Scum of the Earth Queue Jumpers

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Today we’ve decided to get adventurous and catch a bus five kilometres or so east along the coast to the beach at the seaside town (suburb?) of Palo. We’ve got no idea how the public transport system works here so we’re feeling a tad nervous. We join a group of fellow travellers lined up along the kerb next to the bus stop. The bus arrives and we surge towards the door behind other touristy looking types. I don’t know a lot of Spanish, but enough to pick up that the people behind us aren’t happy; it seems we’ve now been branded scum of the earth queue jumpers. Apparently the line along the kerb was locals queuing in an orderly fashion to get on, which it seems was a perfectly good system until the tourists got involved. We’d heard that Malaga was one of the safest cities in Europe, but I’m sure it would only take one angry local …. It seems we were right to be nervous, and the day’s only just begun.

The bus takes us past a seemingly endless line of high rise beach hotels, a lot of which don’t seem to have particularly Spanish sounding names - Hotel California, Hotel Las Vegas - OK I guess that last one is at least vaguely Spanish in an American sort of way.

We reach our destination and make our way past a couple of rows of cute looking little fishermen’s cottages down to the beach. Sunlounges and umbrellas are in short supply but we manage to snag a set in the very back row. We’ve always wondered why the umbrellas they rent out on beaches in Europe, which are supposed to be for two people, only ever provide enough shade for about one and a half. These ones are no different. The average European isn’t obviously any smaller than either of us. Maybe they're worried that if they made them any bigger they might take off to Africa if the wind blew up. I’m not sure about that theory either. The permanent thatched umbrellas in front us would stay put in a hurricane even if they were twice the size - they’re held down by big lumps of concrete - but they still don’t look to be any bigger than our flimsy bits of canvas. Maybe they’re hoping you’ll rent two umbrellas, but it doesn’t look like you can, they only seem to come in sets - two lounges and one umbrella. I’m sensing a business opportunity for someone here.

It’s a long way to the water. The sand’s baking hot and I can feel the skin on the soles of my feel start to peel off. In desperation I launch into a sprint, well a sort of sprint. I hope I haven’t done a hammy. The water’s a very pleasant temperature, the bottom’s pure sand, and it’s virtually dead calm. I can’t then help but notice a lifeguard perched on a chair high above the sand. He can’t be there to rescue people from pounding surf and dangerous rip currents, so what exactly is he looking out for? My mind races back to yesterday’s news article about the eight metre allegedly toothless shark spotted in the waters off Malaga. I’m now wondering quite how they knew it was toothless. Did someone have a quick look inside its mouth? That would seem to be a rather risky strategy if they weren’t sure it was toothless in the first place.

There are wall to wall restaurants behind the beach which all seem to be doing a roaring trade. The specialty of the one closest to us is seafood grilled over a wood fire on the sand. It’s all very pleasant.

Back in Malaga and we head out towards the port again in search of dinner. As we stroll peacefully along the promenade it’s a bit hard not to notice some raucous cheering from a large crowd out near the lighthouse. As we get closer the assembled throng surges towards us in a seething mass. They’re chanting loud slogans and most of them are carrying either Spanish flags, green balloons, or placards. It seems they’ve just left some sort of political rally, and the whilst the rally might be over, the passion’s clearly not going away any time soon. I think us Aussies tend to be a bit ho-hum about politics, and most of us tend to have a fairly low opinion of our politicians regardless of their persuasion. Unlike in most other countries voting’s compulsory in Oz, so we just reluctantly turn up on election day and vote for whoever we think might do the least bad job. We tend to reserve our passion for what we consider to be the important things in life, say, for example, football. That’s probably a gross generalisation, but anyway, I’m sensing things might be a bit different here. I am however still a bit confused about the Spanish flag carrying thing. Is the other candidate possibly not Spanish? If that was the case I would have thought he/she might struggle to get too many votes no matter what they were promising, which leaves me wondering about the need for the rally in the first place. I think it might be past my bed time.

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Comments

[D MJ Binkley]

Malaga
We've heard good things about this town. We hope to make it on our next trip to Spain.

[RENanDREW]

Long suffering locals
I had to laugh when I read that you were the queue jumpers! I was getting ready to be very indignant on your behalf. Regarding your toothless sharks, I think these may be Basking Sharks - they are harmless to humans because they are indeed toothless. From memory they trap their prey by swimming with their mouths open :)