OK, I lied

Yes, I know. I promised I would leave you all in peace until Monday, but here I am in my gorgeous hotel in Cadiz, with at least an hour to go before I can respectably head out for dinner, so I thought I would just check in.

Seville was beautiful, as always, though I think I might be forgiven for developing a slight persecution complex. When I arrived at the station, refreshed from my trip on the super-sleek AVE (which whisks one from Madrid to Seville in just two and a half hours), it turned out that the taxi-drivers' union had called a strike that morning. So, after chatting with the singularly unhelpful woman at the tourist office at the station (why do they hire people for whom dealing with the public is such an obvious burden?), eventually finding the relevant bus stop (which was at least two blocks from where she had said it would be), fighting my way onto the bus among hordes of schoolkids (who were infinitely more helpful with directions than the lady at the tourist office), I finally arrived at the hotel, sweaty and more than a little flustered, about an hour later.



This was not the scene which greeted me upon arrival in Seville.

An hour after that, feeling much better after a shower and a delicious lunch, I was taking my cafe cortado seated at the little square outside the hotel, when what did I notice? One taxi after another, pulling up outside the hotel, dropping people off, picking people up ... you know, doing the things that taxis usually do. It appears that, by 3:30 pm, whatever the taxistas' beef had been with the city was settled, and they went back to work as usual. Which was of little consolation if one had had the poor judgement to have arrived an hour earlier.

But I have to admit that lunch was all the more delicious after such a minor setback.

I´m currently here in Cadiz, apparently still being stalked by the Hollywood stars who complicated my stay in Seville*. Getting to Gibraltar tomorrow seems to be more complicated than I had imagined**. But I am resolute. There are apes to be photographed.

* To be continued.... What movie stars are (apparently) stalking me across the breadth of Andalucia, and why? Tune in next time and find out.

** Obviously, what I should have done was arrive on a cruise ship, like my sister and her husband did a few years ago. But I feel roughly the same way about luxury cruises as did the late David Foster Wallace.