Odds and Ends at the End of a Travel Blog

I'm in Pampaneira at this moment, up in the Sierra Nevada mountains of southern Spain. At 5:00 pm a bus comes rolling through town, and I plan to be on it this afternoon, heading to Granada, and then from Granada through the air to Barcelona. On Thursday, I should be headed home to Wisconsin.

Too soon to take stock of the totality of the past eight weeks, best I can do right now is to pick up a few lost pieces. There are important things that slipped through the blog cracks. For example, whatever happened to the rest of the story about Lyon?  Way back in September?

Check out this fine example of Trompe-l'Oeil painting on the side of this building in Croix-Rousse:

 Ha! Zach and I went up to the ATM in the lower right to extract some Euros... from the wall!

I was charmed by this musician, and soon dismayed when he was surrounded by police checking his permit to make music on the street. (He was OK, and played on.)

And here's our cousin, Marie Therese, such a bright light on this planet, showing us around Lyon, her new happy home.

And then, how is it that I totally neglected to note the Wieliczka salt mine in Poland, near Kraków?

All these sculptures are carved out of SALT!

We went down into this salt mine with our cousin, Małgosia.  Back in September!

Time to go home now.  I'm ready.  It's been a phenomenal eight weeks. A big thank you — Mercí, Dziękuje, and Mulƫumesc — to all who were so kind and generous to Zach and to me. You have enriched our lives. Come and visit us in the United States! 

And thank you to all who have responded to this blog, in one way or another, in the last couple of months. You've kept me going! Come travel with me next time!

I leave you with this shot of sunset last night, here in Pampaneira:

Climbing up to Bubión

Yesterday — November 1, the feast of Todos Santos — I climbed from Pampaneira up to the next village, Bubión. This is a relatively “easy” hike, supposed to take about an hour. 

The villages here in Las Alpujarras are all built into the sides of the mountains. The central area of Pampaneira is near the bottom of the village, so it took me quite a while to get to the top of the village, where the trail to Bubión begins. 

Here are a few photos I took in town, as I climbed up the steep stone streets seeking the top of Pampaneira:

Finally, I reach the top of the town and the beginning of the sendero, or hiking trail.

That's Pampaneira, down below.

A sign-post at the beginning of the trail shows you that the portion of the trail from Pampaneira to Bubión is just a small fraction of the hiking trails around here:

The trail itself is a narrow, dirt path, sometimes hardly more than a foot wide. Twice, I passed some happy piggies.

This is exactly the kind of trail that Zach would like.

Notice terraced gardens on the other side of the gorge:

It’s nice having a camera along, as it gives me an excuse to stop for a while and catch my breath.

Finally, I get a glimpse of Bubión, still pretty far up. 

I look back down the mountian. There’s Pampaneira, way down there!

You can barely see Pampaneira but it's there in the distance behind the trees, nestled into the folds of the mountains.

I’m sweating now. Jacket’s been off for some time. Now the scarf comes off, then the hat. By the time I get to Bubión I’m dripping with sweat and panting.

And here it is! Bubión! 

First thing that greets the walker is this lovely fountain:

I’m in Bubión, but the hike is not over, as all restaurants and beer opportunities are at the very top, along the highway. So, I keep climbing within the village. About a quarter of the way up there’s a terrace, with a view of Pampaneira down below.

Finally, I find a restaurant up at the top of Bubión. 

A cold beer comes accompanied by a dish of 25 olives, (yes, I counted the pits,) a lovely little round loaf of excellent white bread, (I ate the entire loaf,) and thin slices of the local sausage. And then the main course, fried trout from the local streams, with thin slices of local ham, potatoes and veggies. Oh, my.

Well fortified, I spend 3€ for a walking stick from a tourist shop across the road, and head back down through pretty, pretty Bubión.

A sign tells me I’m on my way back to Pampaneira:

Another walker agrees to take a photo of me with my walking stick.

That stick makes it possible to go down, always harder for me than going up. It’s a physical crutch, but also psychological. With this stick, I can go anywhere! 

(When I got back to Pampaneira I took a look at a little label stuck near the bottom of the stick. Why, it’s made right here in... China!  Ha!)

Back up here outside my hostel, I sank into a chair on the patio and did nothing at all for the rest of the evening.

Mountains down to the Sea

The Mediterranean is only about 40 minutes away from Lanjarón, it appears, if you go directly. So, before moving more deeply into the mountains, if I wanted to take another last look at the sea, it seemed prudent to go today.

So I hopped on the 8:00 am bus, before breakfast. Ah, but the bus does not go directly; it first meanders over to another mountain town, Órgiva, before going South to the sea. Instead of taking the superhighway, we took little mountain roads, and the journey lasted an hour and 15 minutes. Here are a couple of views through the window of the bus:

This is the Rio Guadalfeo, big as a lake because it's dammed just below this point. 

We make "S" curves through the mountains, through pine trees.

One moment we're up in the piney mountains, and the next we're down in palm trees, as suddenly as that. 

The city of Motril is NOT on the tourist agenda. Across from the bus station, I see this remarkable travel shop — the only photo I took in town:

Naturally, I went inside to inquire. It costs 80 Euro to get from Bucharest to Motril by bus. I failed to ask how many days that would take. Nor did I ask about the price of a trip to Warsaw.

A quick trip in a local city bus and I was at the seashore. The first thing I notice is the bike path, running parallel to the shore, between the beach and the road. Very nice. Two bicyclists passed, and then no one at all. I wished I knew where to rent a bike!

And then.... the beach. It was gray. Gray sand. Sun hiding behind clouds. One couple walking two dogs.

And then they left and there was nobody. 

Nobody to the west.

Nobody to the east.

My plan had been to eat some good fish, fresh from the sea. I remembered the Huachinango a la Veracruzana I had in Tampico in 1977, one of the most memorable meals of my lifetime, there on the beach in a little shack of a restaurant, on the edge of an ugly city, oil slick on the sand. Alas, it was too early in the morning today. There were restaurants on this beach, but they would not open for another two hours. I picked up a few pebbles, said goodbye to the sea, promised Morocco I'd get there some day, and headed back to the mountains.

Back at the bus station, an elderly woman at least my age fretted around our bus, worrying if it was the right bus. You can see her here. She had auburn hair.

I mention her hair. On the bus coming down, there were seven passengers, every one of us at least age 70. Five of the seven had auburn hair. They were all women. I looked for gray roots. Nope. Plenty wrinkles, no gray hair. Is this a local genetic trait? Or do they all visit their hairdresser regularly?

The bus ride back up was as glorious as the ride down.

I like Lanjarón. There's a sweetness here. Maybe it's the water. Most of the tourists — and there are not many — appear to be elderly and Spanish. People come here for the baths, for the cure. This lovely sculpture in the center of town seems to capture it:

Tomorrow I'll be moving on to Pampaneira, higher up into the mountains. Lonely Planet suggests I may have to hike to the next town to check my e-mail, so there may be a break of a few days before the next blog post. Happy Halloween!

Las Alpujarras

Granada is near Spain’s Sierra Nevada mountains. I decided that I’m done with big cities and museums and monuments.  Now I just want to hole up in a little place of beauty, take long walks, nap in the afternoon, and disappear into a novel. It’s called a “vacation” and I can’t remember when I last had one of those, except maybe the annual three days on Rock Island.

This morning started with breakfast of chocolate caliente con churros in a little hole-in-the-wall place where the mail carrier had stopped in for a cup of coffee.

A sidewalk vendor selling fruits displayed these wonderful pomegranates! Ha ha! Now I'm seeing pomegranates everywhere!

On the way back to my hotel, I stopped to buy some soap from this man who makes it himself in his home. 

I got to the bus station just in time to catch a bus leaving in 4 minutes to Lanjarón, in the foothills of the Sierra Nevadas. It’s only about half an hour south of Granada. As we neared the town, through the bus window I could see windmills spinning! Yes!

After settling into my hotel — a 1940s sort of place that’s been well maintained — I went to the restaurant next door for a bit of lunch. Here’s the Ensalada de la Casa:

Note the elegant GLASS bottle of water. This area is famous for its spring water that bubbles up out of the ground in several places around town. Sorry I didn’t take a photo of the seafood soup that followed, or of the woman who served it, ladeling it out with such pride and pleasure.

Drinking fountains abound here because of the springs. A map of Lanjarón shows no fewer than 15 fountains in this very small town!  Each one is accompanied by a charming quotation, artfully painted in blue on white tiles.  Several are quotes from Federico Garcia Lorca. Here are just a few:

I had time for just one quick walk this afternoon, and I was eager to see a bit of this part of Spain which is called "Las Alpujarras." I chose a walk up to the ruins of a 14th century castle. This one was built by Nazarian kings Yusuf I and Mohammad V to protect Granada from possible invasions from the Southeast. 

The walk begins alongside a little stream .... yep, fed by those springs. About half an hour along the wooded path, I catch a glimpse of my destination far ahead:

Below is the view of Lanjarón from near the top of the castle. It was windy up here, a great howling wind that had me clutching my camera tightly and clinging to the stone walls.

On the walk back to town along a different path, I encountered more olive trees. And a Siamese cat that kept me company for quite some time! He was un-photographable, refusing to pose nicely.

Tomorrow I get up early to catch a bus that will take me down to the sea. Just for the day.