Malaga, Grenada, Nerja, Andalucia Coast

Playing chicken with farmers on country roads isn't the way to make friends in Spain. In hindsight I probably wasn't in the best state to try my hand at driving on the opposite side of the road either.

We decided we couldn't waste a Friday night so had a siesta from 8-10pm, then decided to head out to the discotecas in Malaga for another night. I hit a supermercado near the hotel and picked up the worlds biggest wedge of brie, a giant mouldy sausage and some other random antipasto stuff and we squeezed in a continental dinner, washed down with some 92 cent cartons of wine and headed out. It was only about midnight by the time we got into town (pretty early by Spaniard standards) so grabbed a desert while getting serenaded by a piano accordion player.

The 3rd pub into the night was pretty cool- there were 5 barrels behind the bar- Lyn grabbed a Musscado (Muscat) from one of them- not bad. The next pub wasn't quite the same though... After getting beered out we went for a change- With no idea of what it was, we grabbed a bottle of manzanilla. Whoops. We then spent the next 20 minutes trying to palm it off to the blokes we were chatting to at the table next door, but We had less than no luck- seems they had made our mistake before.

What seemed like hours without a beer later, the manzanilla was gone and I had accepted the ancient pommie ritual of becoming a cardinal, along with a Czech, Italian, German and Polish bloke. We shot through to an Irish pub to fire it up, and it was all downhill from there. I wont go into it- Its something that needs to be taught. I'm still not sure how, but come 3am the polar bear that walked into our pub was shouting wilko tequilas, and our adopted group was off chops and making moves to the next club. After we heard the entry price of the next club We decided to split with them and jumped a cab back to the hotel with the plan of getting in a healthy 5 hours sleep before tackling the big drive.

This morning I wasn't feeling so flash, but nothing a ham and cheese sanger wouldn't fix. Perhaps I could have gone without those 4 skulled pints during my education of the cardinal... meh.Off to the car hire place and we got our shiny wheels- a new Toyota Yaris D4 Diesel for about $140 for the day. I was pegged as the driver so got the first run in it- It was there waiting for me illegally parked on the wrong side of the road on the apex of a street corner. Diesel, left hand drive, in Spain in heavy traffic and with a hangover. Awesome combo.

After the first hurdle of starting it (needs both clutch and brake depressed fully) we headed off in search of a highway. Google maps from the night before saved the day and after sweating blood trying to forget the usual habits of left hand gear changes, keeping left, expecting people to indicate, having right of way when your in a roundabout we were off and racing. Yeah, I mean racing. Apparently theres no enforcement of speed limits here and I had to keep slowing down when I noticed the speedo counting towards 150, I still was one of the slower cars on the freeway though. I reckon we'd be parked in the Mediterranean or in jail if it wasn't for Lyn's Left/Right/Straight/STOP FOR THAT OLD LADY ON THE CROSSWALK IN FRONT OF YOU! calls. Cheers!

The car option turned out to be awesome, and at EUR $21 for 400km of diesel pretty cheap too. We hit the Alhambra in Grenada, The Nerja Caves in wearthefoxhat, crossed the Sierra Nevada and then just cruised the Spanish coastline for a few hours. Awesome day. The first stop was looking for an invisible castle- after taking the hire car bush to do a U-turn on an empty country road I instantly snapped back to keep left, and no one else in the car picked up on it. A short while up the road an oncoming farmer wasn't impressed and I had a wake up call to get back on the right. Wilksy had a bash at the driving but bailed out after testing the strength of a few kerbs and discovering the old narrowing streets of Spain country towns. Come the end of the day though, Lyn and Wilksy both had a pretty decent bash at the reverse roundabouts, Spain freeways and overtaking on the left and I had a new appreciation for rumble strips. It saves you from having to yell "GET AWAY FROM THOSE BOLLARDS AND GET BACK ON THE ROAD"

Trying to drop the car back became a mission in itself- The freeway signs back to Malaga stopped about 5km before town, our piss poor map only showed the city centre's streets and we were running late for the train to boot. I turned up an 8-lane city road at peak hour, then realised we were heading the wrong way... that was the first U-turn I have done (on-road) that has taken over 15 minutes to pull off. 5 sets of lights and 4 invisible zebra crossings later I had done a U-turn in the roundabout I was at and we were back on track.

We got to the traino, had a shower in a can and jumped on the Trenhotel. Its pretty cool hey- As we pulled off from malaga station to Barcelona I was in my own room and kicked back with some tunes and watched the sunset out the window. At 9 I headed to the bar to meet the others (we are all in separate rooms) and grab a feed- We we nt in for the silver service sit down menu over a counter meal- Cheese platter, black Cuttlefish Risotto, and "fresh fruit"' (from a tin) lyn shouted a bottle of local tinto and we bludged 2 hours in the comfort of the dining car.

Back to my train room and the beds have been laid out and I have 3 Spanish room mates that cant speak a word of english. I was doubtful about being told that some people have been gassed in the rooms then robbed, but the other blokes seem pretty keen to chain the door... Maybe they just have a wild night planned for me...