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I thought a good final Malaga area training hike would be the now familiar grind to the Wolf, the also familiar grind to the Gondola summit and a walk back below the Gondola to Benalmádena on a trail we only saw and did not yet check out.
The morning forecast showed pretty high winds to over 30 KPH. Not only would these winds effect our hike up the mountains, they might have also caused a cancelation of the Gondola, our plan B to get home.
I pivoted to a simple walk to the Malaga Airport. It wound up being 15 KM return along the boardwalk with a short 1 station train ride. The entire point of this walk was to have an accurate measurement of our Camino packed bags. We were still in measurement limbo with our Hotel's scale and needed a calibrated reference point.
It was a really easy walk most of the way for us. We can both feel our bodies have already adjusted to the impact of these more strenuous walks. We stopped at Plaza Mayor, the first stop west of the Aeroporto and were a bit confused by seeing only a single track. This station with it's single track deals with trains in both directions. Cool.
The train was soon and the Airport was upon us. Finding a weighing station was easy. We found a public dimension and weigh station. I questioned its accuracy but let Michelle weigh her bag. Walking along the Check Counters we found a few with staff and no customers. The Voltea counter had a person doing nothing and understood our need for a weigh in. My bag without water was exactly 10 Kg. Perfect. Michelle's bag without water was over 11 Kg. That's not perfect for such a small frame. We gave the Voltea counter person a Canadian pin. Man she loved it. We used the public weighing station and it was bang on. Yay, we now had a solid measurement reference.
Soon after a snack, water and pee break it was time to walk back. I love walking in Spain on Sundays. We see the locals enjoying their home.
Big pivot here, sorry. There are a surprisingly low number of black people here with our tour group. Like none. It's honestly weird. We thought about it and it makes sense. We are enjoying this vacation with seniors. Members of the Canadian black community of the same age were quite stifled and did not do as well financially This is why we see none here. It's kind of sad.
The only black people we have seen here are those from Africa, not so far away. They must live here for 2 years somehow before being applicable for a residency. They cannot work or apply for benefits until this requirement is done. The beachfront walkway is chosen by many of these individuals to sell counterfeit merchandise like t-shirts, hats, shoes, whatever to bring in an income while they wait. Sadly Carl told us the Police with often come down this street and do raids. The consequences are massive including jail time. These wannabe citizens must be ready to quickly pack up and vanish.
While walking past a bunch, I heard a call out from a black female and saw the panic packing begin. I told Michelle to stop walking and watch. All of these vendors lay their items on a large blanket. It takes less than a minute to turn the blanket into a bag. We stood there watching them pull up shop and walk down to the beach into hiding. I felt bad and helped one with the process. A few minutes later, 2 Police on motorcycles rode past looking not all that happy of doing this task. These same Police returned minutes later on the way back and within minutes the vendors were setup again. What weird game they have to play.
It was not to long after this experience we were back at our Hotel. We quickly confirmed our Hotel scale as pretty close in measurement and found a few pounds of weight we could shift form Michelle's bag to mine.
Happy Hour and Dinner was pretty well Groundhog day for us. Tomorrow's hike will probably be the most challenging, Time to blog and chill
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