The Dredded City

 A few weeks ago, we had a guest speaker that wasn't able to arrive to Mijas until Wednesday. As a result, we had no class on Monday, so some of the other interns and I took a quick overnight trip up to the eclectic city of Granada.

The journey started early Sunday morning at 8 am with a trip on a bus, followed by a train, another bus, and one more bus before finally arriving into Granada around 1 pm. What we weren't expecting was that the bus into Granada dropped us off a good fifty minute walk outside of the city center. Unfortunately, we were completely unaware of our location until we had wandered aimlessly for thirty minutes and finally figured out that we still weren't even close... hence the last bus ride.

Regardless, I had been in charge of making the travel arrangements for the trip, and fortunately I was able to find a cheap hostel for only 12 euros a night, right in the city center. After wandering around for only about half the time we took getting into the city, we found our hostel and checked in.

In the hostel, we relaxed for a moment or two but didn't stay long, knowing there were too many things out in the city to see. Our first and most important destination was the Alhambra. If you are unfamiliar with what the Alhambra is, it is a Moorish palace built in the fourteenth century that is perched atop a hill and overlooking the city of Granada below.

The Alhambra was originally intended to be used as an area for military fortress and defense, but over time palaces and residential areas were established within the walls as well. In essence, the place is so grand that it functioned not just as a fortress, but as a castle, residential annex, and a citadel. A visit to the Alhambra must certainly include seeing the famous Nasrid Palaces, the lush Generlife gardens, and the luxurious bath houses, and many other significant sections within the Alhambra.

Needless to say, we were very excited to visit it.  However, late afternoon was quickly creeping up onto us and the pressure was on to get to the Alhambra as soon as possible to see if there'd be any chance of getting a same-day ticket (a VERY rare thing for such a popular destination!). Our hostel was nestled right at the base of the hill, nearly in the shadow of the Alhambra, so we simply started to walk towards it. Someone had told us it was only about a fifteen minute walk up the hill to get there. We meandered through the streets and plazas, enjoying the new sights as we walked, but after about twenty minutes we realized we couldn't be in the right place.

We had walked around the bottom of the hill to the opposite side that we were supposed to walk up. Ironically, we ran into some other tourists along the way who were also lost and trying to find their way to the top. Some of them greeted us on the road we were walking up and told us to turn around because the road we were heading down was closed at the top.

I'm glad they figured that out and not me :)

So, as you can imagine, we changed our minds on the walking and decided to find a bus.

Easier said than done.

After another forty minutes of wandering around and running back and forth between streets, we finally found The Alhambra bus and paid a euro for our ride to the top. Totally worth it.

Once up on the hill, we were fortunate enough to get tickets and go straight in. We spent the next few hours exploring the beautiful citadel and discovering the treasures of Moorish influence. Somewhere along the way, we lost our friend Brook in the gardens. I had a security guard radio his colleagues around the area to see if they had seen a brown haired American girl. They had no luck finding her and for twenty minutes, neither did we.

Allison, Grant, and I split up to go search for her throughout the gardens. Grant found her waiting for us on a bench near the entrance...

The Alhambra was an incredible experience, but it took a lot of energy out of us. We were exhausted from walking around for hours, so we all agreed to sit down to a nice, relaxing dinner. We hopped on the bus and made our way back to our hostel where there was a cute Middle Eastern restaurant around the corner that we had noticed earlier. It made the perfect conclusion to our Moorish experience and we all thoroughly enjoyed pita and hummus, kebabs, curry chicken, cous cous, and of course, good wine.

Before turning in for the night, we set out to experience some night life in Granada. A few friends had told us that we needed to go to a lookout point where we could see the Alhambra illuminated on the hillside at night, so we made a trek (up a hill of course) to find the vista. It was on this night journey that I learned a few things about Granada.

First of all, Granada seems to the Mecca for drifters, free spirits, and "all-natural" people. In other words, one out of every three people in the city (maybe more than that) has dred locks, a worn-out backpack with all their belongings, and a poor scruffy dog that has probably never had a bath in its life... although I'm really not sure if any of the people had either. I don't know if they are living there or simply passing through, but regardless, the city definitely has an eclectic and unique flavor.

In addition, I also learned very quickly that the dredded people of Granada are quite eccentric. Most of the time, the groups we would pass simply sat in contentment on the walls overlooking the Alhambra or in the plazas below, strumming on beat-up guitars and vibrantly beating on drums. Every so often you'd come across the extra-quirky person that was standing alone shouting loudly at passerbys... or a wall... or themselves...

I also had the unfortunate experience of learning not to ask questions to preoccupied Spaniards engaged in conversation. While sitting on a wall overlooking the Alhambra amidst a boisterous group of young people, I leaned over and tapped a man on the shoulder to ask a simple question. Before I got any further than "Pardon," I had a hand waved in my face and a harsh voice commanding (in Spanish of course), "Don't bother me!" Feeling quite dejected and burned, I decided I could acquire the answer to my question elsewhere and promptly relocated next to a dred-locked hippie man and his two friends. I wasn't about to try and talk to anyone else again or even ask my question again, so fortunately we were able to sit peacefully next to this new group without them seeming the least bit concerned with our presence. It almost made up for the lovely aroma wafting through the air from their direction ;-)

 

After our certainly interesting experience with the locals of Granada, we wandered back through the town in the quiet streets. We detoured only for a moment along the way when I found a 20 euro bill on the ground and exclaimed my findings in excitement in front of my friends, and apparently in front of a homeless man (or shopkeeper... I'm not really sure) standing on the street next to us. According to him, the 20 euros was actually his friends money who had dropped it and been looking for it not too much earlier. To avoid falling prey to their fully reasonable story, the four of us ducked into a restaurant nearby and discussed buying ourselves drinks with the money we had just found. Before we concluded anything, the man and his friend walked into the restaurant, approached us, and started going off in Spanish about how the money was theirs. I briefly considered putting up a fight to defend what I had found, but my friends promptly urged me that it was not worth it. Needless to say, we paid for our own drinks that night but the men went away satisfied and with a smile on their greedy faces.

We stopped in a pub before retiring that night, but Grant decided to head back to the hostel early. When the three of us girls got back to the room, Grant notified us that his brother had facebooked him saying there was an emergency and to call him immediately. We had no phones, no skype, and no proper internet connection, so Grant was left in anxiety until he was able to get ahold of his brother and find out that his mom had had her fourth stroke and was currently in the hospital.

Since my blogs have been a bit out of order lately, if you remember reading The Almond Branch, then you already know what followed from there. Grant sadly had to leave G42 early, only two days later, and rush home to say goodbye to his mother and start preparing for her funeral. It's been about a month now since that happened, but I'm sure the tragedy is still heavy on his heart, so please keep him in your prayers.

Grant left early the next morning to get back to Mijas where he could get better internet connection to talk with his family and stay connected on what was happening with his mom, but Brook and Allison and I stayed a little longer before returning to Mijas that evening. We really took it easy that day - slept in, ate breakfast together at a nice cafe, saw Grant off, and then wandered around the parts of the city we hadn't made it to the previous day. We walked through the famous Albacin, saw the Cathedral, got dried fruit and Moroccan spices in the popular plazas, and wandered through the Moroccan market. It was a very chill and laidback day and a good opportunity to see the rest of the city.

On our way back to Mijas, I considered all the strange incidents that had happened in Granada. In conclusion, I found Granada to be a lovely city, full of art, history, and culture. The only dreaded thing about it at all was the occasional intolerance of the locals. But luckily, observing (and even participating in) the bohemian lifestyle of the dredded people, along with enjoying the city's beauty and history, definitely made Granada worth the visit :)