A Spell in Spain

My flight to Malaga yesterday was uneventful apart from once the plane was loaded, the pilot stated on the intercom that we may not take off for an hour due to the striking air traffic controllers in France. France has had a slew of general strikes over the last month due to the government pushing through legislation to raise the retirement age from 60 to 62...come on people, that shouldn’t be that big of a deal. We ended up taking off 20 minutes later and thanks to a tail wind, ended up arriving on time. Elena was nice enough to come and pick me up from the airport even though it’s about a 90 minute drive one way.

Today, my first full day in Spain, Elena had to work although she was able to work from home. I met Elena in Nepal three years ago and at that time she was an emergency room doctor but the stress of that job led her to try something different for a change. People used to ask me if I got stressed at my job and I’d always reply “No, I mean it’s not like anyone’s going to get killed or even hurt if I mess up.” Well for Elena, that wasn’t necessarily the case! So now she works for the union that oversees medical workers and she’s involved with coordinating the appropriate training for them. She likely get back to practicing medicine in a few years but this seems to be a nice change of pace for her right now.

While she worked, I headed out for a walk around town. She gave me a map and a rough itinerary to follow and I was off. Initially I was slightly concerned about getting lost as her flat is located on a narrow street which has many pedestrian lanes branching off from it. The central area of Granada was largely built by the Moors many hundreds of years ago so their influence is still seen today by a maze of paths that run through it. Within five minutes I hit a plaza and then was onto some main roads. I admired the gorgeous architecture of the stone buildings, the fancy tiled sidewalks and the plethora of fountains gracing the town. There were a lot of people milling about of all ages and dress ranging from exuberant young students to dapper cigarette smoking businessmen, meandering local senior citizens to curious tourists. I found my way to the river, checked out a conference center on the other side and then headed on a different route back to Elena’s. Some walls were adorned with some fairly stunning graffiti which was more like artwork than graffiti. Near the end of my walk, I did take a wrong turn and ended up in the labyrinth of cobblestone walkways and after 5-6 minutes of thinking I was headed in the right direction, I back tracked only to find that I was actually on Elena’s street when I first turned onto these narrow streets. No harm, no foul...I got back to Elena’s right on schedule.

Elena's apartment building:

A lovely plaza:

Great architecture:

One of many beautiful fountains:

The river:

Some of the artistic grafitti:


A huge agave plant:

The narrow pedestrian streets:

Lovely fall colours:

Elena's terrace:

Elena had booked us a hotel room in the Sierra Nevadas, a range of mountains to the north of Granada. The town we were headed to was called Capeleira in the Las Alpujarra area and it was about an hour and a half drive from Granada. She had arranged to go hiking tomorrow morning with a couple of her friends. Essentially we had to drive east, then north and back west, skirting around the highest peaks of the Sierra Nevadas. We were treated to a gorgeous sunset with yellowish orange sunrays poking their way through the clouds as if they were lasers zapping the Earth. The Mediterranean Sea could occasionally be seen off in the distance, reflecting the sinking sun’s light.

Heading to the Nevadas:

Elena driving:

We were treated to a gorgeous sunset:

We checked into the seemingly empty Hotel Atalaya in Capeleira and went for a stroll around the hillside town lined with its white buildings that seemed to meld one into the next. There was a specific restaurant that Elena was keen on for dinner but it didn’t seem to be open. We consulted with a bar a few doors down and they told her that it would open a bit later (Spaniards are renowned for eating dinner late) so we sat out on their patio for a few drinks.

Hotel Atalaya:

The restaurant still wasn’t open when Elena knocked on their doors but the waiter was nice enough to let us in a little bit before they officially opened. It was a beautiful and quaint restaurant with a few different rooms. We opted for the small middle room since there was a space heater on full blast and after sitting outside for the last hour we had a bit of a chill. The meal was lovely, red wine with some stuffed mushroom appetizers followed by an eggplant lasagne that looked unlike any other lasagne I’ve ever had before...super yummy. We didn’t stay out too late as we would be up relatively early for our hike which I was looking forward to.

Interesting yet lovely lasagne: