Espana: Where´d my hostel go?

I flew from Basel, Switzerland to Malaga, Spain last night (bringing the number of countries I´ve visited on this trip to five: Canada, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Spain). Although in retrospect taking a bus to the hostel I had booked probably would have worked out... eventually... I opted for the easy route (taxi), which cost about $25.

The only problem was that once we arrived at the address of the Piscis Backpackers hostel (33 Cuarteles), it wasn´t there! There was indeed a ¨Piscis Edificio¨ at that address, but no hostel. In fact, even though I walked and biked around the neighborhood in my time in Malaga (which, admittedly, was a mere 18 hours), I never did see a hint of it.

Anyhow, there wasn´t any need to panic, since I saw a hotel not far down the street. Since its price was a bit high (50 Euros), I asked if there was a hostel nearby, and the man at reception pointed me in the direction of Pension Olympic, where the price was right (20 Euros for a 2-bed room, which gave me room to assemble my bike!).

I lingered in my room just long enough to drop my bags there and then headed out to explore the town. Despite lacking a decent map (thank you, Mr. Frommer!), I managed to find the old town area, where beautiful old cathedrals seemed to pop up around every corner. Which isn´t an exaggeration; because the city is so dense in that area, with very narrow streets, you literally don´t see these gorgeous cathedrals until you´re right in front of them.

I eventually returned to my pension around dark and was in bed by 10 p.m. The strangest thing is that I slept for a solid 12 hours! Which must mean that I´ve contracted the swine flu; I haven´t slept that long since I was last sick.

Unfortunately, that meant that I didn´t get to explore Malaga much this morning at all; I had hoped for a good run around the city but had to settle for a short ride (30 minutes) around the neighborhood. The good news is that I did happen upon the annual Malaga cultural festival and got to see some traditional dancing during my brief journey.

The bus to Granada left exactly on time (I thought things in Spain were supposed to run late?), where my host Elis Gea was going to be waiting for me at 4 p.m. There was some misunderstanding regarding the bus schedule (the 1 p.m. bus doesn´t run on Sundays), but fortunately the 1:45 bus arrived earlier than it was supposed to.

Once off the bus (with bike in hand; I had just laid it on its side in the luggage compartment in the bottom of the bus), I eventually made my way to her apartment. Let´s just say that Spain doesn´t take street signage as seriously as they do cramming as many buildings as possible in every square kilometer. Elis doesn´t speak any English, so it´s going to be a fun 2 weeks for sure! She explained that there is another student staying in the apartment, so I´m looking forward to meeting her. Based on the German shampoo and lotion in the bathroom, she´s either German or Swiss, so it should be fun to practice some German while I´m here, too!

After unpacking my clothes and other essentials, I was off for a walk around town. I made my way up to Alhambra, where I'll have to return to explore fully another time. All I can say is that the quantity of beautiful buildings here is astounding! Which isn't to say that it's all gorgeous, but I am glad that I lugged the SLR along.

And I certainly didn't expect the mountains here to be snow-covered at the top now! Especially considering how hot it was today (around 80 deg. F), even at 6 and 7 p.m. I need to figure out how to get up there, which would involve some hiking-boot rental, since I´ve left my boots, ice axe, etc., back in Freiburg.

Well, enough blathering on from me for now. I'm going to try to get in a run before dark!