It's the Andalusian way

White walls, masses of flowering plants. We went on a little roadtrip today -- although it turned out to be not so little. We headed up to Jete, above Almuñecar, and then just kept going, and going .... Our poor underpowered rented Fiat pottered up ever steeper hills -- we rarely got above second gear, and even then it was struggling. Spectacular views ... eventually we reached a bar/restaurant literally in the middle of nowhere; it was open, so we stopped for a coffee. The abuela (granny) who runs it came and sat down with us and after initially innocuous chat got ever more stroppy as she ranted about the department of the environment (thieves), her son's ex-wife (una verguenza), modern women in general (putas), and, inevitably, politicians (thieves).It was an entertaining conversation, and we were rather gratified that we could understand 90% of what this authentic Andalusian peasant said to us. I was suffering from comprehension fatigue after about 20 minutes though. Finally we said goodbye and got a handshake (S) and a double cheek kiss (me). We told her we would return.

Eventually we reached civilisation in the form of Padul, a village somewhat closer to Granada than we had expected (yes, we forgot to bring the Spanish road atlas). From there we headed for the Lecrin valley, and stopped in Albuñuelas (blip) for a beer and a free tapa -- enough to constitute lunch, for a total of 2.40 euros. Extra: typical Andalusian cats.

Back to Almuñecar, a rest, and then a stroll around the nature reserve in Motril. Not much to see except for ducks and coots. And after that, we hopefully headed to our former neighbourhood in Almuñecar to find that the ultimate bar de barrio, Los Pajaritos, was open. Yay! A glass of wine each and a plate of fried fish for aperos ... 3.40 euros. This is such a lovely bar, shame it's a bit far away from our prospective new neighbourhood.

We'd been gutted earlier to find that our favourite Almuñecar restaurant, el Horno de Candida, had closed down. But the lady in the nearby corner shop told us that the chef had moved to the hotel a few doors down. So we had dinner on their roof terrace ... sadly it was a pale shadow of its former incarnation, to the extent that we wondered if it was really the same chef. Still, it was not expensive, and now we are replete and ready for bed.