I can't think of anything to write at the moment, so am continuing with my writing from years past. I went to Nerja to the same hotel again this last January, but had a better time the first time I went, so that is what this is about. 

Holiday in Nerja, Spain - October 13-20, 1996

When I heard that Pauline was organising a Bridge holiday to a small fishing village in Spain, I found the idea very attractive. I decided to ask my sister Kathleen if she would like to go as my partner - and roommate.

I got some details of the town and hotel from a brochure - and did a little research at the library, but when it came time to go, I still didn't feel that I had much of an idea of where we were going and what we were likely to want to do there, apart from going to some caves, and visiting the Alhambra.

Kathleen arrived in England on the Tuesday before we were due to go to Spain on Sunday, 13th October. This would give her time to get over any jet lag - and get some practice bridge sessions.

Kathleen was very nervous about the bridge aspect of it, as she had played very little, and she knew that I taught it at Adult Education classes and also played it several times each week.

Sunday, Philip took us to the airport. Our seats were not together - and Kathleen particularly wanted a window seat - so when mine came out to be one, and hers an aisle seat, we swapped. It was funny really that I should be sitting next to a man who I knew - via the telephone and written communications for some time. He was Stan Wood - a man who had won a competition I had set for limericks at my Adult Education Centre some years ago - so he knew my name and said, "Are you the famous Jean Day?" which caused me no end of amusement. But he was very good company and I got to know and like him and his wife very much over the week.

Unfortunately for Kathleen, we travelled over clouds most of the journey, and it was only when our 2 1/2 hour flight was nearly over that she was able to see the land which was grey and wet. We were all very disappointed - having left a nice hot day in England - and Kathleen an even hotter day in Portland - to arrive in pouring rain - with no hint of it clearing up for some time. But at least we were there - and we determined to make the most of it.

Then we were ushered outside onto a bus for those going to our hotel - the Villa Flamenco in Nerja. The town name is pronounced in an odd way - sort of a guttural sound of growling and cackling for the J.   The trip from our landing place to Nerja took about an hour - and we drove along the coast - but we could see very little as it was dark and wet. There was a lot of traffic coming towards the big city - but our lane moved fairly well - and soon we were pulling into the town - and then into a side road - and then down a narrow street and parking outside our hotel.

We were told to get in out of the rain and some of the men would take our cases through into the hotel for us. It was bedlam with everyone trying to get their room keys all at once. We were to get only one key per room - and needed to produce a passport to get it. I had Kathleen sit down guarding the bags while I pushed and shoved with the rest of them to get our room key - which was 309.

There was a small elevator but 20 other people were waiting for it and it could only hold two people at once, so I did a recky - and found our room not too hard a place to walk to - so we dragged our heavy bags up two flights and down a long corridor to arrive at our residence for the week. The odd thing was that the light switches in the corridors were on timers - and I got about half way down the corridor when the light went out. I later learned that you only had to press one of half a dozens switches along the corridor for them to come on again for another 20 seconds or whatever - but I didn't know that then - and so struggled in the dark to try to find the right room and fit in the key.

Our room was not overly large - but it had a balcony overlooking the mountains - and the sea, if you really tried hard to see it between the buildings. It had matching curtains and bedcovers - a small bathroom with a shower attachment - and a closet for hanging clothes with a chest of drawers underneath. Kathleen mostly kept her clothes still in her suitcase or on a chair - but I like to feel at home - so spread my clothes out thoroughly over all the drawers and hangers. I had two drawers full of shorts and sun tops that never even got worn - and swimming suits. It warmed up as the week progressed but was never hot and the tubes of sun cream and insect repellent, etc. were all totally unnecessary.

It was about nine pm when we had unpacked and set off to find the dining room for our first meal. We didn't change clothes - and since we weren't playing bridge afterwards, we intended to have a lot to drink to help us relax. Since our party were late, we had the dining room mostly to ourselves, but even so, the waiters were not in a big hurry to serve us, and we seemed to wait ages. It was a served first course of soup or savoury which that first night we chose - asparagus (white ones) in a cheese sauce.

Then we had free choice of a salad bar - which was lettuce, tomatoes, canned beets and carrots and sometimes something else like a rice salad - with mayonnaise or thousand island dressing. I was a bit unhappy about eating salad - due to the chance of getting a stomach upset - but we were so hungry and the waiters were so slow, that I had lots of salad and thought what the heck. We had ordered a bottle of red wine - intending to drink only half - but before our meal arrived we had nearly finished it all off. Our neighbours noticed and commented and said they didn't expect we would go through a bottle each night - but little did they know our capacity.

Eventually our main course arrived, and we found it satisfactory in a school-dinner sort of way. Chicken legs and chips and some sort of canned vegetable - with ice cream for dessert. We had eaten so much salad and drank so much wine by this time that neither of us could finish our main course. And so to bed - and an end to our first day of the bridge holiday.

Monday, we were invited to a meeting with our Rep who was called Simon, I think, who was short and blond and friendly - at 9.30 in the bar. Before that we had to have breakfast. This of all the meals was the most disappointing. We had a choice of corn flakes or musseli - canned orange juice or very small bitter half grapefruits or oranges, stale white bread which was toasted in a huge squeaky conveyer sort of toaster, coffee with hot milk or tea bag tea. Some times they offered awful sausages, or very hard boiled eggs. One day Kathleen got excited when we had bacon and scrambled eggs and some hard rolls, and filled her plate with it, and had indigestion for the rest of the day. (On my trip this last January, the food was much improved.)

The meeting was to tell us about how to get where, to offer us a drink,  and to encourage us to book excursions with them, which we wanted to do. We wanted to go to the Alhambra and to do so you needed to take a full day trip first to Granada - the capital of this region. We were also tempted to sign up for a full day trip to a small mountain town called Ronda - the home of bullfighting.

And the third trip was a freebie called the blanket trip which I thought was going to take us to lots of little villages - but in fact we went to only one - and had a small sample of sherry-type wine - and a piece of chocolate - with great encouragement to buy some - and a glass of red wine at the blanket selling place where they tried to convince us that our poor old arthritis bodies were crying out for wool blankets at the cost of £840. But they did have a competition and I won a Majorcan pearl drop -(worth about a dollar) and we had a nice bus trip for nothing. So we didn't complain too loudly.

After the meeting with the rep - we had another meeting in the billiard room with Pauline to sort out how the bridge would be and we signed up and paid for the knock-out competition.

This business completed, we met up with my friend from the Egypt holiday - Zaib - and her bridge partner for this trip - Margaret - and arranged to get together to walk to the caves which Margaret assured us were only 20 minutes easy walk away. Zaib, who is 61 and loves to have people ask her how old she is because she looks much younger, is also quite a keen walker - so she was happy with the arrangement to walk to the caves. I was somewhat in favour or going by bus or taxi - thinking that it might mean that Kathleen would be so tired she wouldn't want to play bridge at night if we walked - and even suspecting her of hoping she would be too tired to play bridge - but my suggestions of busses and taxis were looked upon with scorn by all.

So we set out  at about 11 - and after about a block realised that we were going in the wrong direction. So we back tracked - went up again past the hotel - and then again went the wrong way. Finally we got on the main road, and after a mile or so, stopped at a hotel so Zaib could change some money. We asked them how far to the caves, and they said "not far, up the road" so we carried on - and on- and on.

Some of us reckon it was 2 km some of us reckon it was at least 5 miles - but it did take a very long time - and we were all weary and footsore - and dirty - because we had to walk on the verge of the main highway for a good part of the trip. The walk was interesting - with views of various viaducts, and lots of pretty flowers and interesting buildings. But we were really tired - and stopped for a coffee when we knew we had almost reached our destination.

Just before that, we saw two very-covered-up-in-anorack people walking towards us. "Typical English" I said (we had no coats on at all and were getting a little wet)- and we stopped them to ask how much further to the caves and whether it was worth it.

The woman said, "Oh, you're Americans!!" It turned out she was from Washington DC, but now living in Essex or someplace like that, and they were so excited to find out Kathleen was from Oregon - and they wanted to live there sometime so wanted to know more about it. It turned out they were staying at our hotel, so we vaguely thought we might see them again.

After our much needed coffee and sit down, we progressed a bit further up the road, and saw several souvenir stalls, a restaurant, and a sort of shed like building which was where you bought your tickets. I had read briefly about the caves being worthwhile visiting, but in the back of my mind, I was envisaging something small and dark, with the odd cave painting, and maybe a few stalactites here and there.

But when we progressed down into the cave, it was like a magnificent chamber - which seemed to stretch miles long - with stalactites and stalagmites on every inch. The ceiling was miles high - or so it seemed - and we went down and down steps, and then up and up and down and down again. It seemed liked we were walking miles and around each new bend was another view of unbelievable beauty.

It was much more impressive than any of the Derbyshire caves or Cheddar Gorge - and to think we might have missed it, by turning back with our sore feet! When we went part way down, we were told to stop, and someone snapped a photograph of each of us in turn. We were then given a ticket. Naively, I thought this was some sort of security system to make sure everyone who went into the cave returned again. But it was a way of selling souvenirs. When we exited, we found our 5x7 photos developed and inserted into a cave-like frame - which might have been an attractive souvenir if we hadn't all been scowling at the camera.

Kathleen thought the caves looked like something from Disneyland - which I think meant something that was almost too good to be real. (The caves were discovered in about 1960 by some young boys who fell through a hole in the field they were running through. One of those boys now owns a paella restaurant at the far end of the beach where we went on our last day of the holiday this last January. He has a white pony tail, if any of you go there and want to identify him.)

After our exhilarating and yet more tiring trip through the cave, we went to the restaurant and had lunch. Having had a substantial if not very nice breakfast, Kathleen and I were happy with soup, and had gespatcho - which was cold, as it should be - but on a cold day, perhaps didn't have the desired effect. Zaib and Margaret shared a Paella and Kathleen had a beer. We then progressed back to our little coffee place and tried to get a taxi home - but it was 3.30 - siesta time and the cab companies were not answering their phones - and we had missed the last bus until 5.30.

So we walked home - a long way, but most of it down hill so not as much of a problem as the morning's walk had been. After awhile Zaib and Margaret got separated from us and were across on the other side of the road. On our side, I saw a man who suddenly bent over double - and looked for all the world like he was in real pain. A heart attack, or something worse, I thought. We must go and help and get them a taxi or ambulance - but the taxis aren’t answering. His wife stood helplessly by his side - wondering what to do next. All these worries were darting through my head as we rushed to help, only to find that he wasn't suffering at all, but watching in great detail the progress of a grasshopper across the path. Kathleen thought it was most amusing.

We eventually got back to our hotel, and in order to celebrate our return properly, we stopped at the little store just across the street - the bigger supermarkets were all closed of course for siesta time. But we managed to buy a bottle of beer - and a bottle of cheap wine - plus some bottles of water for making coffee (I bought my little kettle and coffee bags with me and they was worth the extra weight). So we took off our shoes, had a drink or two, and had a little rest in preparation for the evening's much anticipated (or dreaded) activities, depending on your point of view.
 
Our group was scheduled to eat at 6.30 and the bridge to start at 8. Most of the other guests were given a time of either 7 or 8.30 to go for their meals, and then they were rather rushed through. We were at a table set for two and had just started our main course when we were visited by our American lady of the trip to the cave. We wondered if we would have recognised them again - but they certainly knew us - and we offered them a place at our table. This confused the waiters no end - because they didn't know if we were to progress at different paces or go together - so our meal was more or less on hold until our friends caught up with us on the dessert.

Kathleen told them all there was to say about Portland. They had visited Oregon and lots of other places on the West Coast many times, but found that the bookshop in Portland was the big thing that had held their interest. They were both in their late 40’s - having married nine years ago - she had been seconded by her computer company to work in England - and then was made redundant. He also was in computing - and they now do a consultancy service. They had been in the hotel since Thursday - and didn't think much of the food. I suggested they might like to join us for bridge, but they thought they weren’t up to that sort of mental activity, and went off after the meal to see if their was any excitement to be found in the night.

We only just finished our meal before it was time to settle down for our evening's bridge. I had thought we might play East-West which is the group which circulates the room every two hands - but since our feet hurt, decided to play North-South and I did the scoring as North. We went into the room at almost the same time as my friends from the plane - Joyce and Stan Wood - and this was their first time on a bridge holiday - so we thought they might like to start playing with us - I thought it might be a friendly way to start. Friends they might have been - but they knew their bridge and played very well. We probably started their evening off well by giving them two high boards on the first two hands.

(For those of you who don't play bridge - duplicate bridge is different in that you are not competing with the people at your table - but with the others in the room who are in the same position as you. And the same hands are played by all. So the winners are those who do best as North-South, as compared to the other North-South couples - and the best East-Wests are also winners. This is supposed to eliminate chance and make for a fairer game.)

I always enjoy, as scorer, showing everybody how they are progressing in the competition. Pauline said - "Don't you realise that for every high you congratulate your opponents on making, you are automatically giving yourself a low.”

Of course I knew that, but as I kept saying over and over - I don’t mind losing. I just love to play the game for its own sake. Joyce and Stan continued to do well and came out second on the night. When we congratulated them later, Stan said, “Second is no good - you only get a prize for first. We'll have to do better." And the next night they did come first.

We were joint 8th the first night out of 12 tables - which is not bad at all for a first go at duplicate bridge. Kathleen found the keeping of the cards separate far more confusing than she had anticipated. And she was well and truly relieved when 11.30 came and our last hand had been played. There was nothing for it except having a stiff brandy in the bar to try to regain her sense of normalcy and hope to get some sleep. About half of the bridge group seemed to have a stomach upset of one kind or another, so my guess is that it was the paella, and Kathleen and I were immuned because we drank lots of red wine.