Turismo Tropical Almunecar

... and her friend, Rob flew to Spain to join them for Thanksgiving. They stayed in the coastal village of Nerja, so they were just down the road from us. They came in on the afternoon of Thanksgiving, so we decided to have our dinner on Friday (it was still Thursday in parts of the US, so we felt OK about it). Given that we didn’t have an oven, and there were no turkeys to be had in Spain, we had a truly Spanish ...

J'arrive à la montagne, dans les Alpujarras, après plusieurs heures de vélo et aussi un peu de bus: Je suis accueillie au village par Jordi, fermier bio espagnol. Nous avons convenus que je resterais une semaine avec eux et qu'on verrait par la suite: Grande tranquillité dans cet endroit. Je fais la connaissance de sa femme, Lore, suisse-allemande de Zurich et de leurs 2 enfants, un garçon de 10 ans, Rama, et une fille de 8 ans, Tara ...

... called Competa. We finally visited a winery - it was pretty rinky-din. Wine tasting in this area is nothing like in California. They only served white wine. Very sweet, almost like dessert wine. It was interesting. We then headed to another nearby town called Torrox for dinner. We were told by several people that El Chicla was the best ...

... He was so friendly and informative. Of course, Mike picked his brain about anything and everything to do with this area. He has 3 little boys who Shae befriended. We're noticing the language barrier when she meets kids. She just can't communicate with them yet. She understands what they are saying but she always answers in English. She definitely misses playing with kids her own age. We enjoyed our lunch and then went into Nerja again for dinner. We ...

... a bucket of scraps and headed out to feed the donkeys. Along the way she was accosted by a cute little pot-bellied pig who stole her bucket and started munching! He was so cute!

After the donkey sanctuary we headed out for a drive to explore the area more. The beaches are surround by beautiful mountains. We headed up to a mountain village called Frigiliana. We had a nice lunch there and set out to explore the rest of the area. After a 1.5 hour ...

... we're told in the months of july/august and sometimes september this place is a zoo. Tons of people, no parking. We're able to go to any restaurant and not wait for a table. It's fantastic! We found a great little playground on the beach and right next to a restaurant with tables in the sand. Shae loved it. She played in the playground and dug in the sand for 2 hours. We headed back to the house and then drove into Nerja (5 min car drive ...

... Hostal. Our room was small, air-conditioned (you could hang meat in there at 3am), and just 40 Euros. A steal.

Back on the road tomorrow for Ronda, one of the oldest towns in Spain with pre-historic cave drawings in the area. It’s about 45km inland, over those mountains. John, if you go to Maui later, take the drive to Hana…..it’s kinda the same as this drive.

... College boys...oh testosterone. Anyway, Nick ended up getting sucker-punched by a random guy for some stupid reason...except it was no regular punch, but more like a bottle to the head. We ended up having to take him to the hospital to get three stitches. Luckily, healthcare here is free and quick. We were in and out in a surprisingly short amount of time...and while we were there another spaniard came in, with the same head-wound, given to him by ...

... by Carlos Saura. There didn´t appear to be a plot, just a series of various performances from the Flamenco culture - dancing (great), music (also great), and singing (sometimes great, but mostly awful to listen to - not through lack of talent, but because that´s what flamenco-style singing sounds like!!!). This weeks lessons have been quite taxing on the brain - even though they only take up 4 hours of each day. So far this ...

... and a piece of bread. It was good. Finish off the beer and then everyone was up for another one. This time I had something like pinchito murano or something like that. Tender pork on a skewer with fried and a piece of bread, but I ordered a tinto de verano instead of beer. Red wine and lemon carbonated drink together. Almost like sangria only simpler. Mmmmmm. Barely finished when we were all off to the next place. I couldn´t believe how cheap it was. Something like that ...