>
Chris and Sheina tackle Lanjaron
April was always going to be a busy month – with a birthday, two groups of visitors from Australia and Semana Santa (Easter holy week). Chris and Sheina were first up; arriving tanned and healthy after another hot aussie summer. Bar the odd Perthite we bump into – usually in Granada’s seedier quarters – C&S are the first Perthies to grace our shores.
Granada turned on her charm for them. Sheina arrived wearing a large puffer jacket, complaining of the cold and looking a lot like Michelin woman, but my mid-morning she had relented and gradually began peeling back the layers.
The first few days in Granada are always fun – the maze that is the Albaicin, gets everyone confused and you can see people fumbling with maps, asking for directions and generally baffled. Chris was no exception, heading off on his long walks and eventually returning home. One night he dragged us, along with Sheina, Alex and Katrin, out on a mission to show us some “amazing” graffiti he had found on one of his walks. Let’s just say we humoured him and walked and walked, until we were no longer in the Albaicin … and then when we had had enough we mutinied and dragged him back to a nice little courtyard bar to console himself.
Semana Santa was always going to be a little crazy, so we formed a plan to get out of town for a few days. We found ourselves back in the Alpujarras again, at a rural B&B, a beautifully restored 200 year old farm-house with metre-thick walls, high in the mountains above Berchules. It was a good choice. A Spanish farmhouse, run by a Dutch couple is always a good thing. The rooms were clean and nicely furnished, the food was excellent – healthy even – and everything worked.
The B&B was nicely stocked with libraries of books on walking, Andalucia and the Alpujarras. Walter had even gone to the trouble of painstakingly compiling, mapping with a GPS and describing, dozens of walks of varying durations in an around the region. Pick a walk, a degree of difficulty … and Walter is your man – whisking out a colourful map and a set of instructions and generally pointing us in the right direction.
We set out for Berchules for provisions and then continued on walking mainly on small dirt tracks, frequented by friendly smiling shepherds, past terraced plots; the smell of dung, and the sounds of cow bells never far away. Rather than describe it all – we have compiled a gallery of photos here. Check them out.
On our return to Granada we caught the local bus up the steep hill that leads to our house only to find the route closed half-way up. The driver instructed us all to disembark and walk the remainder of the way, bags dragging along. We reached the top of the hill and arrived smack bang in the middle of a Semana Santa procession (see Semana Santa posting) and spent some time trying to work our way through the throng.
It seemed like C&S’s stay lasted forever (and that is meant as a compliment). In their absence, we reflected back the days, recollecting the familiar empty clinking of wine bottles as we kept the recycling man in business and hope they enjoy the rest of their journey.
Recent Comments