In Almeria: Day 4, Part 1

March 28, 2024

Moving day. We probably would have booked ourselves for the entire eight days here in the AC Hotel just because it’s simpler that way, but there were no vacancies for the final four days when we started looking. We were fortunate though to find an apartment for the next four, less than two blocks away on the opposite side of Plaza de Flores. It chops the day up pretty badly though, which is unfortunate because this wouldn’t be a bad day for a hike and bike. It’s cloudy but dry, and the winds are supposed to be down to a more manageable 20 mph.

Nothing to be done about that now though, so we come up with the best plan available. We’ll stay in our room until we have to check out at noon, then hang out in the lobby for a couple hours until time for lunch. Then back to the hotel to pick up the baggage and bikes and then go check in to our new home.

After that, assuming everything goes smoothly we’ll spend the late afternoon walking up to the alcazaba for a look before coming back in time for the premier procession of the night. That’s the plan anyway. In the meantime, we’re just hanging out here in the hotel lobby:

Were immediately attracted to our restaurant, Rincon el Don Pedro, as soon as we open the door and are directed to a table by the woman we booked a table with yesterday. And it’s a good thing we made a reservation, or we’d have been turned away again as a half dozen other parties are over the next half hour. It’s a very small restaurant with room for just six tables, two of which have been shoved together for a larger party that arrives soon after us.

There’s no printed menu - just the menu of the day, which our server describes to us in detail in reasonably fluent English. She begins with the half dozen or more starter options, and then tells us there will be meat and chicken options for the entrees that she’ll come back for us to choose from later. She warns us that my choice, paella con conejo, will take a little longer but we’re good for that - we have time on our hands anyway since our apartment presumably wont be available until four.

Our starters when they arrive are amazing, as are the chicken breast nd secreto that come later, as are the cheesecake and torrijas that finish us up off. We enjoy our meal and love the atmosphere and the small staff (it’s obviously a family affair), but have no idea what this meal will set us back until the hand-written bill gets completed. It’s a cash only place, and I pull out a pair of fifties in anticipation while she’s writing it up, but put one back when it’s handed to me.

Before we came here today I had the thought of booking the place again for Saturday if we liked it, but once we’re here I change my mind. For such a small place I feel almost like it’s an imposition to be occupying a table that could accommodate four. It was a privilege to have gotten to eat here once as it is.

The place comes with a pedigree. I should translate this to learn it’s story.

The party at the table to our right would like some red wine, and wants to know the options. Seven labels are brought to the table to choose from. After a selection’s been made the six losers get ported back to the wine rack, three carried by the server and the other three by the woman making the selection.

Paella con conejo, a fitting Easter dish.

Vegetarian eggplant lasagna, Rachael’s choice. A huge serving, half of which made it into her rucksack for tonight’s dinner.

I have the first of the postre offerings cited from the day’s menu, described to us as a traditional dessert at Easter time here. I ask our server to write out its name for me so I can look it up later: it’s torrijas (sweet bread pudding), the traditional Spanish dessert in the days leading up to Easter.

Cheesecake with red fruit complements Rachael’s outfit of the day.

There’s a scare when we arrive at the address we’ve been given for our apartment. We’ve been given a key box code, but there’s no key box. My theory is that the key box is inside the building at the door of our apartment, but that’s just speculation; and as far as that goes, we don’t have an apartment number anyway. Not this problem again, like the one we confronted back in Agua Amarga!

The outcome is different this time though, because when we call our contact number our host takes the call soon enough, and tells us to push the bell for unit I-5; and when we do, the front door magically unlocks. He must have remote access to it.

Calling our host again, hoping this isn’t Agua Amarga redux.

Now that we’re in, we walk the block and a half back to the AC hotel to pick up our bikes and panniers; and then return with them back to the apartment. And once we’re back, we decide to go down together to the front door with the single door key that was left on the table for us, to make sure it works - we’ll keep one person on the inside while the other one goes outside to test the lock.

And then I have a sickening feeling when I realize I didn’t bring my phone; and when I ask Rachael, she didn’t either. They’re both back in the apartment. Did she leave the apartment door ajar, I ask - hope, hope, hope - but she doesn’t remember. I can hardly stand the tension when we go back upstairs, wondering if we’ve just locked ourselves out because we don’t remember the keypad code yet. We need a phone to get in, or even to sheepishly call our host to ask him to bail us out. And for that matter, his number is inside the room too, along with both iPads - pretty much everything we need to contact him.

So there’s a pretty significant exhalation when I round the corner and see our door standing open. I almost run to it, hoping it doesn’t magically close somehow before I get there.

The place looks quite nice once we have a chance to look around. Comfortable, roomy enough even though it’s just a studio, and it’s nice that we’ve been left a bottle of Tempranillo on the table as an apartment warming gift. I see it’s a Rioja from Labastida, near Haro. I especially like this when I check back in last autumn’s journal and see that we biked through Labastida on our ride out of Briñas. I can’t really taste wine of course, but I do like looking at the labels to see where the bottle originated and then think back on when we were near there in the past.

And we’re really well disposed to our home for the next four days when we look outside our windows, directly on the entrance to the 15th century Santiago church. A room with a view!

Oh, that’s right. This is one of Santiago’s churches.

And then Rachael heads to the nearby supermarket that she already knows the location of because we’re only a hundred yards from the place we just left so she’s been there before. I look down in the street and see her walking off so I give her a call and she looks up briefly but then buries her nose in her phone again to make sure she doesn’t miss her turn.

I’m less certain of how I’ll feel about this location though when five o’clock comes around, Santiago’s bells start chiming loudly just outside our windows, and I wonder how late into the night they’ll be active.

In general though, this is going to be amazing. I couldn’t believe our luck this morning when I consulted the procession schedule, and saw that one of tomorrow’s processions begins right here, at the Santiago Church right outside our window - and ends here too, when they finally return not long before midnight.

So tomorrow’s plan for the evening is made for us - no need to walk around trying to be in the right place at the right time, when we can just sit tight and wait for the parade to come to us!

As we’ll do this evening, because if I’ve read the map right one of tonight’s processions comes right down this street too. We’ll get an unobstructed bird’s eye view of the action tonight and tomorrow both.

And I see looking below that it really won’t be long because the forces are stating to assemble. Royal purple for the Angustias procession tonight, from the looks of it. Too late in the day now to head up to the alcazaba, but it’s been standing up there for over a thousand years so it should still be there tomorrow.

They’re not due to arrive for another hour or so, let’s pause here while we have dinner. Come back and join us after the break, OK?

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