Granada Es Nada

From Sierra Nevada...

Getting out of Sevilla on Saturday was a bigger challenge than we had expected. First of all, we didn't realize that there were TWO bus stations in the city, and of course, we went to the wrong one. I didn't mind hiking down to the other station, because we got to pass by some other parts of town that I had previously missed, such as the Parque de Maria Luisa and the Plaza de Espana. Sevilla is a beautiful city, filled with tons of artsy stuff like street performers dressed as gold statues, or street performers dressed as silver statues, or...uh, gold and silver statues of street performers. If you want a more peaceful city in Spain to wander around in where there's fewer cars, buses and police scooters to run you over, then Sevilla is your city.

After spending 30 minutes wandering around the park lost in the summer sun, we finally located the bus terminal and booked one to Granada. This time around, the bus was actually pleasant to be in. It had glorious air conditioning blasting on me! Oh, I've been craving air conditioning this whole trip! Sometimes I want to wake up in the morning and just bathe myself in cool, crisp, refreshing air conditioning. I didn't want to get off of this bus, it felt so good! And driving across the country of Spain is a real treat as well. The landscapes look like those you'd find in a country calendar. With all of the fields of yellow sunflowers going by, you think you're in Kansas. But then you see hills go by and realize it can't be Kansas.

Arriving in Granada, we wandered downtown to get to our hostel and started realizing that, from a first glance, Granada appears to be the armpit of Spain. Grafitti is found everywhere you turn, making you feel as if this entire city is a ghetto. In the distance, you can see a haze near the Sierra Nevada mountains. I think its smog from all the stinky cars whizzing by around here. Think of Palm Springs, CA without the golf courses and the country clubs, and you've got Granada.

After walking for an hour because we were too cheap to pay the 1 Euro in bus fare, we finally arrived at our hostel. Man, talk about flea bag hostels...this one took the cake. The bunk beds were crammed into a room slightly smaller than a college dorm room. From the window you could almost see the crumbling neighborhood around you, but the jail cell bars made it difficult. The hostel's bathroom was a real challenge. Only half of the showers had hot water, so you had to play Russian Roulette and hope for the best (I got a CLICK. My friend got a BANG). The toilets...man, that was a joke. They didn't even give you room for your legs when you sat down and shut the door. The toilet butt up right against the door, so you had to do gymnastics over the toilet just to do your business. If there was ever a bad hostel in Spain, we somehow found it. When it comes to scraping the bottom of the barrel, this one took the prize.

Ready to get out of this stinkpit of a hostel, we wandered the area looking for our other hostel that we would inhabit for the next two nights. We didn't have a clear map, and the hostel lady wasn't quite certain about its whereabouts, so we wandered the general neighborhood looking for it. We ended up outside of a Policia Stacion, looking bewildered at our maps, and one of the police officers came out and tried to help. He couldn't figure it out himself, so he dragged us inside the station and got a fellow officer involved as well, but she couldn't find our street, either. The first officer then gave us directions on where he thought it might be, but when you don't understand Spanish that well, it all sounds like an adult talking like a muted trumpet on a Charlie Brown special.

We eventually gave up our search and then turned towards looking for a supermarket to buy some food, but could find none in sight. Craving anything to eat at this point, I finally found a quickie mart and bought a box of pineapple juice and just guzzled it all in the alley way. It was a temporary band-aid on the food problem. I still needed something in my system. So after more wandering around, I finally caved and we ended up at a Chinese restaurant. I know, I know...it isn't Spanish. But desperate times call for desperate measures. And sometimes nothing tastes better than sweet and sour chicken with a cold Alhambra cerveza. Mmmm...that's good eating! Feeling warm and satisfied, we made it back to our Spanish dive and called it a night.

This morning, we woke up early to try something different out. Breaking the cheapskate barrier and actually paying 1 Euro for bus fare, we hopped on the city bus with our full packs and rode all the way back to the main bus station, then booked a charter bus to the Sierra Nevada mountains. Don't be confused...these aren't the Sierra Nevada mountains of California, but the original Sierra Nevada mountains of Spain. I couldn't believe it myself. I wore my Sierra Nevada Brewing Company shirt for this special occasion, to try to unite the two Sierra Nevadas and have them kiss and make up.

We were dropped off above a ski resort town that was dead due to the lack of snow. Strapping on our full backpacks, we started off on a quest to scale Mt. Veleta, the second tallest mountain in Spain coming in at a whopping 3395 meters (about 10,000 feet). We felt like rugged mountaineers, ready to prove to the world just how tough we really were. Yes sir! Nothing could stop us!

After 5 minutes of climbing uphill, we were physically exhausted. So we ditched our backpacks on the side of the trail in a rocky little alcove hidden from view and then resumed our quest along the trail. We were rugged mountaineers. Yes, sir! Nothing could stop us!

We hiked for what felt like an eternity along the trail leading toward Mt. Veleta. We passed several groups of elderly tourists that were bused in, as well as several cows that had somehow wandered up this high. When the trail finally disappeared, we blazed our own path up the side of the rocky steep mountain and made it to an overlook just 45 minutes or so from the peak of Veleta. At about 3000 meters, we were breathing pretty hard, and were both quite proud of our accomplishment. Within less than 2 hours, we were able to book it back down the mountain and back to our bus pickup point, where I was cussed out by the restaurant owner for making a ham and egg sandwich on his outdoor plastic table. I moved over to a stone wall to finish my meal, hoping somebody didn't own that as well.

Once back at Granada, we found our new awesome hostel located in the Realejo barrio, then went out to an Arabic restaurant, and I had a tuna pita and some of the tastiest lemonade in the world. Boy, do I love a good lemonade. What a perfect way to end a successful day of mountain climbing!