We went direct from Barcelona through Madrid to Malaga and Costa del Sol in Andalucia, Spain. The train takes us through a lot of ear-popping tunnels, spectacular mountain ranges and gorges with suspended walking bridges (Could we get off here for a bit?), none of which we took pictures of except with our minds. The earth is starting to turn brilliant red with Jurassic proportioned agaves and houses that grow out of the hills like living coral from a reef. Some hillsides have concrete rain gutters down them to protect from the heavy rains when they do come. Along here is a string of towns and a major villa building boom; if we return in a few years it will look very much transformed. Between the road and the beach had footings being poured for what looked like large hotels. All along the coast are developments literally on the beach or overlooking the beach.

We passed Moorish castles, fruit tree plantations (orange?).  The train drove through a small forest fire, which didn't distract our seat mate one mote from the animated film on the TV as smoke came in the car. We drove past salt-making fields and plantations of the cactus type ripe with prickly pears. We saw farms with large bales of hay and Massey-Harris tractors and blue tractors as the land rose and fell.

The famous clay tiled roofs and white buildings began cropping up and the landscape started "to look like Spain".

The train is non-smoking except for in the crammed restaurant car with a smoke cloud. It provides oven baked pizzas and baguette based sandwiches. Tuna and anchovies are popular on both. They also sell the ubiquitous peach juice and orange juice. No other juice was available in Spain. (By time I got to Gibraltar I ordered a bottle of hard mango just so I wouldn't have to have Fanta, orange or peach juice.)  The train also offered is the decadent "Cola Cao" which is sugared cocoa served in hot whole milk. (Ingredients: El sabor unico de Cola Cao es azucar, cacao desgrasado en polvo, crema de cereal kola-malteado (Harina de trigo, extracto de malta, extracto de nuez de cola) fosfato bicalcico, aromas, sel. )

We arrived in the immaculate metropolis of Malaga the day after a major bullfight; we had read the results in the paper en route and see the posters when we arrive. We will be gone again before the major singer Chayenne makes an appearance here. But soccer is perennial and on the sidewalk a group of young men argued over who was the best player.

The Zeus Hotel where we stayed sports the typically Spanish tilework. On air in Malaga there is a local TV channel broadcasting in Chinese and adult TV that might be difficult to even get into Canada even for adult shops. All over Spain, different censorship laws apply because women's bare breasts are evident in a lot of casual advertising and as magazine story eye candy.

In Malaga it's their local festival week. Because of the festival, some streets have stalls like a country fair but we go to walk along the beach of course dark sand and broken shells, grass umbrellas and lounge chair rentals. The sunset was over a peninsula out into a Mediterranean bay. Despite the health gyms and the beach's group of young men competing for most push ups and sit ups, it largely it seems to be a retirement town that shut down like Ottawa at basically between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. even during festival week. Maybe this is because it is a day trip destination for people from Madrid and by evening the Madrilaneans are headed back home. Or maybe we were just in the other part of town.

Afterwards, we truly dined at the French restaurant "Restaurante Adolfo" at 12 Paseo Maritimo Ruiz Picasso. Its chef, Adolfo Jaime Canseco, judging from the entry hall certificates is quite notable. The food is exquisite and creative. We had chilled soup of roasted garlic, potatoes, olive oil and grapes with a  caramelized sugar decoration. A main course of  duck and goose presented beautifully. And for desert we order "pescado de chocolate" -- chocolate fish or chocolate secret police -- oops. But the genteel waiter understood that I meant "pecado de chocolate" - chocolate sin. It was probably around 1000 calories each when split between us but was appropriate use of the food of the gods.

From here we took a bus to La Linea, Spain (7 Euros each for a very long ride) then from there we'll go a short hop to Algeciras for 1.5 Euros each and finally track down that ferry.  

2002, Pearl and Brian Pirie       | Trip Main Page |