When you stay at Airbnb places, it’s pretty common to find useful little bits and pieces left behind by others. Salt, spices, tea bags, olive oil, coffee and other tokens of life’s necessities. They’re left because they’re too good to throw out, but can’t be taken, due to customs restrictions, lack of space, or other reasons. So imagine my surprise, in my hunt for wine glasses, when I came across an absolute treasure trove of alcoholic spirits – in a stand-alone cupboard in the lounge room, as yet undiscovered. The haul includes 3 bottles of gin, 1 bottle of vodka, 1 bottle of Spanish brandy, Bailys Irish Crème and some kind of triple-sec. I’m not one to shy away from a challenge – and this apartment clearly needs a complete clean out. I’m starting with the gin! It makes me think of pasty, white British tourists, sweltering in the Spanish Summer heat! I shall be leaving all manner of items in return, namely 2 hand towels, 1 face washer, 1 bath towel and a 70cm long pillow.

Today we went to the mountain village of Benahavis. I really wanted to go there as it was a firm favourite of Princess Diana, back in the day – and you know, me | Lady Di – same, same, but different!! LOL. But, as it turned out, it was touristy and had nowhere near the charm of the villages of Caseres or Gaucin. There was a naivety scene in the window of a shop – it had all the normal stuff: the manger, baby Jesus, the wise men, all the customary things, except instead of, say STRAW, on the floor of the manger – it was WINE CORKS – of course! I must have missed that detail in the reading of the bible. Maybe it’s in the Spanish edition.

So off we went to find another village more to our liking – it turned out to be Istan! Either Ross has become a better driver, or I’m more relaxed. The road was still terrifying, and it was super narrow and very curvy and windy. But I only squealed a few times, and there’s hardly any of Ross’ skin cells under my nails (it’s all relative).

There were many men in lycra, riding bikes up the mountain and significantly narrowing the road space available. It seemed like an excessive use of energy when there were perfectly good cars available. They were probably training for the Tour de France – they did look pretty fit!

ISTÁN is a town of Arabic origin, also known as the Manantial (Spring) of the Costa del Sol. The huge reservoir, situated below the village, supplies water to the coastal towns. If villages have a theme, then water is certainly the theme of Istan. There are Moorish irrigation channels and fountains everywhere. You can hear or see (often both) the rushing of water wherever you go in the village. I started taking photos of the beautiful fountains with their tiled edges and mosaic back-splashes, each more intricate than the next…..but after the first 4 – how many pictures of fountains do you need??? Having said that, I wish I’d had my water bottle – I would have loved to have filled it with the pristine, cold waters of the mountain.

The village has taken recycling, or perhaps it’s more ‘up-cycling’ to a whole new level. The plaza Christmas tree was made entirely from the cut off bottoms of soft drink bottles. It’s ingenious. Coming hot on the heels of the crocheted Christmas tree in Gaucin, it makes me wonder if there’s some sort of inter-village Christmas tree challenge.

On the walls all around the village, there were colourful collages – made from the tops of plastic bottles. The photos don’t really do them justice, they’re huge, 2 to 3m high.

Apparently, in the village, there is a Museum of Water Interpretation Centre. I really wanted to go there, but there were no signs (OK there was one, but it was completely unhelpful) and after much aimless wondering, I gave up. Ross, knowing my disappointment, helpfully told me that the Water Museum would really be no more than a series of bottles of water, labelled from each decade from 1700 to 2016 – so I wasn’t missing much!!!

We had lunch in the Istan plaza, in a tiny little Spanish bar, spotlessly clean, as we’ve come to expect. The tapas is displayed in a counter cabinet and some items we recognised immediately (like Russian Salad!!!). But there was a brown, mushy dish – ‘what is this’ I ask? With a combination of miming and Spanglish, we work it out – it is the cheek of the cow (beef cheeks) – awesome!! So we order a selection of things, including cheek of the cow. It’s AMAZING and we immediately order more, served with chunks of fresh baguette. So delicious!

Dinner was at La Sala (The Room). We’ve been there before and loved the food and the live music. So we booked earlier in the week for tonight (Friday night). We had to wait 2 days to find out if they could fit us in! Guy, our Luxembourgish friend didn’t turn up. It was an outstanding night, with a guy doing magic card tricks (he was amazingly good), 2 fantastic bands, really good food and so much dancing.

#IloveSpain