Day 1:
Arriving in Madrid
Day 2: Madrid to Toledo to Cordoba
Day 3: Cordoba to Granada
Day 4: Granada to Costa del Sol
Day 5: Costa del Sol
Day 6: Costa del Sol to Gibraltar to Seville
Day 7: Seville
Day 8: Seville to Lisbon
Day 9: Lisbon
Day 10: Lisbon to Salamanca
Day 11: Salamanca to Madrid
Day 12: Madrid
Day 13: Madrid (extra day after tour ends)
The Toronto Reunion (plus additional links)
Sign my Guestbook
View my Guestbook
Above Granada
In front of the fountain in Granada
Frolicking in the outdoor pool at the Hotel Club Puerta del Sol
Our dinner table in Torremolinos
All enjoying a hearty seafood dinner by the seaside
That's David displaying himself for the camera!
Our singing and playing entertainment on the back balcony
Thursday, August 31, 2000
After breakfast, we all piled onto the bus (most of us anyway) for a morning tour of some of the highlights of Granada. Our guide was the same one we had the day before on our tour of the Alhambra Palace. The tour wasn’t anything particularly special, except for a monastery (where we weren’t allowed to take any pictures inside, which is why I don't have any here!) and the tomb of Ferdinand and Isabella.
We were then left to roam the centre of Granada for a couple of hours before we had to rendezvous with our bus for our drive to the Costa del Sol. It was very hot in Granada, the temperature probably around 36ºC. I dropped off a bunch of postcards I had bought in Cordoba in the post office (after a helpful gentleman pointed out I was waiting in the wrong line on the wrong floor of the post office).
Afterwards, while wandering around some more, I bumped into Holly (from Massachusetts) and Elena (also from Toronto). On our way to the bus rendezvous point, we met up with Mandy (from Australia) and Magda (from Minnesota), who were seated outside of a restaurant, waiting for their lunch to be served. Mandy had a sandwich while Magda went for the Spanish paella, I believe it was a vegetarian dish. It never did get completely eaten despite some help from Elena and I.
We then made our way down the street to rendezvous with our bus (grabbing an ice cream while waiting for the bus to arrive), and we were on our way to the Costa del Sol.
We arrived at the Hotel Club Puerta del Sol, which was situated partway up a mountain between the small town of Mijas and the beach town of Figuera. The hotel used to be a Club Med, so it was complete with all the amenities: very large rooms (as usual, I got twin beds despite being the only one in the room), an outdoor swimming pool, exercise room, saunas, and jacuzzis. We had about 4 hours until we were to leave on our first optional dinner in Torremolinos, by the shore of the Mediterranean. So naturally, most people headed directly to the pool after checking into their rooms. Some were content to just lie back in a lawn chair and soak up the sun’s rays, while others dived right into the pool. The beach in Figuera was just a short 15 minute bus ride down the hill (the road is also known as the Road of Death because of the high number of fatal car collisions that occurs on it), so a small handful decided to head down and check out the beach. The rest of us just veged out by the pool. It was really the first opportunity for us to just sit back, half-naked, relax and do nothing for more than just a couple of hours.
We gathered in the hotel lobby at around 8:00PM to board our bus for the drive into Torremolinos for our optional dinner, in which most of the group was partaking in. Everybody was dressed up for the big night out, which was to include us going to the Joy nightclub nearby.
During the bus ride into Torremolinos, I found myself nodding off, which brought a chuckle to Louisa, who was sitting beside me. I pointed out that back in Toronto it was around just after 2:00PM, which is normally the time I start nodding off at work as well :-). We were dropped off in Torremolinos where we walked to our restaurant. As we headed closer and closer to the shore of the Mediterranean, there was increasing fog in our path. It actually was an unusual and eerie sight. As a result of the fog, we were not able to see the water from where we were seated on the second floor of the restaurant. The balcony doors were open, but all we could see was a dense grey fog. We didn’t let that spoil dinner of course. This was a complete seafood dinner that included several tasty appetizers leading up to our main dish of fresh fish cooked in a mound of sea salt, with cabbage and potatoes and sauce. Being an optional dinner in which we had to pay for, the amount of wine we could drink was unlimited. Our table of predominately Canadians, all from Toronto (along with Roni from Israel, Federico from Italy, and Bash from England), eventually downed 10 bottles of wine between the 8 of us! Naureen and Antonietta (from Australia) got special birthday cakes topped with a candle in celebration of their birthdays (a day early as the entire group would not be together the following day) as well as "Happy Birthday" sung to them by everyone, lead by our in-house entertainment of a pair of guitarists/singers. Also, the newlywed couple, Pat and Kristy, received a bottle of champagne. We also had a man approach all the tables, selling roses. When he reached our table, he was waved off, not by the guys, but by the ladies. And then later on in the evening, the guys at our table were chastised by the ladies for not having bought roses for them! OK then...I suppose I'll just contribute that lapse of memory to the alcohol...
With all of the wine in our systems, everyone at our table were particularly having a great time :-). We easily had more to drink than anybody else at dinner (but not enough for us to forget what happened that night)! We also had plenty of looks from the rest of the Contiki crowd during and after dinner as the 8 of us locked arms and marched through the streets of Torremolinos back to our bus, all giddy and babbling about things that I can’t even remember. I definitely felt lightheaded and light footed, as my feet felt fairly numb with every step. The 8 of us scrambled to the back of the bus for the short drive to the nightclub. Federico’s name was unofficially changed to Fernando for the night and pretty much the remainder of the trip, courtesy of Bash. They tried to rename me Luigi, but that didn’t really stick. There were other new names thrown around for the others, but again, none of them stuck. We then had to get off the bus for another short walk to the club. On my way out, I did notice someone on the bus regurgitating the alcohol that was consumed earlier that evening. Again, we locked arms and marched through the streets, this time with a lot more obstacles like curbs, fire hydrants, other pedestrians and cars that we had to try and avoid walking into! We made our way into the Joy nightclub without incident, getting in completely free of charge (thanks Jacquie!). It was dark, the music was playing and it was fairy empty. Having consumed so much wine earlier on, I made a beeline for the men’s WC ("water closet" or toilet). As the night went on, the club filled up very quickly and everybody got onto the dance floor and into the drinks. Most of the crowd from Contiki all stayed in the same group, dancing together on the floor, some getting into the mix of Spanish and house music more than others. It was pretty much certain that the amount of alcohol in your system had a direct correlation on how hard you danced, at least it certainly did for me. I do remember being on the dance floor for almost two hours before taking a break, and Jacquie asking me about five times if I was having a good time before I could actually hear her. Of course, with the amount of alcohol in some people's systems, including me, there were quite a number of interesting moments during the night. One such incident got enough attention that our little area cleared away slightly for just two of us as we were grinding down onto the dance floor (I will not mention any name to protect the innocent, although those who were there will know ;-). It actually wasn't until the next day when I saw her at the hotel that I felt just a little bit embarrassed by what happened. No words were exchanged about the incident, and it was probably just as well that we didn't. We knew a lot of alcohol was consumed the night before and we were acting a little crazy and just having a lot of fun. The topper of the night was when one person in our group got extremely friendly with a stranger on the dance floor. Everyone in our group took notice. They eventually continued their newfound friendship on the couch. (Although everyone from our group knows who it was, again I will not repeat any name here to protect the innocent.) One person said, "What's this? We should be keeping it in the family!" Some had left fairly early, while a group of about 12 of us left the club shortly after 3:30AM (yes, 3:30AM is considered an early night)! We hailed 3 taxis to take us all back to our hotel, arriving just before 4:00AM, while a number of people remained and were still dancing the early morning away.
Judging from the first few days, some had accused the people on this trip of being boring. Without a doubt, this was the day (and especially night) that turned their opinions completely around. Things were only to get better from here on out.
