Málaga in December
12th – 14th December 2019: Málaga
We took a couple of trips over from La Herradura to Málaga, both before and after Christmas. The Christmas lights were a sight to behold! Each evening, at 6.30pm, 8pm and 9.30pm, large crowds gathered on the main shopping road, Calle Larios, to hear music played over loudspeakers and a lights display. It was breathtaking! The display involved over 2 million LED lights, apparently.
Looking up inside the enormous light-filled Christmas tree 
Olwen with an alien 
The light of the full moon reflected on the marble streets
Watch Olwen and the alien here!
Olwen meets a monster on the streets of Malaga – YouTube
The novelty combo of ice cream / shorts / nighttime / Christmas lights
At the end of this particular evening, we were waiting at a bus stop to catch a bus back to the nearby town of El Rincon, where our van was parked. Although I have very little Spanish indeed, I understood clearly the opinions of the lady sitting beside me – her concern for the health of Olwen and Morgan was clear, as were her predictions of illness because they were wearing shorts in the evening time! She was of the majority opinion: a short while later, a homeless man we had been chatting to insisted on covering Morgan’s legs with his jacket!
El Rincon
While visiting Málaga, we were lucky to get a spot for two nights at a lovely little site called Camper Area M&H in El Rincon. A local bus passes through this town about once an hour, going to and from Málaga. The site was fully booked from early December til the end of January! It cost €13 per night incl. EHU. The people there were so welcoming! They had a small café where you could order croissants and bread and pizza and they would prepare them freshly and deliver them to the van. And, at one point, I was completing some insurance paperwork and was inquiring as to where I might find a printer and they offered to print the five pages out for me. Small kindnesses really do make a difference!
INICIO | areaelrincon (wixsite.com) N 36.71649, W 4.23808 N 36°42’59”, W 4°14’17”
Rather than catch the bus back into Málaga on the 13th, we opted to take the van. Bad move! Parking is tricky to find for such a large vehicle in Málaga. At times, it can be pretty stressful trying to locate a suitable parking spot for the van while trying to not have a full blown argument! It involves making fast decisions about whether to take a turn or not, whether the road ahead is likely to become too narrow for us, might there be a low bridge ahead? Does the area feel safe to leave the van in? What do you mean when you wave your arms in the air like that?!
We unintentionally collected some Vitamin C when we parked up 😮 
We took this pic to remind ourselves of where we had parked! 
Orange trees lined all the streets 
The hills surrounding Málaga
Near Málaga’s mini-Louvre, with excavations from Roman times below 
He marched them up to the top of the hill… 
While walking down some back streets, we stopped and watched in astonishment as this skip was maneuvered onto a pickup truck by one man working on his own:
Skip collection, Andalucía style – YouTube
we think this was once a riverbed 
jamón, jamón, everywhere 
look what we found … Dunnes Stores!
Once we had seen the sights and made a start on the Christmas shopping in Málaga, we headed back east towards La Herradura once more, to meet up with friends and find ourselves a base for the Christmas period.