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Published: April 18th 2009
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The Retreat
This is where we live and work at the retreat...it´s a hard life for some We arrived in Malaga, Spain, about a week and a half ago. We were amused by the passport checking station as they barely even glanced at our passports. A blank page was opened for a split second, just enough time to stamp. Those with Spanish passports simply held them up and they were ushered through without even looking at the photo! We immediately fell in love with Spain - it was nice to be in a place that was even more laid back than Australia (and warmer than England haha!)
Little did we know that we had arrived on the first day of ´Santa Semena'which is a week long Easter celebration in Spain. We stumbled across the procession through the city streets which included very elaborate floats depicting Jesus and The Virgin Mary at various stations of the cross.
The party went on until very late into the night and we couldn´t get to sleep until around 1am that night. The next day we headed to Marbella (pronounced Mar-baya) to meet with some of the employees from the retreat. We picked up some supplies and then made our way to the retreat location which is near a town called
Our training area
This is where we run our training sessions (there is an undercover area behind the pool and a grassed area to the right) ´San Martin del Tesorillo´. The hotel is situated amongst local farms, so rather than road traffic the only sounds you hear are cow bells and the occasional horse trotting past the gates.
For the next week we worked at the retreat running the fitness training and helping out with odd jobs. It was pretty flat out most of the time. We worked with a mix of people - some from the UK and some Spanish locals. We would have to say that the best part about it was the food - we ate very well all week and felt really healthy by the end. The food is mostly vegan (apart from some cheese and milk). Stu managed to not drink coffee all week and we both went without meat for probably the longest period of time in our lives (only one week how sad is that!)
We said goodbye to everyone on Wednesday, and our friends Aaron and Krishna (locals who run the hiking at the retreat) dropped us back in Malaga where we have been for the past few days checking out some of the local sites.
Malaga has an interesting history which spands thousand of
Semena Santa
The procession through Malaga years. It was conquered by the Romans around the 2nd or 3rd century BCE, and thus many Roman ruins have been found around the area, including Alcazaba, a small medieval palace, and a Roman theatre. Around the 9th century, Spain was invaded by the Moors (Arabs) and Malaga became a stronghold and one of the last places to be taken back by the christian kingdom in the 15th century. The Moors build a huge castle called ´Castillo de Gibralfaro´which we also visited yesterday.
Malaga was also the home of Picasso and we visited his house and a museum exhibiting some of his works. We obviously couldn´t take any photos of this except for a photo outside his home.
Yesterday was the first day of a month long ´Festival de Malaga´which is a Spanish film festival. Apparently there are a few famous people here for the festival, judging by the screams we heard last night from fans (no one we recognise!!)
Apart from seeing some sites, we´ve spent most of our time hanging out at local tapas bars and restaurants. We´ve only just started to get used to the Spanish daily schedule, which is quite different from what
we are used to! Breakfast is generally just a coffee, sometimes accompanied by a ´bocadillo´which is basically a small bread roll with ham and cheese or other basic ingredients. Lunch happens between about 2:30 and 3:30 and is generally a few tapas plates and a beer. Tapas is a bit different from what we understand in Australia. The main dishes seem to be a variety of crumbed and deep fried meats and potato salads. Dinner is quite late, usually 9pm or later. The shop opening times are also very different, generally the local shops open between 10am and 2pm, then they close for 3 hours (for Siesta we gather!?) and then they open again at 5pm and trade until about 9pm. So basically they never work for more than 4 hours at a time!
Tomorrow we are heading to the hills to a little hotel near the village of Tolox. We will be doing a week long Spanish course which we are really looking forward to as our Spanish is terrible and most people don´t speak English. Perhaps next time we´ll write a blog in Spanish!
Adios amigos,
Ali & Stu xx
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