Our search for the perfect area continued. In December we explored the Axarquía region north of Málaga which is known for its mild climate and Ian returned there in January (whilst I looked after the cats) when our Xmas and New Year visitors had gone back home. Even though we wanted it to, the area didn´t do much for us. We found it far too densely populated and not Spanish enough for our liking. We were back to square one and gradually started to worry if we would ever find an area where we could contemplate living.
At the end of January we set off on yet another journey; this time travelling further west within the Málaga province, where we checked out the Sierra de las Nieves, located between Málaga and Ronda. Much to our delight, Ian and I soon discovered that not only did we find the area beautiful but also quickly agreed that we could see ourselves living there - at least temporarily. Consequently, we arranged to meet up with an estate agent, hoping she would be able to find us a suitable rental property. We did not really expect to be shown anything straight away, especially as our phone call and subsequent request to see her had been somewhat out of the blue. However, it soon became obvious that the agent was pretty keen to take us to a ´lovely ground floor apartment with shared pool, just on the outskirts of the village affording glorious views over the valley, perfect for you´, as she put it. We were instructed to follow her by car and had to negotiate a fairly lengthy and pretty bumpy track.
When we eventually arrived at our destination, we were welcomed by Magdalena, a lovely, elderly Spanish lady who was looking after the complex and therefore in charge of keys. She showed us various first floor apartments and I started to wonder if I had misheard the estate agent´s description of the flat as I had been convinced we were supposed to look at a ground floor apartment. We were, but there was a little problem in the shape of a key. Magdalena had a whole bunch of them but the one that opened ´our` apartment, seemed to have gone missing and after some frantic searching she finally revealed why. Her son had been round earlier that day to change a light bulb in the flat and had obviously gone off with said key. We tried to be helpful, partly because we felt a bit sorry for the clearly embarrassed lady but also because we quite wanted to see the inside of this allegedly perfect place. “Does your son have a mobile phone?”, we asked her. She nodded in response. “Why don´t you phone him?”, we suggested. “But I don´t know where he is.”, she retorted (obviously not quite understanding the concept of having a mobile phone – bless.)
After she tried using all keys available (just in case) without any success, an idea occurred to her. She had remembered that she had left the bathroom window open and the apartment´s bathroom conveniently overlooked a small boiler room to which she had access. Standing in there a few minutes later gazing through the open bathroom window, the agent and I witnessed Magdalena leaning a ladder against the outside of the bathroom wall and couldn´t quite believe she really intended to climb into the bathroom. “Don´t!”, cried the agent in mock horror. “I´ll do it.”, she continued about to kick off her high-heeled shoes. Looking down at my legs which ended in a pair of trainers, I insisted that I should be the one playing the burglar and before I had time to think about my heroic offer, I found myself climbing up the ladder. By this time more people had gathered in the boiler room and I could hear my husband´s voice proclaiming how mad he thought I was. (Nothing new there then.) Well, there was no going back for me now – my pride was at stake here. I was hardly going to climb back down the ladder, shrug my shoulders and give up. It soon emerged that the drop from the window down into the bathroom was simply too high, so Magdalena passed me a little wooden chair which we carefully manoeuvred through the open window after which we lowered it down onto the floor. I climbed up the ladder, stuck one leg into the window frame and swivelled round, taking my other leg off the ladder at the same time. I was now sitting in the window with one leg dangling into the boiler room while I gingerly lowered the other leg to meet with the seat of the chair in the bathroom. When it finally did, there was a brief moment when I thought “And now? What do I do?” I was more or less doing the splits but standing upright rather than performing a floor exercise. Luckily, I finally managed to persuade my boiler room leg to join the bathroom leg on the chair much to the delight of the gathered audience. Directing myself to the main door to let the others in, I found that I was limping and I could feel a sharp pain in the back of my right thigh. Oh dear, what had I done to myself now? Unfortunately, it turned out that the flat was far from perfect for us, in fact, it couldn´t have been more unsuitable.
Back in the hotel room that night, I decided to inspect the back of my by now not simply aching but throbbing thigh in the bathroom mirror and was shocked to clap eyes on what must have passed as the world´s biggest bruise, glowing in the brightest shade of purple.
The subsequent trip to our chosen area a fortnight later was a lot more successful, even though I somehow managed to fall off a 5 cm ´high` ramp whilst putting on my sunglasses, landing flat on my face – very undignified I can tell you - and ripping my jeans and left knee open. Ian, who by now never leaves the house without carrying a first aid kit if I´m about, sorted me out, yet again, but first I had to sit outside in the shade for a good 10 minutes and do my heavy breathing exercises again until the black fog in front of my eyes had finally lifted.
As a reward for my bravery, we were eventually shown the perfect villa which is just outside a pretty village and which we have subsequently rented for a period of six months, starting on 10th April. We´ve been back twice: once to sign the rental contract and last week to take over a carload of mainly clothes and radiators (amazing how much stuff you accumulate over just a few months time).
So, our stay in the Alpujarras is finally drawing to a close this week. It´ll be a hard act to follow.
¡Nos vemos!
The bruise