This past weekend, I went on a hike in the Sierra Nevada mountains behind Granada with a small group from our program. We could not have asked for better weather! The weather had cooled down and it was slightly cloudy, which was perfect. In order to get to the mountains, we took a twenty minute bus ride out to the base and began our assent. A small "hippie" village is at the bast of the mountain, so we walked passed several houses while on the immediate trail. There were olive trees and grapes growing along the path... a sure sign that we were in Andalusia. However, once we left the pavement we were completely separate from civilization and it was great! I am not accustomed to living in the city and I was very happy to be out and walking around in the fresh air :)
The mountains are great for rock climbing and there were quite a few groups out and about. However, this meant that we had to do a bit of maneuvering ourselves. In a few places you had to climb the rock face, holding on to metal bars placed in the rock. We crossed over suspension bridges many times and probably had too much fun doing so.
While on our walk we passed man made aqueducts built hundreds of years ago. These aqueducts were used to take fresh water down to the city and the Alhambra. They're still running and working today :) The hundreds of fountains we saw while in the Alhambra were all running off of the aqueducts on the mountain...pretty cool.
We didn't see much wildlife while on our hike, but we did see a few mountain goats on the hillside. They were the best looking goats I have ever seen ;) We were told the streams have fish, but we didn't see any. The water was crystal clear. It was a great day for a hike :)
The weather continued to cool down throughout the weekend and we had our first taste of rain in Granada on Saturday. Ellen and I went out for a walk to buy, search, for peanut butter and got caught in the rain. Of course when we made it back across town the rain subsided, but it was refreshing nonetheless. We had a similar experience today. We decided to go out again today and once again got caught in the rain, so we had a good time tromping back through the puddles across town.
Our family stays inside most of the day on a regular basis, but was inside this evening in particular because of the rain. Ellen and I were invited to play Monopoly in Spanish and had a great time. They offered us Chupito de Chocolate while playing. Chupito in Spanish means "shot," so it was a shot of liquor, something similar to baileys, with chocolate and cherry syrup... I thought it was disgusting, but Ellen like it :) It was different that's for sure. Chupito, or no Chupito, we had a great time playing Monopoly. It was an older version and used Pesetas, their monetary standard before the euro, and was a great time for me to practice my Spanish. Our Spanish Monopoly would not have been complete without Laura, our host sister, playing and dancing to Michael Jackson. It was a sight to behold :)
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