Peregrinating Pair: Competa

We left our beloved Fatima, skipped through Casablanca (caught colds, stayed pretty quiet and missed most of the tourist stuff), and hopped on an airplane to Malaga, Spain. There we rented a car - a Ford Fiesta 6-speed manual - and headed for the literal hills. We're in Competa for two weeks. It's one of the many Pueblos Blancos found in this region. The town itself is about 3,000 people, half of whom are expats. Of those, half are Brits. Despite the foreign influences, Competa seems to stick pretty closely to Spanish culture. The siesta business midday closures are followed. Tapas are available everywhere. The church bells ring the quarters of the hours (however, they do not ring from 10pm to 8am. During Lent they seem to ring at random times, a lot occasionally. In Granada we were not afforded that courtesy. Oddly, I previously encountered this in Portugal). But the selling point of Competa is that it backs onto the Parque Natural de Sierras de Tejeda, Almijara y Alhama. Hiking trails connect the town to all of the other hill towns, and deep into the mountains.

That said, our Dutch hosts who rented us our little townhouse told us to not bother booking here if we aren't fit. They were not saying that for the hiking trails. but for the town itself, which is extremely vertical. And not with regularly spaced steps, but with lots of random grades and pitches and textures to navigate. Not a good place to wear high heels, or have physical limitations. But perfectly fine for us so long as we take things slowly. They did NOT say it is a good place to be short, which would have been helpful. We've experienced some challenging doorways, most particularly in Fes. But here.....our house is 3 stories including the roof-top terrace. I count eight doorways and two stairways, of which only one can Brian go through without risk. None of the others measure a full 6 feet in height. One very risky passage is less than 5 feet high. He has cracked his head 2-3 times. I've nailed mine once. Ow.