Spanish Lessons in Nerja

Nerja, November 2010
To inflict my new Spanish skills on the unsuspecting Spanish I packed myself off to Nerja, a small town right on the south coast about an hour east of Málaga. Nerja is a pretty white washed town typical of this Andalusian area.

As well as some serious resting I also came to practice my Spanish courtesy of Quorum Language School. Having rented an apartment directly above the school getting to class each morning meant wandering downstairs - easy. After 4 hours of lessons (less easy) I had the remainder of the day to potter about town and indulge in some cafe culture.

There were just two of us in the grammar class and a third person in the conversational class. The school reported that numbers had declined significantly due to the economic downturn. Many restaurants had already closed and others I visited were thinking of closing early for the year. Many close in November and open again in March.

Nerja is also famous for it's caves which are actually a series of huge caverns which stretch for almost 5 km. The story goes that the caves were discovered on 12 January 1959 by three friends, who entered through a narrow sink hole, known as "La Mina". I paid the EUR8.50 walked and a circuit through a cavernous area which is seriously impressive. The cavern contains a stalactite that has joined with a stalagmite to form the worlds largest column. Apparently it is listed in the Guinness Book of Records.

I also took a visit to the Nerja Donkey Sanctuary. I rank donkeys high on my list of comedy animals, right up there with penguins in my opinion. I wasn't disappointed and despite a few serious donkey's quite a few lived up to my comic expectations. The white donkey is using the more traditional technique of just looking daft whilst the brown donkey's humour is more subtle. If you look carefully you can see he is pretending to be a Deer with antlers and is standing in such a way to make you think his back legs have disappeared.