Arriving in Granada, I had a 20 minute walk from the train station to my hostel. For the first 15 minutes of the walk, Grenada looked similar to any medium sized U.S. city, but at the end it turned into winding coblestone streets lined with Arabic street vendors. The hostel itself was amazing, so much character. It included an outdoor bar and mingling area, hammocks, and beautiful flower-lined walls. All the good hostels seem to provide a free daily walking tour and this hostel was no different. Soon after I arrived, the walking tour was heading out, so I joined them.
The tour was led by Vin, a German-born Vietnamese guy, who informed us as soon as we left that this would not be a typical tour where you get a lot of information. Instead we would simply walk around the city and he might say a few words here and there. We came to a street with a painting on a building of a man with long hair. Vin informed us that on his first walking tour he'd ever done, he had said that the painting was of Jesus, but he really had had no idea. He had later learned that the painting was of someone else and wasn't religious at all. After a few more minutes we came to a tobacco store and Vin said that he needed to buy cigarettes and asked us to wait outside. This was already completely different than any tour I had ever been on and the best was still yet to come. When someone asked Vin for a lighter, he pulled one out, but also pulled out a joint and started smoking it as he walked, offering it to us as well. Near the end of the tour, Vin asked us if we'd be okay with climbing a wall. I immediately said yes, others were more hesitant. When asked what was behind the wall, he replied the wall was guarding a wonderful view, especially of the stair graffiti we had seen earlier. I quickly volunteered to be the first to scale the wall and helped others make it as well. The strange part was that after we made it over, the view wasn't that great and the graffiti was so far away that you could barely see it. I enjoyed the tour nonetheless and Vin is a great guy who I enjoyed talking to.
I had decided to come to Granada simply because it was on the way to Barcelona and I had heard other travellers speak positively of it. I really had no idea what was there nor had I seen any pictures. Near the beginning of the tour, Vin led us up a hill to St. Nicholas Point. As I crested the hill, I was presented with a beautiful view of a rugged castle atop a hill, La Alhambra. I was absolutely blown away. I had not expected anything like it and that made it that much better. It really gives the saying "ignorance is bliss" new meaning. I came to find out later that La Alhambra is the most visited site in Spain.
Wandering Among the Cave People
The hills of Granada are home to many caves, which are in turn home to many people. Complete with doors, couches, and in some cases even electricity, the caves provide shelter to a people who either cannot afford to live in town or choose not to for other reasons. During the walking tour, we went past a few of the caves, but I had noticed some paths running deeper into the hills. Back at the hostel, I mentioned that I was planning on going hiking on those trails the next day and despite having no real plan, I ended up being joined by two amazing young ladies, one from Melbourne and the other from Montreal. Our hike took us through the heart of the caves community past several residents enjoying the sunny day and plenty of curious dogs who were eager to sniff the strangers from the city.
At one point, we came to a dead end in the bottom of a canyon where a fairly large house had been constructed. Just as we were about to leave, we noticed a chair zip line attached to a tree and the other end was screwed into a concrete wall. Given that it ended at a wall and that there was no easy way to bail out before that point, I decided it would be too risky to try. However, Jacqui, my Australian companion said that she'd like to give it a go. I positioned myself near the wall, ready to do my best at slowing her down before she screamed feet first into it, but as soon as she pushed off it became obvious that she was in no danger. The chair moved quite slowly along the line with a repeated lurching motion and didn't even make it all the way to the bottom. We weren't sure, but this may have been due to rusting.
We backtracked out of the canyon and took a different route to the top of a hill. Before us stood an interesting large building that neither Vin or anyone else at the hostel had been able to give me any information about when I had asked the day before. Between us and the and building was a steep, narrow canyon. At first we tried to go around the canyon, but it became clear that the origin could be many kilometers away. So, we decided to simply go straight down and my incredibly intrepid friends were game. It was very slow going and required sliding down in some places, but we finally made it to the bottom. Unfortunately, the other side appeared to be even steeper and we had time constraints, so we decided to abort and go back up the side we had come from. After returning to town we ate a late lunch at an outdoor cafe and then walked to the other side of town to admire graffiti by a very talented local street artist, a delightful day for all.
I had a blast in Granada. The hostel, the people, the vistas, everything was wonderful.