Saga of Malaga

When my parents lived in Morocco, they would often show up to take a bus to a neighboring town only to find out the bus had left long ago. Having filled to capacity, why wait around until the scheduled hour of departure?

Apparently Morocco's northern neighbor employs similar logic. My friend Hilary and I showed up at the bus station this morning at 7:45 am to catch the 8:05 bus to Malaga, as it was listed online. We waited around until just after 8; I asked another bus driver about the trip to Malaga (it's always best to let someone know where you're going at the Arcos bus station) and he informed us the bus had left probably around 7:40 am. Frustrated, I explained that the time had been listed differently on the bus company's website. He looked at me pityingly, as if to say "why would you trust the internet?" Better that than the Arcos' tourism office, which had told me that there was no direct connection to Malaga, and that we would have to take the bus west to Jerez instead (thereby losing ground). At least the internet had informed me that the Jerez-Malaga connection actually goes through Arcos...but still, it had let me down.

Luckily, this bus driver, this new ally of ours, had plenty of suggestions. First he mentioned going to Ronda, but decided against it since there wasn't an Arcos-Ronda bus for a while. Another random man joined in the conversation, suggesting we go to Algeciras and take a bus up the coast from there. The bus driver and I looked at each other, rolling our eyes. Algeciras? No thanks. Finally the bus driver decided we should take a bus to Villamartin, a town to the east of Arcos on the Sevilla-Malaga route. Besides, "In Arcos," the bus driver said, looking around conspiratorially, "There's nothing. Look around! Nothing here. Just a cafe. Now, in Villamartin, there's a guy."

Hilary and I raised our eyebrows to show appreciation of that fact. "A guy?" I asked.

"That's right," he said, and folded his arms and held his chin up. "He'll look like this. He'll be walking around. You can ask him anything--he knows it all. He'll help you."

Needless to say, we were sold. The bus to Villamartin would be leaving in about an hour. I casually mentioned to the bus driver that maybe we would drink some coffee in Arcos' cafe until the bus showed up. He shook his head.

"Now's not the time," he assured. "It's not the time to drink to coffee. When you get to Villamartin you can drink all the coffee you want." I shrugged. The weather in Arcos was nice enough to Hilary stayed outside and waited for our Villamartin bus. When it showed up an hour later, our bus driver ally rushed out of the cafe. "Where were you?" he asked, in surprise. "I was drinking coffee that whole time! And you were out here!"

Our ally lit up a cigarette and stood around talking with the Villamartin bus driver, a handsomer, taller, and more Spanish-looking version of George W. Bush. When asked if the bus was leaving soon, GW shrugged. He didn't seem to be in a rush. Still, as Hilary was trying to pay for her ticket at the front of the bus just after I'd gotten on, GW closed the door immediately, started up the engine, and started pulling out of the station. "There's no time!" he told Hilary, as she was trying to get out the exact change for her fare. "Just sit down--we're outta here!" Hilary stumbled to her seat as the bus lurched backward.

Hilary and I spent the trip to Villamartin in eager anticipation of meeting this famous "guy." We wondered if the legends could be true. We soon found out: they were. The "guy" was an older man seated in a small information booth at the Villamartin station, who looked up from the article on Obama he was reading to address us merrily. I told him we were on our way to Malaga; he let us know when our bus would be leaving and then proceeded to discuss the merits of taking the route through the mountains, full of beautiful white towns, instead of the coast, full of garbage-dump-inspired developments for Europeans on holiday. I agreed, shuddering over what would have become of us if we'd taken the Algeciras route up the Costa del Sol (seriously: Costa del Trash-heap is more adequate).

Having gotten our information, Hilary and I sat down to long-awaited coffee and sugar-coated churros. We noticed the guy leave his information booth and flit through the station, greeting friends, giving out information, ushering customers to the correct buses, calling drivers to make sure they were on schedule. We were impressed. If only Arcos had a guy, we lamented, we wouldn't be in this mess to begin with. Still, if we'd caught our original bus, we'd never have met our original ally, GW, or this guy. And, as the guy shepherded us toward the bus to Malaga, and we shared tearful goodbyes, we knew it had all been worth it. Besides, losing three hours of exploration time in Malaga is not exactly unfortunate...but that's another story.