The last few weeks have been crazy for me with lots of shoots and my 30 yr. high school reunion, which I had a big role in planning. After the dinner, we had everyone over to our house for some more catching up. I got to bed around 2, was up at 5 and out the door in 30 mins to catch a plane. Didn't do as much planning as I would have liked and didn't even learn any phrases, but we had a "Spanish speaker" with us. No worries....right?We had a 6 hr layover at JFK and I can't go to NYC without eating, so we caught a cab and headed to a clam bar I had read about. After an uneventful flight, we landed in Malaga, Spain about 7:30 in the morning. None of us slept much but I felt up for driving. Call me crazy, but I am always amazed when I go to a foreign country and can't read the signs. Not that I EXPECT them to be in English, I just always expect to be able to understand them and for the roads to be like they are here. How many ways can you build a road or make a sign? Ha! By the time we get going good, we've had about 5 hrs sleep in close to 48 hrs and not feeling real fresh. With the "help" of a gps we felt confident but the confidence was soon destroyed. An hour into what should have been a 45 min drive the exit we began to worry. To make a looong and bleary-eyed story short, our gps had us off the highway, down a pot-hole filled road, turn onto a dirt road and then turn onto a 2 rutted dirt path thru a lemon orchard. Apparently this road led to a dump or garbage needed to be picked up there because a garbage truck pulled up behind us and we were STUCK. They wanted us to move, but how??? From the looks on their faces, they were concerned about our sanity, but we decided not to move until we could extract directions from them. Our "Spanish speaker" speaks the elementary-school nurse-in a-south-Texas-school kind of Spanish, not the I-need-to-make-adults-in-Spain-understand-that-I-am-lost kind of Spanish. It did not help that we couldn't even pronounce the name of the little town we were headed to. I finally go out my Rick Steves' travel book, found a map and showed it to them. It worked! They all 3 had a hand in drawing a map for us (in retrospect, maybe not the best idea), and helped us get out of the field.
I have to add here that our mantra for the trip has been "even the garbage men in Spain are good looking", because there is a single lady on the trip with us. This phenomenon was made known to me by another friend who had just gotten back from Spain and had a wonderful time, apparently looking at garbage men. This fact did hold true. These were the cleanest, best dressed garbage men I have ever seen.
Feeling relieved and our confidence restored, we started off again. Another hour later, we were on another dirt road, scratching our heads and lost as a gaggle of geese. By now, I was exhausted and starved. With any other people I probably would have been in tears, but even though I had "known" these girls for over 40 years, I really didn't know them anymore. What if they thought I was a lunatic if I banged my head on the steering wheel like I felt like doing?
We reprogrammed the gps and started off again. The 3rd time was definitely NOT the charm, 'cause guess where we ended up? Right, another dirt road. This time on a ranch or farm. We knew we were in trouble when we started passing farm equipment and all the workers stared at us as we passed by. Well, that and there were no other cars on the roads at all. These are pictures of the car once we decided we were on the fast track to nowhere. We got turned around and found our way out of the ranch/farm drove a little further and stopped to ask directions. Our "Spanish speaker" went in and came out with directions that we decided not to follow. Smart women, huh? Instead we headed to the closest town we could see, found a restaurant and had some lunch. Thank goodness there was a lady there who could speak English. She gave us directions, we were still 30-40 mins away. I knew this place was in the mountains and had read about the "treacherous" roads. But really, how bad could it be? With no sleep, a fear of heights and a 2 lane road that didn't always have guardrails, it was pretty bad. This is when we first saw the town. We had to stop and take a 
picture. I think I shed a tear of relief, too.I thought the hard times were over, but when we pulled into town, more fun awaited. This is an old village, not built for cars. That doesn't stop them from driving there. One car will fit down these streets with just a little room on the sides, but it is definitely not a 2 lane road. The sidewalks are really just foot-wide tiled areas to keep the cars from scraping against the houses. We (I) had to navigate thru there to find our house. When we found it, I pulled over as far as I could and stopped. I thought there was a garage, so we asked where is was so we could park the car there. "Oh, there is a garage, but you won't be able to pull into it. " It's a hairpin turn with a cliff behind it! Then she asked me to move the car so her husband could park in front of the house. I offered her the keys and told her to do it herself. The car stayed there.
Everything got better once we got settled. Here are some shots of the apt. More about the trip to come.
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