I’ve talked a lot about Spain already, and I’m quite behind on my adventures in England so I’ll just share one quick story from Costa del Sol before move my focus off the continent and north towards that soggy island known as Great Britain. 

Marbella was nice, but not unlike other coastal resort towns around the world. Lots of seafood restaurants and touristy things. Lots of shops full of knick-knacks and odds and ends. Enjoyable but not exactly culturally stimulating—although we did find a art gallery with some lesser known Picasso’s and Miro’s that were quite enjoyable.

Just a short ten minute drive into the mountains from Marbella though we found a gorgeous little whitewashed town known as Ojen. It was built on the side of a mountain, and the little brick streets dropped and rose because of that.

 We found the town square, and a tiny schoolhouse, as well as an old olive mill used for making olive oil. In the town square women would come to fill up buckets with water. Unfortunately, they moved too quickly for me to snap an amazing picture of them. Katelyn is nice enough to pose by these fountains.

It was in this square that we had one of our most memorable meals in Spain. There were a few little restaurants and cafes situated around the square but one was far more populated than the others, bar diego. We figured all these other people must be eating here for a reason and looked for a table. I forgot to mention it was extremely hot in Ojen, and we’d been walking around for quite a bit at this point. So after a quick survey of the establishment we found that there was only one open table with four chairs—the exact number of people in our party—but it was out in the sun. The hot Spanish sun. The hot Spanish sun that had been beating down on us all morning. We looked on at the happy diners, seated at tables shielded from the sun by umbrellas as they cheerfully enjoyed a meal at bar diego, and knew this was the spot, this was the place for lunch, but there was no way we were sitting out in that sun. 

So, with sunken heads and heavy hearts, we slowly began to shuffle away from bar diego. We were down on morale and had little hope we’d find anywhere better to eat in Ojen and dreaming of what a great meal Diego would have fed us. We had not even shuffled past the front of the restaurant when who should come out to us, but Diego himself. He asked if we wanted a table, and we told him we did, but not one in the sun. Diego looked at us with sympathy then scanned the square. He held up a single finger to me and said, “One minute, ok.” Before hurrying down the street away from the square. We looked on as he took an umbrella from one of the tables outside an almost deserted little bakery, and brought it back setting it up and the lone empty table at his restaurant. Once the umbrella was in place he looked at us and said “ok?” to which we informed him it was better than ok it was great. 

 Just as we had sat down he told us we’d need to come inside to see our meal options. So, we followed him inside the dark little interior of Bar Diego. There on the counter under a glass case he described what we saw to be the five options we had for lunch. We all decided to order the half portion of Pork with fried potatoes. Diego wrote this down on his notepad before telling us, “eh four I think will be too much food for you. No, I think two. Yes, two is enough.” As he crossed out the four and replaced it with a two on his notepads.

He ended up bringing out two huge platters piled high with pork and potatoes. Paul and Dee shared one plate, while Katelyn and I shared the other. It may have been the best meal we had in Spain. Not just because of the food but the situation and atmosphere. Sitting out in the old square of this little old town in the coastal mountains of Spain which surrounds an old church where an old man sits with his cane under the shade of lemon trees that scale the wall chain smoking cigarettes and wagging his cane and yelling in Spanish at little girls as they pass. I snuck some pictures of him.