Welcome back to my blog!
This past weekend Kelley, Taylor, and I went on our first solo trip! Normally when we spend the entire weekend in Sevilla, it gets to be pretty long. However, each time we have traveled, we have loved seeing new things and felt so refreshed in every place. There was nothing planned through our program this past weekend, so we decided to go to Malaga, Spain for a change of scenery.
Malaga is a city located on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea in eastern Spain. We decided to go there because it was one: cheap and two: it has beaches. Thankfully, Malaga is really close to Sevilla. Our bus ride was only 2.5 hours and cost about 30 Euro round-trip. So, we booked a trip for Friday-Saturday and reserved beds in a hostel for one night.
Friday morning we trekked to the Plaza de Armas bus station with our backpacks and lunches for the day. Our bus departed at 8AM, so it was a really early morning. Unfortunately, we always have some sort of mishap/problem when we travel. I don't know if it just the three of us together, or if one of us is just bad luck (Kelley thinks it's her, but I think it could be me so I am not sure about that one). There were two buses parked next to each other in the loading area that were headed to Malaga; one to the bus station and one to the airport. Our tickets said we were on the bus that was dropping us off near the city center, so we knew for sure that we were not on the airport bus. However, the bus driver was checking tickets before boarding the bus, so when he saw ours he told us to wait off to the side for a moment. My friends and I were really confused because we had checked and made sure that this was the right bus. We immediately started thinking about what might happen and what could be wrong, which did not help the situation. At least there were two buses, though, so we thought that we would take the one to the airport if they had somehow double booked our seats. The bad part of that would be that our hostel was nowhere near the airport because we used the other station's proximity to reserve our stay.
The driver continued to load passengers and kind of ignored us. This was very confusing because he spoke to us in Spanish, and did not communicate the situation well at all. Then, the driver of the airport bus came over to us and looked at our tickets for our seat numbers. He read off the names of the passengers in those seats to us, and we told him that none of those people are us. Then, he communicated with the driver of our bus and told him that we are not on his bus. The driver read through the list and realized he had boarded the people from the airport bus that had our same seat numbers on his! He went on the bus, told them, and then they got off and went to the other bus. We boarded the correct bus, and left a few minutes after 8AM.
We arrived in Malaga, just shy of 11AM, with no plan besides checking into the hostel at 3PM and going to the beach at some point. Traveling by ourselves with no itinerary felt amazing because there was no stress or hurry. Plus we were still in Spain, so we knew it would be easy and we would feel comfortable with finding things to do. Luckily for us, we were there on the holiday of DÃa de AndalucÃa, which is a celebration of the formation of the autonomous community that we live in. This holiday meant that all the museums and memorials were free for the day!
Our first free outing in Malaga was visiting the Alcazaba, a Muslim fortress built sometime in the 10th-15th century. It is built on a steady incline, so our backpacks really began to start weighing on us (we had to carry them around since we couldn't check in until 3). We took a lot of breaks, but it was nice to sit and enjoy the view from the fortress. Here is a slide show of some pictures!
After the Alcazaba, we headed to the Semana Santa museum before it closed at 2PM. Unfortunately, most of it wasn't open to the public. We found this out by going through a door that we were not allowed to go through. I did manage to take some pictures of the part that we were allowed to be in, though!
The lady that stopped us was really nice, and she started a conversation! We ended up learning that she is a college student too, and is studying education like Kelley. She informed us that there would be a practice processional for Semana Santa (a holy week in Spain that is April 5-12 this year) near the cathedral that night.
By this point in the day, we were STARVING. Thankfully, our hosts gave us a packed lunch of sandwiches and fruit so we did not have to find lunch. We made our way to a very serene park to chill in the shade and eat.
Once we were done with lunch, we headed to the hostel to check in and relieve our backs of our bags. Check-in went smoothly, and we walked down a long hallway to our room. Our room was a mixed-gender room with 10 beds, 7 of which were occupied (including us). When I sent some pictures to my friends of the bunks, they told me that it looked like an old time hospital or a prison, which was really accurate. Our beds had drawers underneath them with storage, but somehow none of our locks fit. I ended up just locking my zippers closed on my backpack.
We were expecting the room to be a fun, loud environment with sociable travelers around our age. It was actually the complete opposite. We walked into a dark room with an older man and an older woman sleeping in their beds. Later, a middle-aged man came into the room and a very quiet woman who actually seemed to be our age followed soon after. There was one toilet, two showers, and a sink. The floors were concrete, which just added to the dismal environment. However, the common areas were bright and fun!
We quickly changed and claimed our beds before heading out again. My host family told me about the Picasso museum there, and I really wanted to go. Plus it was free! We only walked about 15 minutes to get there. The museum was awesome, and had over 200 of Picasso's works. Sadly, we couldn't take any pictures, although it did make sense. I loved going there, but I wish I was a person that could really appreciate art.
We left the museum and headed deeper into the city. We ended up walking into the area of the Malaga Carnival! Not only did we manage to visit Malaga during one celebration, but we somehow managed to be there for Carnival as well!
After strolling through the carnival area and scoping out some ideal dinner places, we threw on our swimsuits at the hostel and went to the beach. By the time we got there, though, it was much too cold because the sun was setting. We walked in the water just so we could say that we have been in the Mediterranean Sea.
Then, we headed to the Cathedral (got some gelato and took pictures for people on the way) for the processional. After waiting for some time, the processional passed by us! There were candles and singing and a statute of Jesus.
By 8PM, we were exhausted. So, we went back to the hostel to rest before Carnival. We saw the girl from our room in the lobby and decided to sit down with her and talk. Her name was Nozomi and she was from Osaka, Japan and had been traveling for 6 months around Asia and Europe. I was amazed! she showed me and my friends her journal and stamps, while switching between Spanish and English to communicate with us. I ended up asking her if she wanted to get dinner with us and see Carnival with us too. Our new friend said yes! We left the hostel a few minutes after that and hunted down some pizza. The Carnival was really pretty, and we ate some mini donuts there as well. It definitely was not a crazy party, but I was glad because I did NOT have it in me to do more than eat. Here's some pictures from Carnival!
The night at the hostel ended up being strange. There was someone talking in their sleep (which I got a kick out of since it was in Spanish) and someone from a nearby room was snoring very loudly. The middle-aged man in our room got so fed up with the snoring that he started to bang on the wall while shushing the person in the other room. This did nothing, so he eventually gave up. We were awoken very early in the morning by our friend packing up and leaving for Morocco. Let's just say that by the time the alarm went off, I had barely slept at all.
Breakfast at the hostel was only 2,50 Euro for a buffet of cereal, toast, juice, tea, and some muffins. I ate quite a bit, and stashed some muffins in my drawstring for later. We had to check out at 11AM, so to kill some time, we shopped in the main Malaga shopping area.
Check-out was a breeze. I stripped my sheets and brought them to the lobby and returned the key so I could get my deposit back. The only bad part of this process though was that our bus did not leave until 2:30PM. This meant that we had to carry our backpacks on our sore backs until we left. We decided that the most relaxing thing to do with our day was visiting the beach. So we left the hostel with our swimsuits under our clothes and walked to a different beach.
This time was much better. It was pretty hot outside, so the cold water felt nice, after I got over the shock of course. I spent some time burying myself and getting a nice sun burn on my back.
Sadly, it was soon time to leave for the bus station. The three of us changed in a bathroom on the beach and navigated our way to the bus station. We had a lunch of Taco Bell, which was surprisingly expensive. Then, sand and all, we boarded the bus back to Sevilla.
I spent the rest of Saturday night and the whole day on Sunday resting because this trip was exhausting. We walked more than 15 miles Friday, and more than 10 Saturday, so my legs were really sore. I also swallowed a lot of saltwater at the beach (like a little kid) so I was dehydrated with a sore throat. I am feeling better today, though! This coming weekend I am going to Morocco in Africa, so stay tuned!
Thanks for reading!
Micaela