First Three Months

This portion of our 2024 Spanish Language trip, is looking much like we imagined. We hope to make each 3-month segment feel like a home.  

While three months can fly by in a flash, three months, in our imagination, seems to be ample time here. Right now, we feel little pressure to do something creative every day, to explore every day, or to see every corner of this portion of Andalusia with frequent day trips. Oh, we will do all that, all right but we hope to take our time doing so. We plan to make a life here, albeit a very brief one. 

We have made the 40-minute bus trip into the city three times already. We pass a continuous string of attractive beachside communities along the way. Tile-roofed white houses near the road sit one next to another. Near the city, sections of houses go all the way up the hillside. Their gardens are dotted with orange trees and cacti and their terraces look out over the sea. In between big swaths of houses are small beach-y shops, many coffee/beer bars, and some restaurants. There is plenty to see.

We are beginning to get comfortable with the city and can now make it to the noisy, bustling indoor Central Market where locals crowd in to buy fresh foods of all kinds. We know and can find the main plazas in town without the help of Google Maps. We have explored Old Town with its museums and churches. No doubt, we will visit Old Town many times over. We even know where Antonio Banderas lives. People say we should watch for him next week in his ball cap and dark sunglasses. He always is in town during Holy Week.  

On Saturday, we took the steep foot-passage up the hill to visit the massive and irregular walled Castillo de Gibralfaro. Sitting atop the 430-foot-tall Mount Gibrafaro, the great castle dominates the city scene. From its strategic lookout, long ago armies could see the entire city, its bay, and the ruins of a Roman theatre below. It was the greatest stronghold in all of Andalusia.  

The panoramic views from the castle walls are surely dazzling but during our visit, an eerie low-lying cloud slowly crept in to cover the city. Soon like a white blanket, the cloud covered everything. At one point, only the top of the One Arm Lady Cathedral and the tips of smokestacks of the ships in the bay could be seen poking through. Built first by the Arabs in the 14th century, to protect the Alcazaba at its foot, the fortress was later expanded and fortified by Catholic monarchs. 

As we huffed and puffed our way up the hill, we commiserated with two young ladies who like us were breathing hard as they trudged up the path. One of the girls calls DC her home but currently lives in Lisbon teaching English. Her friend was visiting her from London. I love seeing people get out and about . . . especially when their scope of fun and exploration is bravely broadened from the familiar to anywhere in the world. I can’t help thinking that the more we people from different countries get to know each other, the more peace there will be in the world. 

Our 40-year-old house in Chilches is quiet and peaceful. Its beachside neighborhood is away from city crowds and the chaotic tourists busying themselves seeing all the Malaga sights and queuing up for streetside tables for tapas, paella, beer, and wine.  

Just down the road from us, within easy walking distance for anyone, is Cerveceria Taperia El Canuel, a restaurant with outdoor tables and the most delicious tapas we’ve tasted here so far. “Es mi nuevo restaurants favorito.” Its partner restaurant serves steak dinners. Almost next door to the tapas bar is a large variety store that locals call “the China Store.” It has everything your heart desires . . . as long as it came from China. That’s not really true. While 90% of the merchandise in the China Store does come from China, on the Sunday we arrived from Portugal, just to get us started, we went there and bought Spanish wine, a small, refrigerated pizza for dinner, and eggs and salami to have for breakfast the next morning. We were happy the China store was there. Generally speaking, all stores and many restaurants are closed on Sundays in Spain. And those restaurants that are open usually do not serve meals; they serve drinks only. Still, people gather in crowds to enjoy the air, conversation, each other’s company, and futbol. The moral of the story: When in Spain, be sure to buy anything you might need on Saturday, because you won’t get it on Sunday except at a China store, and it is better not to do that. 

In the next days after our arrival, we returned to the China Store again and again to purchase needed covered plastic food storage bowls and beach mats, and to check out the prices for other stuff. We had to determine if it is better to buy stuff like TP, trash bags, etc., at the China store or at the big nearby Mercadona supermarket which has everything!  

Farther down the road but still nearby is my dream store . . . a huge garden shop akin to any Pike Nursery or Home Depot Garden Shop. We went there on Sunday. We bought two cherry tomato plants at the whopping price of .30 euros each. Remembering my very prolific vegetable garden in Sandy Springs, I drooled over cucumber, pepper, and cauliflower seedlings there but those will have to wait until another year. At the Chilches house, I found two pots for the tomatoes; I cleaned them. Stan cut the bottoms off water bottles for makeshift pots for my Basil seeds – the seed packet was given to me at a political rally in Romania last year. We bought 10-liter bag of potting soil at the China Store – the young Chinese man at the cash register has started chuckling as we enter his store and heartily greet him on our almost daily shopping trips there. Soon I expect we will know his name.

In my element, I sat on the patio and planted my tomato seedlings and my Basil seeds. I stationed my little pots in a sunny spot on our terrace. I am now committed to joyfully watering, trimming suckers, and caring for them for the next three months. I hope we will enjoy a small harvest of tomatoes and a few Basil leaves along with a slice of fresh Buffalo Mutz drizzled in Spanish olive oil before we leave in June.

I feel at home now.