We had booked an apartment via airbnb.com, and our instructions were to contact a guy named Santiago to arrange to pick up a key.  However, we were lacking in a cellular phone calling plan, food, sleep, and apparently, for me, also some brain cells.  I tried emailing him, but got no reply, tried texting him, and it didn’t seem to go through, and tried using an old fashioned pay phone and those round things… what do they call them?  coins? – and this is where my lack of sleep showed up – dialed the wrong number and had spent all my coins.  Oops!  So we bought some over-priced food at a touristy cafe, and asked the waiter where we could buy a different SIM for the phone so we’d have calling capability.  He suggested we try the papeleria up the hill, so we went up the stairs and asked there.  The guy said he could order one for us to pick up the next day, but didn’t have them in stock.  At this point I could hardly see straight, much less conjugate a verb in Spanish, and so I just asked if he could help us and let us use his phone to make a local call.  All I could think of was finding our bed for the night, and Ryan said “you can’t fade on me now!”  Thankfully, the shop owner let us make the call, and when he heard me ask for Santiago, and then stumble over my request in Spanish, he said (in spanish), “let me talk to him!  I’ll work it out for you!”, so I handed him the phone.  Can you imagine my surprise when he said, in a very familiar tone, “hola! Santi! Soy Pedro de la Papeleria!” – he KNEW our man!  Personally!  Later he said (everything in Spanish), “Of course I know Santiago!  Everybody knows Santiago!”  We had a good laugh, and a moment of thanks for the divine providence!

  Turns out we were just a staircase and about 50 meters away from Casa Tejon, where we were staying.  It is a cute little guest house with 4 studio apartments, and the family that runs it also owns the bar/restaurant attached.  There is a charming patio filled with flowers where you can sit just outside your room, so we put Cora down for a nap and planned to sit outside to talk where we wouldn’t wake her.  But then we chatted with the owners, and they assured us she would be safe if we wanted to get a bite in their restaurant, and that they would come get us if they heard her cry (they also had to wait just outside our room for another guest to arrive).  Who knew our room would come with built-in human baby monitors?  We were able to enjoy a delicious 15th anniversary meal in the restaurant maybe 10 feet from our room, while Cora slept peacefully.  What a treat!

The rest of the night was not as easy – she woke up when we went back in the room and wouldn’t go back to sleep, so just before midnight, after about an hour and a half of trying to settle her, I gave up and took her out with me so that Ryan could get some rest.  Where would you go with a baby at midnight in a small spanish town? Back to the bar!  They were so nice when I asked if they had anything the baby could eat… they made her a baked potato and mashed it up for her, gave us some juice, let me hang out there until she got tired enough to go back to sleep, and when I asked how much it would cost?  Nada!  Praise God for the kindness of strangers!

We all slept till 10am the next morning, and Mijas Pueblo looks even more charming when you are fully awake.  There were a shocking number of people about for off-season.  It is all pretty touristy.  The streets are cobblestone and VERY steep, so driving in town is pretty scary (but Ryan did a masterful job!).  They are also marked pretty poorly, and many of them are one-way – even more frightening!  So if you ever go, just drive directly to the parking garage where you can park for 1 euro a day, and do the rest on foot.

We didn’t get to stay very long because we had an appointment in Almunecar, about 1.5 hrs away.  But I think we saw what we needed to see there.  Santiago tells us it is a great place to raise a family, because everybody in town knows everybody else and it is a safe area.  Though I found it to be amazingly beautiful, with all the white-washed houses terraced into the side of the mountain, I don’t see myself living in quite that kind of town.  We didn’t get to see the other parts of the municipality of Mijas yet, though, and there are a bunch of little towns in it, so perhaps one closer to the coast or further on the outskirts would appeal to us more.   We may head back that way to explore more later.  For now, on to la Costa Tropical!