Place Beneath the Chinaberry

 

The Uber needed twelve more minutes, for the last five minutes.  I looked at toy car icon as it spun about aimlessly.  The girls wanted breakfast at the little bodega across the street.  Bought them some juice and a slice of torta and ducked over into the neighboring shop.  I saw coffee cups with tasteful patterns of Al Andalus from the walls of the Al Ambraha.  I imagined myself sipping coffee back in New Paltz from one of those mugs and picked two out to procure.  I have a mug with an Isis pattern on it that I’d bought two years ago in the Cairo airport and the design has completely faded so that only a residue of her form remains.  I want fresh, morning mnemonics.  The Uber arrived suddenly, and I nearly left my Android phone on a pile of shirts before my obligatory self-pat-down spun me around. I dashed out with my cups.  Rafael the driver took up us up and over the Albacin through streets I hadn’t seen before.

We got back in our car and headed out of Granada through the Sierra Nevada on our way to Salamanca, a five-hours drive away.  Forever intrigued by the next place, I noticed we’d be passing awfully close to Ubeda: with “inspired architecture and cuisine.” Getting there with Waze took us through a mountain road off the A316 that turned a country lane through a dense grove of olive trees with old, gnarled trunks. In every direction, rising off into the Sierra Nevada mountains are olive groves.  And after one or two mid-stops during hairpin turns to allowing tractors the chance to pass we were glad to finally get back on the main road and arrive at Ubeda, where we discovered that two recommended restaurants were closed and settled upon a place beneath the chinaberry and cherry plum trees in the Plaza Mayor beside the Church of St. Pablo.  The waiter worked hard.  I used their bathroom twice. 

 

In Salamanca we arrived later than expected.  The sun seemed to resist the horizon for hours and then finally, dramatically with the spires of the iconic Salamanca cathedral in the distance, day gave way to black. In town I navigated to the Airbnb at the Luxor Torre del Clavero and the tower I’d stared at a dozen times considering this on line as a place to stay, materialized before my eyes. Eva was very helpful and walked before my car as I crawled it down the two stories to the garage below. I still do not know how I made it through the second tight-as-f@ck turn without griding the paint off the door of my rental. 

The place was cool.  There was aircon and actionable and the WiFi was potenent.  They'd both been in short supply at the last place.  Eva had a 10:00PM reservation for us over at VinoDiario which was only a few minute’s walk away.   I heard my name propositioned to two German men when we arrived and I piped up to indicate that I was indeed “John from Luxor.”  The food was, once again, remarkable, delicious, and the gent took such pleasure in helping to find me a range of remarkable wines for my wife and I to try. As I recall we let the girls walk home ahead of time though by midnight I was, as Iggy suggests, ‘running low on memory.’ 

 

 

 

Monday, 8/23/21