Sunday October 19, 2014
We were at the car hire place at 9:30 and confirmed where we could drop the van off in Madrid. He had told us one place but we knew we couldn’t get the van in the underground parking area. He called another office in Madrid at a train station and that is where we could leave the van.
Our route took us back towards Malaga – 3rd time along this stretch of the coastline! Then headed north towards Granada and Madrid. It was a long drive (668 kms), hilly and scenic in places. I am glad we didn’t have to cycle over the mountain ranges we crossed. There were a few camping places, but most of them were only accessible from the highway or motorway, which we would not have been allowed to use with our bicycles.
We eventually arrived at the train station in Madrid at about 7:30pm. We had called Jess (warmshowers) to let her know we would be later than expected and then negotiated our way down very busy streets in Madrid to her place.
Jess lives in a very interesting part of Madrid and at first glance it was a little unnerving. Dark, narrow streets full of a multitude of ethnicities. If we hadn’t had to go down these streets to find where we were staying, I am sure we would have avoided this area like the plague.
It has a large immigrant population and turns out to be a great place to live, small plazas with bars and restaurants, a really lively night-life and a diversity that is incredibly interesting.
Once we had met Jess and her roommate Ugo, who had been waiting for us to arrive, they asked if we would like to join them as they were going out. We desperately needed to eat something, and asked if there would be Tapas. They indicated there would be, but there was a great Senagalise restaurant next door, we could eat in or take-out. We declined their offer of going for drinks and headed for the restaurant.
We had a really nice inexpensive fish dinner with a couple of beers. We loved sitting there watching the people – black, white, brown, coming and going chatting in a variety of languages.
The front of the apartment faces the street and can be quite noisy, our bedroom is at the back and is very quiet. We got back to the apartment and had a great nights sleep.