As we drove farther up the slope from downtown Nerja to our apartment for the next stay of our Andalucian road trip, one thing was becoming disturbingly clearer: things like cafes, restaurants and especially grocery stores with a wine aisle were rapidly disappearing altogether. The little hideaway bungalow that would shield us from the tourist hordes along the Costa del Sol seemed also to be isolating us in the middle of a food desert.

 
A more preferred view than any in the caves

The idea of having to make this squiggly wiggly run up and down these narrow streets every time we wanted a cafe for a glass, a restaurant for a meal and most significantly, to restock the wine supply was about as unappealing as the sightseeing I knew I was going to be pressed into doing while here.

“The beachcomber concessions included actual beds on the sand for all those who just can’t get enough of the sensation of sleeping in grit.”

  The bad news about Nerja, in addition to the impending food desert crisis, is that this little coastal town is home to the Foundacion Cueva de Nerja, apparently one of Spain’s top tourist attractions. Now my views toward any type of sightseeing have been as well-stated in this space as they’ve been patiently ignored by Carol. But spelunking? I mean, if you’ve seen one stalagmite, you’ve seen one stalactite, right?

  Plus, as a general rule, caves do not come with elevators – or benches – but a lot of steps, a lot of them. 

 
Me and a new friend at Spain’s Balcony. Hard to say which one was made of bronze.

But just as all this cave-dwelling was putting me in a constant temperature funk, I turned a corner on our drive up to our apartment, and something like a small Spanish town version of Emerald City appeared seemingly out of nowhere. There was a cafe, a restaurant and a grocery store all tucked and connected together as if from some fevered daydream. (There was also, oddly, a swimming pool, which proved this was no daydream of mine.)

 The first thing we did when we got settled into the apartment and beheld the view of the Mediterranean from our patio was to extend our stay. That helped us to spread out all the fevered impulse buying we did at the grocery store, so excited were we in finding one so close. It certainly helped steel my resolve for the next day’s journey to the center of the earth that there was clearly no getting out of.

  The only other sights to see were all along a cafe and restaurant-strewn beach. The beachcomber concessions included actual beds on the sand for all those who just can’t get enough of the sensation of sleeping in grit.

  The live paella-making along the promenade was a checkoff for the Rick Steves episode on Andalucia we had watched prior to the road trip, and we found the famous Nerja Balcony can be viewed from the comfort of several comfy cafes, one of which was an Irish pub where we spent an entire afternoon watching the waves crash over the rocks, as the wine splashed over the ice at our table.

  For those who can’t seem to get enough beach sand in their bed.

Spending twice the time here than we’d originally budgeted meant our return to Rota could be more or less a beeline back.

  Which also meant no more sightseeing, or so I naively thought. Carol spotted one of the area’s famous white villages that just happened to be located in an out-of-the-way turn off from that (now former) beeline back to Rota. It did provide the chance to practice my driving skills in a fender-scraping parking garage that had no doubt been repurposed from a Fisher Price Family Village set.