Today was supposed to be a relaxed drive from Sevilla to Estepone on the Mediterranean coast. ~3 hours with a short stop in Ronda to see the famous bridge. “Supposed to be”. What could possibly go wrong.

Savitri and I went to breakfast at Brunchit again, keeping on schedule. It was raining lightly but fairly warm (~50˚F). I tried a thick chocolate.. sludge (it was good but seriously had the consistency of jello pudding!) and Savitri a great coffee.

Savitri had her beloved yogurt-in-a-coconut bowl and I had a salmon-on-toast dish.

We all caught an Uber to the train station to get a Hertz rental car for the next couple days. Steve was surprised that the only rental they were offering was an all-electric Polestar 2. Cool car, but in a new area with long drives planned not a great time to learn the nuances of an electric car and charging network. They insisted, we.. had no other choice. It’s also a very nice car that I had read great reviews of.

We drove off, Steve kicking ass as our driver, navigating all the roundabouts, split-roundabouts, and even one split mini-roundabout. As road geeks yeah we enjoy that shit. As we progressed across the vast empty fields of various crops, we slowly saw the mountains come into view. It was raining in earnest at this point so it was through the rain in the foreground and mist in the background.

We finally made it to Ronda, a small city spanning a giant gorge with a magnificent bridge, Puente Nuevo. We planned to charge the car while eating lunch, then continue on. We found a good charger listed and drove there but it was nowhere to be seen. Odd. We eventually found another charger after repeated attempts to access it via the almost entirely one-way road network (one portion of which was one lane, flipping direction like a construction site). We could not get that charger to work, despite Hertz’s assurance that the fob they gave us would work anywhere. Seems like that meant “anywhere except where we went”. We gave up and had a quick pizza lunch. The pizza was good.. but apparently between the charging angst and the beautiful lizard on the counter I prioritized differently than usual.

The rain picked up. We tried another charging station… no luck. Then the parking lot with the charger only accepted cash and we only had credit.. thankfully they let us out since all we had done is sit there trying unsuccessfully to charge our car. We decided to just check out the bridge and keep driving.

Based on the pictures I had seen online and from Laurie & Riki, the best views of the bridge are from below so I found the obvious road that swung down under the entire city and we aimed for that. It turned out to be a steep, narrow, cobblestone road.. which combined with the rain (and the general rural Europe lack of guardrails) made for a precarious drive. Steve tackled it though and we made it to a great vantage point.

What a stunning view. The rain made the greens pop even more. We’d have loved to have a picnic there and hike around, but it was quite cold, wet, and we were anxious about the rest of our drive with limited charge.

We started driving up the steep wet cobblestone and.. yep, the tires started spinning. The idea of sliding back down a steep hill with so many opportunities to go off a cliff seemed unfathomable, and Steve and I quickly looked for a way to gain traction. Is it AWD? 4WD? Drive modes? Traction Control? That seemed to be it- the traction control light illuminated in the instrument cluster and we were able to turn it off and gain traction enough to get further up the hill, and then carefully to the top. Heart attack averted.

We left Ronda with a ~48% battery but only 110km estimated range, and we needed to go ~65km. Less than 5km in and the range estimate had dropped to 90km. We tried to call for guidance.. no cell coverage. With the mountainous roads ahead we knew mileage was highly variable so we turned around and returned to Ronda.

We went to a different charger this time, within a large supermarket parking structure. Immediately we felt better since it was covered, we were surrounded by people, there were bathrooms, and there appeared to be a modern charger system to use. Fob out and.. no luck. Crap. As with the others, I downloaded their specific app and tried to create an account. To our surprise, the screens changed and DING we got juice!. Electric car problems are definitely first world problems but man when you’re in the moment..

We ended up charging it for 1.5 hours while we shopped, had coffee and donuts, and sat around venting heh heh heh. Our collective blood pressure dropped to a normal level and we headed off again, this time in the pitch dark.

As we drove we realized that the mileage estimate was complete garbage. The battery percentage slowly crept down as expected, but the estimate jumped around between 90 and 170km! It may have been using a short distance to extrapolate, but clearly ignored the actual route and map info. We made it to Estepona with a higher mileage estimate (170km) than when we left!

We checked into our beautiful hotel, El Pilar, and ran to our restaurant reservation down the street at La Casa del Rey.

…and interior

La Casa del Rey came highly recommended by friends and reviews. It was good and we really needed its warmth and convenience. The food was a bit lacking flavor and.. ummpph though. Savitri and Jen quickly agreed that they could do better!