The best thing about living here only really hits you in November. Four in the afternoon, shirtsleeves, walking by the sea, while back home the heating has gone on and it is dark by half four. That is not a holiday feeling. That is just a Tuesday.
And yet there are people on this coast who stay indoors for years. Not because there is nothing to do, but because they have nobody to go with. Which is a waste, because what is on offer here is almost absurd.
A hundred and eighty kilometres along the sea
The Senda Litoral runs from the Balcón de Europa in Nerja to the Castillo de la Duquesa in Manilva: around a hundred and eighty kilometres, through fourteen municipalities. Not tarmac but paths, and where the rocks run down into the sea, timber boardwalks built straight across them. On some stretches you are walking over the water.
The beauty of it: you do not have to start at the start. Join it where you live, walk until you have had enough, and take the bus back.
That is the way to do it. Two hours with the sea on your right, a coffee halfway, then the bus home for a couple of euros. No car needed, no plan, and no particular fitness — it is flat.
Then you turn round
Because behind you are the mountains, and they start immediately. The Sierra de Mijas climbs from the coast to over a thousand metres in one go. Fifteen minutes inland, park among the pines, and walk up on paths that smell of resin and rosemary.
At the top it is silent apart from the wind. You look out over the whole coast as far as Gibraltar, and on a clear winter day Africa lies behind it like a blue stripe. No photograph does it, and you do not believe it until you are standing there.
Winter is the season
That is the opposite of what everybody assumes. November to April is walking here at its best: around eighteen degrees, clear light, and the paths empty. In July and August you walk at eight in the morning or you do not walk — and even then you carry more water than you think you need.
- November to April: all day, anywhere, in a jumper you take off after half an hour.
- May, June, September, October: early or towards evening, and higher up beats the shoreline.
- July and August: at sunrise, by the sea, or not at all.
And in the evening
If you have come from the north, there is one habit to unlearn: eating at seven. Here the evening does not begin until it is dark. At ten the terraces are full of families, grandparents, children still running about, and nobody is looking at their watch.
None of it needs planning. Walk down to the beach, find a chiringuito that is busy, order whatever came in that day, and stay until it is late. And if there is a feria on anywhere, go. For a week a whole town is out dancing in the street at night, and everybody belongs there, you included.
An evening in Marbella
One example, and it is my own. Through a friend of a friend I heard a group was going out for dinner in Marbella. I knew nobody there, and I went on my own.
That is the whole step. Not the language, not the route, not whether you really belong there — just the moment you set off alone to meet people you do not know.
It started with talking. People drifted in, everybody introduced themselves, and within a quarter of an hour the awkwardness had gone. In the end there were about eleven of us — more than planned, because a few more joined along the way.
First we all ate together. Then we went out into the old town, from one place to the next, and it got late.
I went not knowing a soul and came home with an evening I will never forget. That is not a sales line. That is simply what happens when you say yes once.
And it does not stop there
Because it did not end with that one evening. Real friendships came out of it, people I am in touch with now. I had not expected that when I set off.
And there is something else you pick up without noticing, which may be worth the most of all: you learn from people how things actually work here. Which gestor is any good and which one will keep you waiting. Where to find a mechanic who will not laugh at your Spanish. How to get something done at the town hall and what time of day to turn up. Which day the good market is. What you ought to be paying for something, so you do not pay the newcomer's price.
None of that is written down anywhere. You hear it from somebody who has lived here five years longer than you, at a table, in passing.
And that is exactly why a place like this belongs here. On SoluMarket people are already trading with their neighbours — the same people who know how things work, in the same villages. That knowledge and that trading belong together.
The only thing missing
Company. That is the real barrier, not the route and not the language. On your own you never quite get started, and a winter goes by.
That is what the noticeboard is for. It is where the people are who are walking on Sunday and would like one more along, and the people who fancy a night out but not alone. You do not have to be selling anything to be on it. Put up what you are after, or answer somebody looking for the same thing.
How to put it up
It does not have to be polished, and mind one thing: do not put a date in it. That feels odd, but it is how it works here. First see who fancies it, and once you know how many you are, pick a day together that suits everybody. The other way round you end up with a date on the board that nobody happens to be free for. So, something like:
- “Who fancies a walk? I am thinking Sierra de Mijas, a couple of hours, gentle pace — I am no mountaineer. Leaving from La Cala, room in the car. Drop me a line, and once there are a few of us we will pick a morning that suits everybody. And if it works out, we will simply make it a regular walk.”
- “Looking for people to have dinner with one evening and a drink afterwards. No plan beyond that, just good company. Let me know if you are interested and we will work out when suits most of us. If it turns out well, we will just do it more often.”
That is all it takes. Not an advert, no price, nothing for sale. Whoever reads it and likes the sound of it sends a message back. And once there are a few of you, the date sorts itself out — that was never the hard part.
And then the best thing that can happen, happens: it works, and it becomes a fixture. The same walk every month, an evening out every few weeks. Nobody has to organise it any more and you only have to put it in the diary. That is how every club on this coast started — with one person asking once.
It costs you one message. The rest sorts itself out.