Malaga Part II

Saturday, I decided, was going to be beach day. 

I had a small breakfast at the hostel and was offered a beer by one of the Americans. Though it was only 10.30 in the morning, I thought it would be rude to decline so we celebrated the good start to the day in the sun. I then had a look at my phone and noticed that the battery only had about 20% power left, despite having been charged all night. I borrowed a phone charger at reception to cross check and found that it was charging fine. Good thing: phone still working. Bad thing: charger fucked.
So I finished my beer and set off to find a new charger. I found one for the very reasonable price of 4 euros in a shop around the corner, returned to the hostel, and delayed my departure to the beach by an hour because I'm one of those people that can't go without their phone for 2 hours. I had another beer and a fully charged phone at the end of that so my day on the beach could now begin.  I decided I was going to have a bite to eat on my way to the beach, and settled on a place called Cortija de Pepe. I walked in and was delighted. This was what I expected a Spanish tapas bar to look like. The narrow place was filled with a long bar lined with stools on one side and glass display cases filled with food on the other side.  An overweight guy in a short sleeved shirt with greasy black hair was busily shuffling around behind the bar, serving up tankards of beer and portions of food. I had a couple of plates of food and 2 beers and set off for the beach.

There are basically 2 ways to get to the beach from Malaga city centre: the fast way or the scenic route. I took the scenic route and it is really quite pretty. You pass by the ruins of the old Roman Amphi theatre and the Alcazaba(or, at least I did) and then you walk down through a beautiful city park called the Paseo Parque, an area filled with big palm trees, well kept hedges, beautiful flowers in bright colors and an Ent. Yes, you read that correctly, they have an Ent in Malaga. Don’t believe me? Here’s a picture of it:

After a half hour walk, I arrived at the beach. I likes beaches. I like walking through the sand, feel the water flow over my feet and most of all I like to stare out over the water into the distance. It makes me feel relaxed. There is, however, one problem with going to the beach when you’re travelling on your own; it is almost never possible to go for a swim. If you’re on your own, there’s no one to watch your wallet, passport, phone and all that other stuff you cary around, and since there are no lockers on most beaches, your contact with the water is pretty much limited to walking into it knee deep.
Because of this, I usually get restless on the beach after about an hour.  I get bored of just sitting there doing nothing. The situation improves dramatically if you park me on a bar stool in a beach side bar with a cold beer in my hand.  That, I can keep up all day.  


                        As you can see here.

So that’s what I did, I walked to a chiringuito and ordered a beer. A Chiringuito is a very basic beach bar with a seating area where you can enjoy your beer and look out over the sea. And if, like me, you write stories about bars and travelling, you can call this research.
I ordered a San Miguel and, as was now becoming customary, was presented with a small bowl of olives.  I looked out over the beach and the sea and tried to make out what the 2 Spanish guys having lunch on the stools next to me were talking about. I am currently doing a starters course in Spanish so my knowledge is very basic, but I got an idea of what they were talking about.

Sitting on the beach with a drink always makes me lose track of time. Last year in New York, I went to visit Rockaway Beach, both because it is the subject of one of my favorite Ramones songs and because the weather was fantastic. I went there early in the afternoon, with the idea to have a look around, maybe have lunch and then get back to the city. It wasn’t until I realised that I had 4 empty pint glasses standing on the picknick table in front of me, that it dawned on me that I had whiled the afternoon away, staring out over the Atlantic Ocean and talking to the local weirdos, who always seem to congregate at beach bars in America.  The same thing happened here in Malaga, so when I started to get hungry, I noticed that it was heading on for dinner time. Well, dinner time in the rest of Europe, in Spain it was still hours away.  I walked back to the city at a leisurely pace and by the time I got back to the hostel, I was just in time for dinner, which on this day consisted of hamburgers.  While I had actually planned on going for sea food somewhere, the burgers looked nice and when the hostel staff brought out pitchers of sangria, the deal was settled and I joined the assembled backpackers for dinner.  It is always fun to have a drink in a hostel and share stories with other travellers, so all had a good time. We had a long after dinner session and I finished the night with a walk around the nearby square and a night cap. Life in Spain is good.

For my Sunday, I had planned a trip. It wasn't a particularly taxing or long trip, but I was going to leave the city of Malaga, even though I was only going to the next resort down the coast. I was going to Torremolinos. I wasn't going there to find sea food or sunshine or beaches, they had all that stuff over in Malaga as well.    No, The reason for going to Torremolinos can be found a dozen years back in time. I was working for a company in Holland with 2 friends. We weren't exactly working together, we all worked in different departments, but we spent 40 hours a week in the same building so we ran into each other on a regular basis. One day, while I was slaving away over a large pile of information requests regarding disability insurance (yes kids, life doesn't get much more exciting than that!) one of my friends came over to my desk so I decided to take  a break. He told me that he was planning for his summer holiday and the requirements were that it had to be warm, sunny and have plenty of beaches and asked if I was interested in going with him.  I told him that I had already planned my summer holidays around heavy metal festivals in Germany (hey, why sit in the sun on a beach if you can stand in the rain and listen to songs about Satan?) so I politely declined. About an hour later, during my lunch break, my other friend came over and told me that he was planning for his summer holiday and the requirements were that it had to be warm, sunny and have plenty of beaches and asked if I was interested in going with him. I told him that I had already planned my summer holidays around heavy metal festivals in Germany  so I politely declined.
It took about 10 minutes before the coin dropped, but then I finally realised that they could go together. They weren’t as close as either of them were to me, but I figured that if they ended up in a sunny tourist trap that they’d have a great time anyway, so off they went to Torremolinos. 

                Looks nice, doesn't it?

As it turned out, I was quite wrong in my assumption. I heard the stories from both of them, and they had completely different ideas about holidaying.  One of them wanted to sleep til noon and then spend the day on the beach. The other wanted to get up reasonably in time and see the surroundings. One wanted to sample the local food and drink, while the other did not venture beyond fried chicken and Heineken. One wanted to go to local bars and hang out, the other wanted to hit the night clubs until they closed. All in all, it was a long 10 days for both of them.   And now, over a decade later, I was going to check out the place for myself. I made my way to the trainstation and was in Torremolinos within  15 minutes.  I had a quick look around in the train station area (I always do this, for reference on the way back, in case I end up in a tavern and have a drink) and made my way into town.  Well, town.. Torremolinos isn’t a town in the traditional sense of the word, with a real centre and neighbourhoods. It’s  a holiday resort like most others along the Spanish coast, basically one big clusterfuck of highrise hotels, souvenir shops, restaurants and bars.


                        Like this..

Which is, ofcourse, awesome, if you’re only there for one or two weeks a year.  What can I say of the place.. I had a good afternoon there, visited a bunch of bars, spent an hour on the beach and half an hour in an arcade (I’m still 12 in some part of my brain. When I see an arcade, I have to go in and play a game) . I had a nice pizza in a bar on the boulevard and had a drink in a pirate theme bar on the beach. I could entertain myself here for 2 days, 3, maybe, but I can’t see myself spending a week and a half here. Having said that, this place is absolutely awesome if you’re 19 and the only goal of your holiday is to spend the entire day on the beach and the rest of your time in nightclubs. 

Or shooting plastic Hilbillies in the arcade

And with this thought, I made my way back to Malaga.  I whiled away my final night in Malaga as I had pretty much done the first 2 nights. I walked around for a bit, sat down for a beer here, and for an ice cream there and just had a really relaxed evening.

And that, I think, is what Malaga is great for, and great at. Malaga does not have the varied and wild nightlife of London or Berlin. It does not have the air of sophistication of Paris or Vienna and it does not have the gritty industrial feel of Glasgow or Rotterdam. What does it have? Malaga is just a really nice place, with really nice people, really nice food and really nice weather. In short, it’s a really nice place and I will definitely go back.

Malaga part I

One of the dilemmas you encounter when you decide to visit a country as big and diverse as Spain is: where should I go? Do I go to the Basque region in the North West, where they allegedly have the best food in the world? (San Sebastian has more Michelin stars per head of the population than any other city in the world). Do I take the easy route and go to Barcelona, like everybody else? (Barcelona is the only city in Europe that takes in more tourists than their national capital) or do I go to the capital Madrid, a large and noisy city which would be right to my liking? In the end, I let the decision be taken out of my hands. 

My friend Esty is from Malaga and she convinced me to go there. She just kept going on about how great it is and how awesome the food is, that I decided to see what all the fuzz was about. Luckily, Ryanair fly to Malaga 3 times a day, so it wasn't difficult to get a reasonably priced flight. And so I set off for Andalusia on Friday morning at 7, with a weather forecast of 28* ahead of me and a book about Andalusia on the seatback table in front of me. 

The region of Andalusia is surprisingly large. At nearly 88.000 square kilometres, it's roughly the size of Portugal. It has a population of 8.5 million which is the same as Scotland and the Republic of Ireland combined. Andalusia is a big place. Despite it being the second biggest recognised autonomous region within Spain, most people don't know too much about it. There is no noisy independence movement like there is in Catalonia, who even have their own national football team. This is not some pub team that plays in a local park, but a seriously good team with players from, among others, FC Barcelona, Getafe and Real Betis. Their manager is Johan Cruyff, one of the greatest players ever.  Andalusia also doesn’t have an explosive rebel army that regularly blows up strategic targets in Madrid and other ‘Spanish’ areas, like the ETA do in the name of Basque independence.  In short, I knew next to nothing about Andalusia, apart from the fact that it is home to the city of Seville where Celtic played in the UEFA Cup final in 2003. 50.000 Celtic fans descended on the city and partied the week away, despite the team losing the final. I got myself a Lonely Planet on Andalusia, since I could not find a city guide just focusing on Malaga, so I entertained myself by reading through chapters about cities I wasn’t going to visit, or at least not on this trip. 
To be honest, I wasn’t really planning to do any serious sightseeing that would necessitate a book. I just wanted a trip that guaranteed sunshine and temperatures pushing 30 degrees, after my previous trip to Belarus that had yielded only snow. I arrived at Malaga airport at around 11 local time and jumped on the bus outside the terminal to get to the city centre. The next day, I found out 3 things: the airport has a train station, the train takes you much closer to where my hostel was, and the train is cheaper. It didn’t really matter though, as the weather was fantastic and Malaga is a nice city to walk around in. I only went down a wrong street on 2 or 3 occasions so I arrived at my hostel about half an hour later.  I had a chat with the girls at reception and found out that check in wasn’t for another hour and a half so I dropped my bag in the luggage area and went for another walk in the sunshine. I had a look at the main square, found a couple of ice cream shops, some restaurants and, surprisingly, a violin shop.  I decided that it was time for a beer so I presented myself at the bar of a restaurant that had a seating area right in the sunshine, so I ordered a local beer and planted myself on a high chair outside.
 

Warm sun, cold beer

I enjoyed myself immensely, sipping my ice cold beer and thumbing through my guide book while soaking up the mediteranean sunshine. Life was good.  I checked into my hostel, found to my chagrin that I had a top bunk, but then found to my joy that the hostel had 2 bars; one on the roof and one on the ground floor at reception. This was good news. I made my way up to the rooftop bar, ordered a beer and had another half hour of sitting-in-the-sun practice. This day was getting better by the hour. I found that I was getting a bit peckish and decided to get lunch.

Meal times in Spain take some getting used to, if you’re unfamiliar with the Spanish way of life.  I went out for a drink with my aforementioned Spanish friend a couple of weeks ago, and she suggested to go in the afternoon, after lunch.  “After lunch”, in Spain, means around 5.30. Spanish people don’t even start thinking about dinner until most people here in Ireland have worked their dinner and at least 8 pints down their throat.  Nobody in Spain thinks anything of having dinner around midnight, but I always try to adjust to the local way of life wherever I go, so I decided to just have a little snack to wear off the hunger. I sat down at a small corner restaurant and ordered a special that was advertised on the wooden chef outside. “5 tapas for 7 EURO” the sign said, so I ordered that and a pint of Cruzcampo and sat down in the sun again. 

 

The tapas were excellent, there was a small plate of paella, a tiny omelette, a little bowl of garlic soup, a salad and some meatballs in spicy tomatoe sauce. I enjoyed my mid afternoon snack and worked some more on my ‘walking in the sunshine’skills, which is ofcourse one of my favorite things to do (it comes right after ‘drinking beer in the sunshine’).  I decided to head back to the hostel towards the end of the afternoon (or, just coming up to lunch time, as they would have it in Spain) but made one more stop. My friend had written me a long list with cool places to eat an drink and one of them had the totally awesome name of El Pimpi.
Now before you start imagining a Shaft theme-bar or something dedicated to mid 70s disco, this is a traditional Spanish wine bar. Well, it’s not exactly just a wine bar, because the place has expanded continuously over the years and now covers nearly an entire block. The original wine bar is still there, and that was were I entered the place, and soon found myself lost in a rabbit warren of hallways, backrooms and dining areas. If I had been drunk, I probably would have spent a happy half hour getting utterly lost without ever finding the outside terrace or a bar. As it was, I managed to navigate the complex in a minute or two so I sat myself down in the sunshine once again and ordered a sweet white wine.

Yes, you read that correctly, sweet white wine. I don’t normally drink that anywhere, but it was recommended so I decided to give it a try. It came with a bowl of olives (I was really starting to like the Spanish custom of serving small snacks with your drink) so I had a sip and took in the surroundings. El Pimpi now consists of a whole bunch of buildings, including the wine bar, a stretch of dining rooms and an ice cream shop. It really is quite a sight. The courtyard was beautiful, full of tables, plants and trees that were all scattered around seemingly at random. At the centre of it were a small cart and a big wooden cask, manned by a girl in traditional Andalusion dress and with a red flower in her hair. She theatrically poured glasses of sherry for tourists, using a long iron spoon. I watched her for a while, both because it was interesting to see her pour drinks in the most difficult way possible and because she was very pretty, finished my wine and my olives and decided to make my way back to the hostel. 

At the hostel, I got a 1 euro beer from the downstairs bar (Score!) and made my way to the garden where a group of Americans were having a drink. I joined them and after the usual ‘where are you from- where are you going’ introductory talk, they informed me that paella was on the menu in the hostel. This certainly interested me. I had intended to go out for dinner, but if they were making paella right here in the hostel, that would be fine for me too. As there was some time to kill before the paella cooking demo, I moved to the roof again, where it was now really quite busy. I got a bottle of beer, got some people who weren’t as cool as me to move over and spent another happy half hour in the sun. When paella time came around, I found that the chef, another pretty girl in a kilt and Doc Martens boots, would be cooking in the garden, so I walked to the local liquor store, acquired a couple of 40s and rejoined my American friends for some pre-dinner drinking. 

The chef at work

For those of you who don’t know what 40s are, they are Big bottles of beer, 40 fluid ounces to be exact, hence the name. They were made popular mainly by early 90s rap groups like NWA and still have some sort of popularity with American students for some reason. In any case, for the Europeans out there, they contain just over a litre, or nearly 2 pints of beer and so will last you a  bit longer. This is in no way an advantage if you’re sitting in 30 degree heat, but anyway, I’m drifiting off a bit here and  you probably don’t really care about the history of American gangster rapper beer, so let’s get back to the paella. The chef went to work with one of those big paella pans and put in on a big cooker with 5 burners.

She put the whole contraption in the garden so that she could chat with us while she was working, and we could take in some tips on how to make real paella. It takes quite a while to cook paella the right way, so we spent a happy hour talking and drinking until the paella was finished. The paella was great and I had a great night at the hostel. I had planned to go out in the city that night,but as happens every now and then in hostels, the atmosphere was great so we all decided that we might just as well stay there. And so that's what we did.