April 21

We would have an early start this morning, needing to catch the ferry to Tarifa in Spain at 10:00 am.  By now, our many years of travel make these kind of starts easier with the practice and routine we’ve developed.  After a few short weeks, the layout in your bag becomes fixed and packing is simplified, as each item finds its home there, helping to ensure that you have not forgotten something in the last-minute rush to get out the door. 

We had just enough time to grab some breakfast downstairs before taking a taxi (our hosts at the Dar called one for us) down to the port for our ship.  There we encountered some confusion as the online tickets we’d purchased needed to be scanned and then printed out prior to boarding.  But that taken care of it was now just a matter of waiting to board and this was when we were glad we’d had breakfast as the departure building had no food facilities at all. 

We boarded, found seats at a table (it would get uncomfortably crowded when a group of locals filled in around us) and enjoyed a coffee and a snack on board during our roughly ninety-minute voyage.  As it turned out, our trip would be one of the last on this route, as the ferry company was changing to a new one, this to be out of the Tangier Med Port (outside of town) to Algeciras in Spain.  We’d be passing through Algeciras on the bus the day of our landing, but we will get to that later. 

We landed in Tarifa, cleared customs and walked from the port into this small town with time to kill until we could catch our bus to Malaga in the early afternoon.  Pretty hungry by now, we hit an ATM first to get some Euros and then stopped in for a nice breakfast at Café Azul, sharing a crepe with a coffee con leche for me and a smoothie for Joanna, all for 14 Euros ($16). 

From there we walked up the main drag until we reached the bus station, a small operation with an equally small bar and food stand where we bought a drink to help us through our wait.  Our bus would run 43 Euros ($47) for the two of us and later, an hour or so before our scheduled departure, with the snack bar closed, I did a short walk about trying to find some more food for us as our bus ride would last over three hours.  Our only real option was a gas station next door where I got us a beer and a pre-packaged ham sandwich to tide us over. 

Soon enough our bus arrived, and we rode it all the way to Malaga, hugging the coast most of the way with multiple stops enroute, but none long enough to get off to stretch one’s legs.  During long stretches we passed through what is known as “the sea of plastic,” the world’s largest concentration of plastic greenhouses, which produce 40-50% of Europe’s fruits and vegetables, including large quantities of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and zucchini.  Developed since the 1960s to transform an arid region into an agricultural hub, the greenhouses use innovative technologies such as automated irrigation and water recycling.  While bringing economic prosperity, the vast scale of this intensive farming system also generates substantial plastic waste and raises concerns about water pollution and labor exploitation. 

We eventually reached the bus terminal in downtown Malaga and secured an Uber for 19 Euros ($22) to take us to a suburb where we checked into RG Duque de Aveiro, a hostel like accommodation with small rooms and nice common areas.  At 98 Euros ($113) it seemed a little dear for what we were getting, but it was conveniently located close to the airport where we would pick up our rental car the next morning. 

We unpacked and then walked out and around the block to the main drag where I had spotted what looked to be a good place for dinner, La Batea Churrianera and we hit the jackpot there.  Seated inside by a very friendly waiter, who would struggle a bit with English while we did the same with Spanish, but we worked it all out in the end.  We ordered a bottle of Albarino and Joanna got to pick the fish of her choice out of a tank while I went for a simple breaded chicken cutlet with fries.  After the consistently good, but repetitive food we’d experienced in Morocco, this was like a breath of fresh air and very reasonable at 48 Euros ($55) and remember, that included a bottle of wine. 

We had time the next morning before picking up the rental car at the airport and so walked a few blocks to an interesting restaurant that was connected to a BP gas station, La Vega de Churriana.  We were surprised at the size of the place, but seated we ordered a couple of coffee con leches’ and for Joanna, a Bacon and Cheese sandwich with a fried egg and I hit a home run with the Huevos Rotos con Jamon, essentially a bowl of French fries topped with a large amount of thinly sliced ham, a fried egg and large slices of vine ripe tomato.  I did the best I could to finish but in the end, it defeated me, all of it good and all of it a bargain at 15.60 Euros ($18.06).

Happily full, we returned to the Duque and after packing, caught an Uber, a beautiful black Mercedes E-Class station wagon for 15.29 Euros ($17.60) to the airport, where after taking a confusing path to the rental office, we were able to secure a new Ford Kuga ST, based on the Escape platform it has been in production since 2008, primarily for the European market.   Ours was a plug-in hybrid ((although we never got a chance to charge the battery) and we enjoyed all the new technology it featured including Apple CarPlay and advanced driver-assistance technologies.  It cost us a bit more to upgrade for its size, given that we’d be traveling with my sister Beverly and we knew we’d need the luggage capacity to make loading and unloading so much easier. 

Our total cost for the rental of twenty days was 1,332 Euros ($1,493) or $75 a day.  Some of this cost would be reduced as we would be splitting it three ways for fifteen days with Beverly, who we would meet in Valencia after our next two stops.  We’ll pick up the journey as we drove out of the lot and headed to Dave and Jessie’s condo near Almeria in the next post. 

Links

Café Azul: https://cafeazul-tarifa.com/

RG Duque de Aveiro: https://rgduquedeaveiro.top/

La Batea Churrianera: https://www.facebook.com/labateachurrianera/?locale=es_LA

La Vega de Churriana: https://www.cafelavega.com/lavegadechurriana/index.php