Malaga, Spain and the Alhambra: November 18, 2023

So, another day, another bus ride. We are at port in Malaga, Spain, which lies in Southern Iberia on the Costa del Sol (“Coast of the Sun”) of the Mediterranean.

Our bus ride was about an hour and half northeast to Alhambra, a palace and fortress of the Moorish monarchs of Granada. The name Alhambra, signifying in Arabic “the red,” was derived from the reddish color of the tapia, a building material made of clay of which the outer walls were built. It is one of the most famous monuments of Islamic architecture and one of the best-preserved palaces of the historic Islamic world. We listened to a several hour lecture about Alhambra, Spain, the Muslims, the Catholics and so forth from our tour guide, Maria, but I will spare you the details. The history is super confusing, but the place was quite beautiful.

So Alhambra is huge–about 35 acres total. Part of the tour was the gardens and the other part was the castle. All the way up to Alhambra, Maria went over and over how we had to stick together, we must show our passports to get into the castle, blah, blah, blah. We were honestly getting pretty sick of hearing it by the time we got there. Everything went pretty well until we entered the castle grounds, and Maria discovered we were missing just one person. There were supposed to be 30, but there were only 29. When Maria counted, she freaked out and said, “Someone is missing!” A guy in an ugly long-sleeved acid green shirt (a crew neck, not even a quarter zip) said loudly, “Yes, it’s my wife!” Maria screeched, “Where is she?” He answered, “I don’t know! I thought she was right by me!” Okay, what a weird scene. The guy just lost his wife? He didn’t know what happened to her? Maria and the guy went out of the gate (remember, it was a big deal to get in there with passports) and were gone about 15 minutes. When they came back, they hadn’t found his wife and we continued the tour as if nothing had ever happened. It was kind of like, nope, didn’t find her. Oh, well. Those are the breaks. We were in the castle over an hour and she did finally turn up later on the bus. No idea where she was that entire time. Possibly kidnapped. I would have been hopping mad if Doug had left me outside the castle walls and blithely continued the tour, but maybe that’s just me.

Tonight we are headed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and we arrive in Casablanca, Morocco tomorrow morning about 10 AM. I didn’t remember my geography that well, so I had to look up Strait of Gibraltar for a refresher course. For those of you in the same boat (not literally), it is a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic Ocean to the Mediterranean Sea and separates Europe from Africa. The captain of the ship said we should get there by 10 PM, depending on the traffic. Yes, that is what he said, so I guess the traffic to the Strait of Gibraltar can be pretty brutal.

Some notes: For a mental picture of Maria, she was a large-boned tall woman with short, dark hair and a commanding voice. She said “muy bien” (very well) about 60 times today. She also went on and on gushing about Antonio Banderas, who was born in Malaga. On another vein, last night at dinner on the ship we saw a an older guy (65-ish?) and a much younger woman (29-ish?) eating dinner. On the way out they stopped by a table near us and he introduced her as his girlfriend to another couple. Okay. Then he told them that they had met at the launderette. Nope, that never happened.