Blog Post 16.
It was awesome. I got to do whatever I felt like doing for about 2 days. I didn’t have to wait for anyone. I didn’t have to put anyone through hours of gluten free restaurant searching. I took many photos and hung out with many plants. I walked around parks and read during meals.
I had one concrete goal in visiting Granada: to see the Alhambra. And boy, did I see it.
I began my pilgrimage up a large hill from the hostel to the Alhambra early on a morning so crisp I could see my breath. Thanks to the timing and the cold, the walking path to the old gate- a path that transports you to the middle ages if you’re not careful with your imagination- was completely empty. There were the birds and the chilly trees and the small stream along the path and me. I have not felt that special solitude in nature since arriving in Spain (yet another thing I miss about my Rockies), so those moments were a great gift. Alone, I approached the giant old gate and passed through it, into the place that is the end and the beginning of so many histories of the Iberian peninsula.
The photos on this post, though they do very little justice, are an attempt at creating that experience because words are practically useless when describing such a place (how many times will I be left with this as my excuse?).
After seeing all I could see at the Alhambra (I walked over 6 miles before noon), I returned to town to do something that I’ve truly taken a liking to in Spain. I wandered aimlessly.
This led me, serendipitously, to el Parque de Federico GarcÃa Lorca, a massive garden named after one of Spain’s most influential writers of the 20th century. Inside the park is his summer home which, after he was assassinated during the first weeks of the civil war (1936), was almost perfectly preserved for decades and is now a museum. I waited for the next intimate little tour to begin and learned a little bit more about his life, death and writing. I looked at myself in his mirror: a mirror that would have at some point also reflected the images of Salvador Dalà and Luis Buñuel and other great creators. There were some weird fruits trees outside- that was fun for me.
Granada as a whole is a dichotomous place. It is full of delicate beauty from multiple cultures. There were moments in which I felt locked into the cultural height of the reign of Los Reyes Católicos (Isabel and Ferdinand), Spain’s entrance into the imperial golden era, a societal rebirth-in-adolescence of sorts. But then I would walk for five minutes and feel transported back to my recent time in Morocco- a reminder of the centuries of Muslim heritage that built Granada and called it home.
 I’ll definitely be making a point to travel alone in the future. It does not escape me that to be able to be alone, make my own decisions and to have opportunities to travel is the height of privilege.
Kulani Sol 