Malaga, Spain – December 14

Today Bob and I went on different excursions. Mine was to the mountainside village of Mijas. Bob’s was to a cave and the town where the cave is located.

The main economy of Malaga is tourism. In season there can be 7 cruise ships in port. Today we were the only one. Malaga is the 6th largest city in Spain. With the surrounding area the population of Malaga is about 2 million.

Malaga is on the Costa del Sol with around 300 days of sun a year. In the summer it can get to almost 100 degrees with a lot of humidity. It too was founded by the Phoenicians around 2,800 years ago. The Phoenicians came to this area because of the abundance of minerals, copper and silver. When driving out of the port area we passed many high rise buildings that overlooked the Atlantic. Our guide said that they were the most expensive properties in Malaga.

She told us about 2 famous people born in Malaga; Picasso and Antonio Bandalares. Picasso, born in 1881, only lived here for 9 years. He spent most of his life in France and could not return to Spain because of Franco, a Fascist and Picasso a communist. Franco came into power after the Spanish Civil War, 1936 – 1939. He ruled until his death in 1975, at which time Spain became a democracy.

Bandalares has homes here still and returns yearly for Easter. He has 4 restaurants in town, has built a theater and does good work for the city.

Mijas is a town on the side of a mountain about 30 minutes from Malaga. All the buildings are white. It is a very wealthy area with many people retiring here from all over the world. There are other towns closer to the water that are also made of white buildings. In the lower areas closer to the water there are 16 golf courses.

The symbol of Mijas is the donkey. There were carts available for donkey rides. The donkeys were originally used to haul the good to build the buildings up the mountain, but the owners soon discovered they could make more money giving people rides than hauling goods. Nowadays goods are brought in by truck.

The town also has a small bullring. It is oval in shape.

We had a tapas tasting in the local chocolate factory. We had meats and olives and chips and wine. They had a presentation on chocolate and on how they make it here. We then got to taste the dark, milk, white chocolates and also had a bonbon.

Bob went to Nerja Cave and said it was very interesting. He said there were 480 steps going down and up. The cave was discovered by some boys who saw bats coming from the mouth of the cave.