Day 7: Arcos de La Frontera to Tambor del Llano (June 18)

This time, I reserved our room with breakfast included, and what a great thing I did! We were treated to a delicious breakfast (of toast, yogurt, muesli, OJ, and tea) on the wonderful rooftop deck. Just us and this incredible view. Thankfully she told us breakfast would be served at 9 am -- it was already pretty hot in the sun! We also wanted to get on our way pretty early, but first needed to go back to the art store for Rachel to finally decide which watercolor she loved best.

As we started off to the car, I realized that though parking was free on Sundays (when we arrived) it likely wasn’t on Mondays, and I worried we might have gotten a ticket... and we had! It was hard to figure out exactly what to do – it looked like the fee was 80 euro (!) and I was annoyed at our super nice hotel lady for not making sure we had done the right thing with parking. I had read I was supposed to pay $5 to park overnight, but she didn’t say anything when checking us in so I figured we’d be fine. We had read on the walking tour that City Hall was somewhere on the plaza so we set out looking for which door to go through when a man carrying a motorcycle helmet came up and asked us if we needed help. He led us to the parking machine and had us pay 3 euro, then he folded up the receipt and the ticket, put them in the envelope that had come with my ticket, and inserted it into a metal box that looked like it hadn’t been opened in many, many years. He then turned and walked into where we think City Hall should be – so Rachel and I convinced ourselves that he is actually the mayor of the town and the ticket is somehow taken care of. Hopefully that’s the last we hear of it.

From there we now had to get down from the very top of Arcos de la Frontera, first through a very narrow arch. Rachel took up her now usual position in front of the car checking to make sure I didn’t scrape on either side. It was actually not as narrow as it looked, but she decided to stay out of the car to help me around the corner we knew was coming. While eating dinner outside the night before we had prime viewing of a very tight 90-degree turn; the cars coming through made it look relatively easy – you just had to go really far forward almost into the wall before starting the turn. We saw several cars do it, no problem. So, I was feeling confident going into the turn.

Let me step back and say that when traveling in really hot climates I’ve discovered that one of the best things to wear is a skirt with thin shorts of wicking fabric underneath…. think Spanx but without the hold-you-in part. Just super comfy and cool. I had put my skirt on in the morning at the hotel but not the comfy undergarment, which I had left in my bag in the car. So, while still on the plaza after the ticket but before driving away, I had attempted to slip them on slyly while sitting in the drivers’ seat. But, there were a lot of people on the plaza and I couldn’t get the shorts all the way pulled up without drawing attention to myself – but I thought I had gotten them on well enough. Rachel said, “Some people have their driving gloves, you have your driving panties,” so that is what we now call them.

Ok, back to going around that really tight corner. I did just as I had seen people do repeatedly the night before, swung wide and inched far forward before starting the turn. But, halfway into the turn it was clear I wasn’t going to make it. Rachel was trying her best to guide me, when a baker woman, seeing our predicament, walked up the hill to help her out. It found it so funny to see Rachel and this woman standing together both motioning at me what to do next, I stopped to take a picture before I got the car free.

At the bottom of that hill, sadly, there was another really, really tight turn and though I was being guided into it from the beginning by the baker woman, I got stuck even worse than before. I wish I had gotten a picture of the hubbub that transpired. Just as I arrived at the bottom and got stuck, an entire tour group was walking up the hill, a Vespa came down the hill behind me and was entirely blocked in by me, all the traffic coming up the hill had to stop as I was blocking the entire street, and every man in town seemed to appear at once all yelling instructions to me and arguing with each other about what my next steps should be. Thinking back on it I am surprised I didn’t even feel like crying. It was just too unreal to be real. When the young cute guy to my left and the older man to my right both leaned in the car to shout directions at me, I realized that I had never really pulled my skirt back down and that my driving panties were clearly visible. Try as I might to surreptitiously lower my skirt, it wouldn’t budge. (I later realized it was in fact tucked into the back of driving panties!)

Though it was more tempting to pay attention to the cutie on the left, I decided to put all my trust in the man on the right. He had been yelling at other people who were shouting directions at me to make them stop and told me to listen to him only. He seemed as good as option as any, and with some very careful maneuvering I was free! Rachel hopped back in the car, and the man on the Vespa behind me, rather than being annoyed, led us down the hill without further incident. We got hours of entertainment talking about all of the characters that appeared from nowhere in that sleepy town at the exact moment of my attempted turn. I'm sure I wasn't the first, nor will I be the last.

Leaving Arcos de la Frontera and heading east we started to climb and wind through the most beautiful mountain terrain - narrow roads, lots of switchbacks. As we continued on our day from white hill town to white hill town I was a little apprehension to drive deep/high into them, but would do so when I was assured we could “pasa bien.” We stopped at one town that makes the Queso Payoyo that we have had at most meals throughout the region. We went to the factory and got some samples but they wouldn’t sell us a small enough quantity to carry with us. We stopped for lunch in Grazelema and then headed to our hotel for the night – Tambor del Llano, a farmstay on the border of the Parque National Sierra de Grazalema. I decided to upgrade our room for an extra 20 euros to get the best room (with a balcony) in the 10-room hotel. It makes me laugh that is what sold me on the upgrade when in fact the “balcony” is just big enough for one person to stand and you have to stand very straight. We didn't linger in the other towns on the way because we wanted to get to Tambor relatively early in the day to have time to go on a hike on the property.




We were supposed to do a Nike Training program workout last night but the space in Arcos didn’t lend itself to it and we figured we could do it today anyway. We were rewarded for our laziness by the 30-minute one we were scheduled to do yesterday expiring and being replaced by a 45-minute doozy today. We decided to get it done before going on a hike and the heat in our room made it almost unbearable. (There is an air conditioner but Rachel,, we figured out later, turned the numbers down but didn't turn the power on.) We were grateful to get to do core work because we could lay down on the cold stone floor of the room to cool off.

wrong sign

right sign

There are several marked hikes leaving from the house to explore the property, We chose the longest “red hike” which should have been a 50-minute intermediate level hike along a trail clearly marked with red hiker signs. We found there to be about half the number of signs than would be needed to properly guide one through the path; we were often left to guess at our next turn and needed to backtrack several times. We started to notice these red rectangles in our eyeline and decided those must be bigger indicators of the right path – after ending up at many fences without gates and startling a herd of sheep, we realized those big red rectangles must mean “no trespassing”. The property is just beautiful, full of trees we later learned were cork oak trees – where cork comes from!

Afterwards, we added on the blue hike which just goes down to the nearby river and back on the same path – no getting lost.

 We took much deserved showers and came down to read on the patio and await dinner that is served on the patio with the most magnificent view to those guests wanting to dine in. While we waited, we had a lovely chat with another fellow travelers visiting from San Francisco, Kristof, Andrea, and soon-to-be-seven Oliver. They went into town for dinner, and Rachel and I ended the day much as we had begun, eating a beautifully prepared meal in an absolutely unbelievable setting.