Within a few short minutes of the (soon to be) weekend adventure, my friend Ben and I realized it’s necessary to book train tickets from Sevilla to Granada in advanced. The train was unexpectedly full leaving us with a quick decision. We ran to catch a taxi to the bus station in hopes there would be a bus leaving soon WITH open space. As we were on our way, we started thinking of back up plans, but we held our hope high. To give away an ending, there was a bus that was leaving in 4 minutes, but was full. We ran to the ticket counter, and he said we can take the bus an hour later. Close one, but we made it.
We were on our way to Granada to stay in a hostel, then take a bus to the small mountain village of Dilar to start a hike up the mountains. We were climbing La Silletta, or the saddle (a 360 degree view at the top!) Friday night, we roomed the narrow pebble stone streets city of beautiful Granada. Granda still has the Spanish tradition when you buy a drink, you get a tapa gratis. We took advantage of that by going from bar to bar. Our first stop, the tapa reminded me of my classic familys’ recipe of german potato salad, so it was delicious. Because the tapas wern’t fulfilling our hunger, thanks to Ben’s advice, there are a lot of arab restaurants on a certain street so we headed that way in hopes of a good Middle Eastern meal. One we found, the small, cozy restaurants kitchen was closed, so we ordered crepes because they still were making those.
We rose the next morning, took advantage of the free typical hostel breakfast (toast, jam, a form of nutella, cereal, milk, juice, coffee...) and went to the bus stop. The town of Dilar is very small, in fact it seemed to have only one hotel, a few bars and shops, and small tiny spanish houses overlooking the mounains.
We had a good start of our hike when we stopped at a home to ask a spanish lady directions to the specific mountain we had in mind. She was more than gracious, offering us a water bottle and even grapes she was growing in the front of her house. She must have saw me eyeing the vines of grapes in the white bags hanging above our heads, and she offered us a bag. That experience showed us the nice, hospitable spanish culture. Not to mention, the homegrown grapes were delicious and a perfect treat before a long hike.
We found the path and started out climb! After thinking we made it to the top 2 times, we finally made it! We were hungry, tired and thirsty as all we had was a water bottle. We forgot to bring snacks and should have had more water on us. The rain storm was coming our way, we could see the rain clouds in site! It was getting dark soon, but we had to finish! We pushed ourselves and it felt great to be at the top. What a feeling at the top of a mountain.
During one point, we strolled from the path and went straight up the steep side of the mountain, instead of the easy slower way. It was exhilarating and fun. I was exhausted though. The church in Dilar was our landmark to the city again, and we’ve never wanted to see a church more in our life than now. ;) We crossed a field to get to the hotel to (hopefully) get water, the missed the bus, and sat in the cold rain for 45 minutes. Through it all, it was well worth it! God blessed us with beauty in site.
The day ended with stuffing ourselves with pizza and sharing a free XXL pizza that we received to the hostel workers. The next day went to the arab street for some shopping, and went to the bus station only for the train to leave in 2.5 hours. We made it back home safely.
Great conversations, running to make busses, watching a storm cloud head our way on the mountain, and ditching the trail to head up steep are just a few of the adventures from this epic Sierra Nevada trip. I will never underestimate the beauty of Gods creation. We are blessed to live in a beautiful world, not always perfect, but its important to remember the beautiful and positive.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment