Day 12: Friday April 27 2007, Malaga, Spain
Noon position: 36 degrees 42.010' N latitude, 004 degrees 24.870' W longitude (docked at Malaga, Spain)
Bob: We had booked a tour to the cave at Nerja, and that tour was run in a much more shipshape fashion than our one to Seville had been. We left right on the dot at 9:00 a.m. and stopped off for a very brief (15-minute) visit to the central square of the town of Nerja before continuing on to the cave. The town sits right on the Mediterranean coast, so we had a great view up and down the coast from the "balcony of Europe" as it is called. The views to either side struck me, at least, as being quite different. To the West we had a rugged coastline and a bungalow on the beach renting out kayaks. To the East I saw only layer after layer of condominiums rising up the hillsides. Since the hillsides were arid, the weather tropical and the streets studded with palm trees, I had a curious Deja Vu feeling of being in southern California. Just like southern California, the Costa del Sol also has a problem with not having enough fresh water. |
Monika: We reached Malaga at 7 a.m. We had slept while passing Gibraltar at 3 a.m. and are hoping that on the westward cruise we will either stop there or pass it during daylight hours. We had booked a tour to see the Cave at Nerja. We decided to make sure to get to the Pacifica Theater 15 minutes before the start of the tour as requested, expecting that after yesterday's fiasco things would be moving at speed, and they were. Our tour was called when we got there; and five minutes later we were escorted to the bus. Our tour guide spoke very good English and gave a lot of information about the area and its economy on our drive along the coast. He even pointed out a Roman aqueduct that we were passing. We stopped at the small picturesque village of Nerja on the coast. We took interesting pictures of the coastline before going on to the cave. |
Bob: After taking in the view Monika and I split a raisin roll for a snack and then headed back to the bus to be driven uphill to the cave entrance. The cave at Nerja consists of 3 large sections linked together by narrow passages something like three linked sausages. Only the first section is open to the public for tours. The middle section has, I think, the prehistoric cave paintings that I really wanted to see but that section was closed to tourists. The third section leads further back underneath the ground, but I'm not sure what is in it as we were only given 20 minutes to see the cave and I didn't want to waste time trying to decipher the Spanish descriptions. Right at the cave entrance they had photographers taking flash pictures of everyone who walked by, which slowed the queue to get in quite a bit. Just after that they had posted a "no photographs, no flash" sign, but many of us, including myself, ignored it. The cave was a "dead" cave, which is to say, no water was flowing in it anymore and the formations were not growing at all and so could not be endangered in that way. Plus, as far as I was concerned, the owners had given up the moral high ground in forcing everyone to have a flash photograph taken of them in the cave and their prohibition of us taking pictures reeked of rank commercialism. That being said, the cave at Nerjas is large and impressive. We enjoyed seeing the stalactites and stalagmites of the chambers in the first section. The formations were huge and one fallen pillar was supposedly in the Guiness book of World Records for being the largest ever found. I expect they estimated its weight because surely you couldn't ever directly weigh the thing as it was much too large. The curtains of stalactites were pretty in their white, ethereal way, but we did miss the dripping water and more varied colors of a "live" cave. All in all we enjoyed our trip to Nerja, but we both agreed it fell into the "do once" category rather than something to be repeated like the Alcazar in Seville. |
Monika: The cave was actually dead--no more formations were growing. Only 1/3 of the cave was open to the public and unfortunately not the part that had cave drawings. Bu the halls were impressive. Among the formations was an enormous column. There were, however, a lot of other groups including school groups, so that everything was rather rowdy and it was sometimes hard to move and get back to the bus on time. But our guide this time was very patient. The Autovia that we took there and back reminded me of the Autostrada in Italy along the coast--lots of tunnels and bridges; possibly because it also went through the foothills of a mountain range that surrounds Malaga. |
Bob: Getting back to the bus on time, we arrived back at the ship with time enough to take some pictures of it tied up to the wharf at Malaga. The ship was refueling and five tanker trucks were hooked together to feed the tanks. The fuel smelled a bit like diesel fuel but not quite as pungent, so maybe it was a lighter variation of diesel fuel or some kind of mix. In any event, they kept fueling right up to the time the gangplank was pulled in and shortly thereafter we started to edge out of port. Brigitte, Rick, Monika and I gathered in Dave's room for a pre-dinner drink shortly after 5 p.m., and we went down at 6:00 for our normal dinner in Mistral Restaurant. Dave, Rick, and Brigitte had the seafood special that included lobster while Monika had steak and I had chicken, and all of our entrees were good. At the evening show we caught the last performance of the Brilliance's song and dance performers, after which we turned in for the night. |
Monika: Back at the ship we took some pictures of the ship with Bob tugging at the ship where it said, "TUG". (He is so literal sometimes!) Once on board, we went on deck to watch our ship cast off but then went back into our cabin to write. We were invited into Dave's cabin with Brigitte and Rick for a before dinner drink. After another wonderful meal I decided to try my luck in the casino. I grabbed 4 dollar bills and headed to the quarter slot machines. Five minutes later I had 18 quarters and felt I was ahead of the game and quit. The evening show was "Broadway Then and Now", an ensemble show with our 4 singers and 8 dancers and orchestra [8 musicians] of the Brilliance of the Sea. As before it was energetic, loud, with lots of costume changes and at least 2 of the singers (the mezzo and the baritone) quite passable. After that we said good night to the folks and went to bed. |
| Prolog | Map of Cruise | Map of Spain | Epilog |
|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
