Waking up in Malaga

By this time I have no longer any idea of the day of the week nor the date. What I do know is the breakfast offered to us this morning by the very neutral and business-like TRYP hotel is the best we've had so far. Expresso coffee, a wide selection of fruits and juices, several kinds of yogurts, idem breads and rolls, exquisite little cakes, cold cuts and eggs for the asking. It will be hard, but certainly necessary, to return to the homemade granola with soymilk and a single fruit - our usual fare in Rio. Abel appears  holding several printed sheets and Oswaldo and I leave him to think about his talk. Soon Oswaldo too is gone and I pack our bags and prepare to vacate the room and meet Carlota, who's been doing the same. We have a plan to find the world famous Picasso Museum in the historic center, but El Corte Inglés, a huge department store, on the way lures us in, and we spend some motherly in time there selecting Christmas presents. On our way out we hear lively forró music. Turns out there's a skating rink nearby, where teenagers are having a lot of fun dacing on their blades - or just holding on for dear life.

We pass a splendid array of phallic-looking churros, offering a variety of fillings,

and eventually, with the help of many passers-by, find the way to the historic center.  

The new Museo Carmen Thyssen, built in a renovated old palace, has a selection of mainly 18-19th century Spanish painters, many excellent, depicting scenes from life in southern Spain. It's fascinating for us, because it makes the settings, the shaded courtyards with their fountains and tiles and the lush gardens, which we have seen throughout our trip, come alive. It is a happy collection, perhaps because it takes a loving look at life and tradition in Andalusia and makes you feel part of it. This is the painting called "Julia", which is the "carro chefe" of the collection

I have to run our of the quiet exhibition rooms, when my cell-phone suddenly trills its merry tune. Oswaldo and Abel are done and will be dropped nearby, by a Malagan professor.  There is a still the world famous Picasso Museum to be seen, but when we meet up in the nearby Plaza de la Constitución, we just feel like walking along, watching the scene,  and then finding the Mediterranean - Abel's long time dream. 

We cross a busy avenue and walk through a long garden, where Bird of Paradise flowers and date palms mix with more temperate vegetation, until we reach a modern port area

Abel is thrilled to see the sea and starts singing to himself, songs about the sea, which he learnt in his childhood. We find an attractive outdoor restaurant for our lunch

and then take a cab back to our hotel, where the bags are waiting. The hotel arranges a new driver for our ap. 2 hour drive to Ronda. Sated after lunch and wine all except Carlota doze of. Every now and again I come to and catch bits of her conversation with the driver, who, it turns out, was vegan for twenty years until he met his muslim wife and converted. He says he could not continue to be vegan "because of the sacrifices," a phrase we return later to wonder what it means. What sacrifices? Meanwhile the landscape is changing dramatically with the lowering sun on our right and I snap some photos as we drive along.

Finally we enter Ronda, the largest of the pueblos blancos in the mountains between Malaga and Sevilla. The Guadelevin river, which we saw in Sevilla, cuts through the city in the deep Tajo canyon, and our hotel, the former town hall and now a Parador hotel, sits right next to it. Once in our room I open the windows to take my first look at the amazing view surrounding us.

The bridge is mentioned in Hemingway's For Whom the Bells Toll as the one from which fascist sympathizers are thrown to their death. In fact, we will learn, this seemingly peaceful little town has suffered much in the past, including from the hands of the Spanish Inquisition.