Day 14 Alhama de Granada to Granada (surprise!)

 18.02.2016 15:00

Again my bed seemed way too comfortable to get out of it, but the alarm went off at 8 and I had to get going because there was supposed to be a long day ahead of me. As far as I remember the plan was to hitchhike to Arenas del Rey (or Jayena?) and then hike to Jayena (or Albuñuelas?). As you can tell from the title, I never got to either of those places.

After a quick cafe con leche around the corner and the rest of my tortilla I started walking all the way back through the gorge at around 9. Usually I hate doing things twice, but the views on this walk are just so amazing that I didn't mind this time. Everything was frozen and it was really cold, but the sun was shining and I felt great and energized from a good night of sleep.

Atfer 30 minutes or so I got to the street leading South towards Játar and Arenas del Rey. I knew there wouldn't be too many cars around, so I got comfortable at this little parking lot and enjoyed the early morning sun.

Sooner than expected the third car that passed by stopped over, three men were inside on the way to work as olive pickers in Játar. I found it very surreal that olives are ripe when its zero degrees outside. They dropped me off at the junction to Arenas del Rey, which was only 4km away, but I didn't want to walk on tarmac, so I just waited a few minutes, and lo and behold, the second car pulled over.

The woman inside (in Spain women have so far stopped way more often than anywhere else I've been) was on the way to her part-time job in administration of the local school and took me to Arenas del Rey. There it hit me that the very first thing I had wanted to do in the morning was book the sports classes for the next semester, but of course I totallt forgot. I found the only bar in the small village, where they indeed had internet, but no password. Duh. I had a cafe con leche anyway and then got going, hoping my courses wouldn't be all full when I'd have internet access in the evening.

After filling up my water at the public fountain I finally started hiking for real, first on a quiet tarmac road taking me uphill, then downhill again on a dirt road into more farmland with small houses.

The weather was just great and I was smiling all the way until I realized that I must have gone to far and missed a turn down to the left. Wasn't too far so I went back, but it turned out that the river I had to cross was just too deep, and there seemed to be no other way of crossing it. The map had no helpful information and I definitely didn't want to go all the way back, so I decided to follow the road which led into the right direction and could've possibly ended in a proper road towards Jayena.

But when I asked two men standing by their car a few minutes later, they told me that said track would end soon and I would have to go all the way back. Naaaaah. Luckily they were just about to leave and agreed to take me with them. I was very disappointed that this route hadn't worked out as planned, because I had been so motivated and full of energy. So when the two men told me that they were going to Granada, I just took it as a sign: It would be raining the next day anyway, and I felt really confused and planless, so this seemed like a good way to sort myself.
After some more questioning I found out that they weren' driving to Granada right now but had other things to organize in the afternoon. They dropped me off at this deserted junction just outside of Fornes, and left the decision of where to go to completely to myself. Granada or Jayena? In the end I walked left.

Found this abandoned gas station after about 10 minutes of walking, which, so I thought, would've been a great spot for hitchhiking if there was actually some cars around. Again I made myself comfortable and prepared for a long wait, but very soon another woman in a small blue car pulled over.

She was going to Ventas de Huelma, only 15km away but better then nothing. She actually spoke some English, but one could say that I am now so fluent in Spanish that we didn't even need English. Ha. Arriving in Ventas de Huelma we parked in front of the farmacy, where the woman had some things to organize (she worked as a kind of saleswoman for cosmetic products if I understood her right), and I expected to take my stuff and continue, but she was like "..y despues vamos a Granada, eh?". Vale. That's a nice surprise.
I killed some 30 minutes sitting in the sun and eating dried figs, which I had allowed myself to buy in the supermarket now that I knew my tent would be stored away in hostel within a few hours.

Then we drove into Granada, with the snow-covered Sierra Nevada shining from the distance. Again it was just so surreal seeing all those green fields and olive trees with mountains like these in the background.

As the woman asked me where she should drop me off, I realized that she most probably had driven into the city just because of me (she was living in a village outside of Granada City). Very thankful I just got off wherever she decided to, which was quite close to the center. Unprepared as I was I just asked my offline map for hostels, and the name "Oasis Backpacker's Hostel" popped up and even sounded familiar, so that's where I headed.

There was a Free Walking Tour at 3pm, which I joined, so I didn't have much time to catch up with the blogging yet. I will do a separate post for Granada itself, which is just AWESOME.

The receptionist agreed to store my tent for the next 10 days, but I'm still a bit unsure. It's just really really cold and I'm not prepared for rain at these temperatures. The following stages of the GR7 lead through the little villages along the Southern edge of the Sierra Nevada, where it isn't any warmer than it is in the city. Also I'm kind of discouraged by the accommodation possibilities to come, which all sound very expensive. But still, I'm relieved though that it would be way too cold to camp outside anyway, so actually nothing was ruined by my non-functioning tent.