Teresa thumbed through the booklet the company had given us suggesting towns in the area.  Zagrilla Baja sounded inoculous, but once we got into its coils we just wanted to get out. We put Zagrilla Alta into Google. We were in Córdoba province and the assistant kept telling us to turn on Colorado such and such. Not funny anymore. Google took us on a narrow gravel road with olive branches brushing against the car.

  Once back on the relatively straight highway I noticed that following the convoluted map was killing the phone battery. Our car was so bare bones it lacked a USB port to charge my phone.  We got our bearings for our next destination then shut off the phone.  Of course we quickly got lost and were soon heading towards Màlaga on the freeway. If we could stay here a few months and learn Spanish, maybe life would be easy.  But I'm like an olive tree. Not much growth happens in a week.

  It was the bat cave that did me in. Teresa found a bat cave up in the hills. Sure. Who doesn't like a nice bat cave? I checked their website. Closed 1:30 to 4:30 for siesta. The saints be praised I said. It had just turned 1:30.  Teresa suggested driving up there just to see what the outside looked like. We made our way to Colorado 1362, very much a tertiary road, just wide enough for two cars to pass each other. As we wound our way into the hills and over steep crevasses, Zuheros came into view. That was where you got tickets for the cave. Surely there must be a road into the place but we settled for pictures since we weren’t going to the cave.

Zuheros: no go zone. 

   We had enough battery life on the phone to get us home. Ivan was out. As I drove into the garage Teresa said the door was coming down so I quickly backed out.  After experimenting, we found if Teresa stood in a certain spot, the door would stay up. I locked the car keys in the safe.

  A couple of days later we took the bus down to Córdoba to look at the famous old mosque. It had been the biggest mosque in the Muslim world west of Baghdad. The mosque was interesting, but it was annoying to see how the Christians, once they had pushed the Muslims out, had plopped their cathedral into one end of the mosque just because they could. 

  We had some New York Slice pizza behind the mosque and walked the half hour back to the bus station. By riding the bus we had no car troubles, but the bus presented its own problems. The bus driver told us our bus was not going to Priego even though the front of the bus said Priego.  A fellow passenger used her phone translator to explain where we'd have to changes busses.

  The afternoon bus was a local so we got to see the backside of several towns which is always interesting. I was content knowing we were on our way home where a big bowl of pasta would be cooked, Americano style.