Here's the amazing thing about the small town Setenil de las Bodegas: many of its buildings are in caves. Yes, that's right. How freaking awesome is that? We stayed in a cave house, with the ceilings of our bedrooms bare rock.
My family and I awoke to the sound of a mercadillo directly outside our front door. Since our cave house was on the village's main street, this made sense. Fridays were mercadillo days for Setenil. We ate breakfast (fried eggs, bread, and a bowl of chocolatey cereal) on the terrace, where Olivia and I did some birding. It's pretty great when you can see lifers from your house almost as soon as you wake up in the morning. The best thing we saw was an elegant Blue Rock Thrush, whose plumage was a silvery blue-gray embroidered with a lace-like pattern of gray speckles. We also saw a small flock of Serin, a bunch of Spotless Starlings (so cool, they aren't the nonnative, invasive European Starlings of the US, they are an entirely different species), Blackbirds, a Wren (a lifer whose Spanish name is Chochín), and a Kestrel.
After shopping at the mercadillo for some nice clothes, we walked around the town. We went into a couple of clothing stores, though we didn't buy anything, then walked up this long-ass cobblestone hill to get money from the bank. We then went back to our house and packed everything in the rental car (whose window we got fixed in Málaga, thanks to Leti's help) with only a few minutes to spare; we were supposed to be out of the house by noon, since another group of renters would arrive that afternoon.
My family and I walked up to a place that Olivia and Daddy had gone to last night on a nighttime walk. Mama and I had not been feeling up for a late stroll, so we had stayed in the cave house and chilled. We walked up and up, then got the reward of a tremendous view of the town. Then, all of us went to a shoe shop, where Daddy got some snazzy, made-in-Spain shoes. Afterward, we went to an artisan shop that Olivia and I had been to last trip. The shop was in a cave, dark froths of moss on the roof and intricately painted, handmade plates hanging from the rock walls. The owner refused to bargain at all, but we ended up getting a few beautiful items anyway.
We ate lunch outside, overlooking the river that cuts through Setenil de las Bodegas. The appetizers were anchovies in vinegar and fried bacalao. Daddy ate toast smothered with goat cheese, topped with thick layers of smoked salmon, drizzled with molasses. God, it was amazing. It was also really interesting to discover what molasses is in Spanish: miel de caña, translated literally to "cane honey." This is likely because molasses is the byproduct of the process that turns brown sugar, which is the most raw form of sugar, into white sugar. Thus, cane honey. Anyway, back to the lunch descriptions that are making my mouth water just thinking about them. Mama got callos, which is tripe soup. Yes, the least vegetarian meal on the planet, but, when in Spain. . . That was the first time I had ever tried the meaty stew, and it was awesome. Olivia got fries and chicken kabobs, which were decadently coated in rich spices. I pretty much ate off of everyone else's plates :).
Now, it was off to Madrid, Spain's capital. Daddy, Olivia, and I, had never been, and Mama had only been once, during an airplane layover. Her story of her visit is pretty funny. She went with her parents, and they had an unexpected six-hour layover in the Madrid airport en route to Málaga. My ever-cautious grandfather refused to leave the airport, he was so worried about missing the next flight. Mama and Abuelita said, to heck with staying here for six hours, we're going into the city. So, they went and got jamón serrano sandwiches and walked around a bit, then went back to the airport where Abuelito was waiting.
On our way to Madrid we, of course, got lost. This ended up being quite serendipidous. At 10pm, we took the wrong exit off of the highway and pulled over to try to figure out what we should do next. Mama suddenly looked up and, in the glare of the headlights, saw birds! They turned out to be a family of small Red-Legged Partridges, lifers for O and I! That was great, and we eventually arrived at Madrid late that night.
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