Rustic Blue

...at home). Mannfred, veteran Rustic Blue guest, showed us how it should be done. Traditionally one drinks direct from this fountain (an Irish tradition instituted by Connor himself maybe, it smacks of the Blarney to me ~ but we played along ~ and all I can say is that some wishes come true surprisingly quickly and in unexpected ways). What is without doubt is that the water truly bubbles. It is ice cold, and fizzy, and glorious.

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That’s the official Rustic Blue description, and it cannot be faulted.

In time-honoured fashion I presented my map to our illustrious leader and asked if he’d outline “the Plan”. “No” seemed to be the short answer to that. From here on, it became evident just how jealously Connor guards his routes. As if the man is likely to have any competition from the tour companies who shepherd their ... more

Walking down the main road from Capiliera to Bubión was the best way to start: out the door and go. From there on it just got better and better.

A short sharp climb out of the Poquiera gorge over the ridge into La Tahá, along the GR7 to Caperilla, down through Pitres to the triumvirate of Mecina, Mecinilla and Fondales for lunch at Connor & Sheilagh’s. Down to the Roman bridge high above the river, with the ruined mill close by, before climbing back up to Ferreirola with its iron springs, the water running rust-coloured down the path side, but gushing clear from the fountains.

Ending in Busquitar. In true spanish fashion our bus had broken down, lost its driver, lost its way… or something. Connor stressing out on the phone, whilst we enjoyed the sun and a second Cerveza before wandering up to the village square to catch the service bus back to Capilliera.

So much for dry arid southern Spain. There are flowers everywhere. Rock roses, tea roses in overarching abundance, poppies, prickly pears, borage, gorse, elder, and tiny unnamed species in blue and white and pink….

The views are quite simply stunning. From the first views of the snow covered Valeta to the tumbling falls, Alpujarran meadows with grass ripening to rich golden hughes or dark russets. Thyme and Rosemary and Lavender crushed underfoot or brushed in passing scent the air. The moorish villages shining white enclaves in the all enwrapping hills and gorges. In the cultivated plots the pomegranates are starting to flower, each vibrant orange blossom presaging a fruit we’re told… lush green leaves surrounding the as yet rare bright orange flowers. Within a week our host informs us these trees will be ablaze.

Clearly picking the best time to come here is a lottery. Three weeks ago, Connor was walking knee-deep in fresh-fall snow (& he’s a tall chap!) We had that perfect walking weather: crystal clear skies and cool breezes. Another few weeks and it will be too hot to want to do anything. Then again, it is hard to imagine this land being anything other than a version of perfection under any sky.

The villages are shining white. The architecture is moorish or berber depending upon who you listen to. Later in the week I will be told, secondhand from an expert, that actually it is quite simply typical hillside architecture. The most efficient way to build in this landscape and is typical of everywhere on the planet that shares this geography. The overlaps and undercuts speak of extended families. The flat roofs, convenient for sleeping in summer are only possible because heavy rain is unusual and snowfalls manageable. Bell-towers for churches, or minarets for mosques. The call to prayer differs only in language. Running water is the real religion of all southern countries… and here it is celebrated in ceramics and stone and poetry… guarded and coaxed….

Lunch. One could not possibly not mention lunch. Down a narrow track into Fondales, under the rose arbours, to be welcomed a casa Connor y Sheilagh. Twelve hungry hikers traipsed through their house, boots and sacks and all, through the joy that Connor endearingly calls “the ruin”. ‘Open that door there and dump your sacks’ Sheilagh cheerfully invites us to unload in the master bedroom. She and Connor’s sister have been hard at work preparing salads, Connor chips in with the bread bought fresh that morning and sets to dryfrying the pork equally fresh. Vino verrano and juice and clear mountain water. Nuts and olives and fruit. Homemade coleslaw, cheese, salami, apples. If we fought for seats on the terrace, it was to get the uprights… sinking into an easy chair could easily prove fatal and none of us were certain of ever wanting to move from this idyllic spot.

A place of secluded charm even in these jovial circumstances, I couldn’t but help wonder what it must be like to awake here in the depths of winter to whiteness and silence. The beauty at that time of year must be heartbreaking.

But here we are in the late Spring, with good food calling…

… and the temptation to ‘look through the keyhole’… into an expats home in the hills…architecturally typical, lovingly restored (sorry! undergoing restoration!)… it is simple and chic and warm and welcoming… and they clearly love it. Most of the group commented at some stage on how the happiness of the pair just shines out from them. All of which puts the lie to the tale told about the portrait in the bedroom. By a local artist a somewhat un-Connorlike expression stares out from your man’s face. Apparently prior to acquisition by your man himself, it hung in bar hereabouts and local legend has it that it captures the moment Connor was asked to buy a round!

Round about now, Mannfred, our German contingent, found (at the bottom of his daysack) the wallet thought lost and preoccupying him for most of the morning. The one remaining cloud thus blown away, we set about trying to explain the expression “wally of the week” and why this was doubly appropriate…

In amongst the conviviality, I looked out from the terrace at the land around and wondered at the life of the indigenous locals. It must be hard. E.U. notwithstanding, this is agriculture as it has been practised for thousands of years. The hard way. Hands on. Backs bent. You cannot prairie the hillsides. Holdings may be extensive, but fields are tiny and steep and terraced. There are easier more lucrative careers for the young. Absurdly the old ways may be retained alive through the idealism of incoming foreigners not even born to the country, never mind the land. For whatever reasons they appear to have been welcomed here, but there is a sadness still. Connor spoke of elderly neighbours who invite him to take whatever he can use from their gardens. They cannot maintain them fully for want of strength, and for want of families moved away they cannot use the produce.

So the tourists come. Blessing and burden combined as ever. Ensuring the customs are preserved, in some form at least, but driving up property prices beyond the reach of the few locals who feign would stay.

Reveries interrupted. Connor had a notion that we would want to finish the walk.
So on we went, with the promise of the fountain of youth as the highlight of the afternoon. The carbonated spring left us initially unimpressed. The “champagne” we’d been promised flowed from its decorated fountain-head into the usual stone trough looking, well, like water! So soon had we become accustomed to drinking mountain-water from any village spring, ice cold, crystal clear, tasting like water should (i.e. bearing no resemblence whatsoever to the AWS liquid that issues from my taps at home). Mannfred, veteran Rustic Blue guest, showed us how it should be done. Traditionally one drinks direct from this fountain (an Irish tradition instituted by Connor himself maybe, it smacks of the Blarney to me ~ but we played along ~ and all I can say is that some wishes come true surprisingly quickly and in unexpected ways). What is without doubt is that the water truly bubbles. It is ice cold, and fizzy, and glorious.

This stretch of the walk from Fondales down to the bridge could be a million miles from anywhere ~ or a thousand years. Time and space have no meaning as you look up to see the mule track zigging up the other side of the valley and amble through the goats totally unfazed by your passing.

Day One in the Alpujarras ~ and I am smitten.

Day Two: “Another beautiful, but very different walk, starting from your “home” village of Capileira, one of the prettiest of the Moorish settlements, and the highest in the Poqueira Ravine at 1,470 m.

The morning´s climb takes us up through hillside forests up to 2,000 metres, then downwards over waterfalls to the “Wild Boar” river with its natural rock pools….From here it´s all downhill, the views to the southern mountains and the Mediterranean Sea beyond are superb as we pass through oak thickets and along ancient mule tracks on our way back to the hotel.”

That’s the official Rustic Blue description, and it cannot be faulted.

In time-honoured fashion I presented my map to our illustrious leader and asked if he’d outline “the Plan”. “No” seemed to be the short answer to that. From here on, it became evident just how jealously Connor guards his routes. As if the man is likely to have any competition from the tour companies who shepherd their disappointed clients on short strolls around the marked trails. This is a man who knows and loves this countryside. In any event his routes are unmarked and constantly updated as his own wanderings lead him to discover “better” diversions.

Today Connor was back-marking. We were being led by the understudy. Accepting that, should he be unable to lead, the tour would fall apart… Connor has been persuaded (kicking and screaming one suspects!) to share his routes. We met Pete. An IT wizard whose initial dream of the decant to Andalucia foundered on untold rocks, but who has neverless found a niche and exudes the energy and joy of someone feeling lucky to be themselves, despite all. Connor trusts him. Today, so did we.

He did look at my map and waved his finger non-committently over the general route. Connor can trust him. Either he wasn’t entirely sure where we were going, or he wasn’t going to say too precisely.

I took the hint. Put the map away… and have only the vaguest ideas of where we walked. Certainly, I could not trace it on the map. On the ground, I might have better luck.

We must remember that Pete was in training, and had only walked the route once before. This was his first attempt with the distractions of a group…As we gathered his general instruction amounted to “if there’s a choice ‘go left’: unless right seems more sensible”… So en route as he was reminded of the C-marks, we learnt also. Go off-road at the electricity pylon, turn right at the athecaia, in the chapparal the classic comment of the week from Connor “Don’t you recognise this bush?”….OK I might have a problem with that one!

The first stretch is on the road so presumably Connor figured that even Peter couldn’t get us lost as he displayed a definitively Irish concept of back-marking, which involved heading off in the opposite direction. “I’ll catch you up.” Sensing that this might involve fresh-baked bread for lunch, we didn’t argue.

Walking up the road from Capileira the views down the valley are worth a pause to glance over the shoulder…I’d also recommend you get up early one morning just to witness these same views as the sun starts to creep into the valley. Sunrise is an incongruous word to use in the hillcountry. Lightfall comes closer. The day is poured in molten rose-gold from the hilltops to seep slowly into the dark corners of the ravines.

We ambled uphill overlooking the stables, delighting to see the restday horses running free. One or two voices started to wonder whether we should maybe wait for our leader, when he was spotted several twists away ahead of us on the road ~ a perfect picture of elven patience, with a dash of dwarvish humour. I was perfectly prepared to believe that he had simply goat-skipped straight up the hillside to his vantage point, but he confessed to cadging a lift.

We left the road shortly afterwards. A short sharp climb over scrubby hillside, then onto gentle roundhill tracks, with the tantalising snowcovered ridge leading up to Valeta away to our left. Grass is sparse here, the bedrock close to the surface. Water bubbles free and squelches occasionally underfoot. The vegetation whispers of harsh winds and cold winters as it hugs close to its kind in tussocky pillows ~ yet even here there are herbs and flowers. Exuberant bursts of yellow, tiny white starlets. The scent is lip-stilling.

As we turn alongside the athecaia, we’re serenaded by the sunsparkled life-blood of the valley. The manmade arteries functioning perfectly in defiance (or ignorance) of time. Not the ramrod ‘roman-road’ canals of my imagination, these are hand-hewn, path-of-least-resistance watercourses that meander around rocks not worth the blasting out. They sit in the landscape like some god-given gift to the valley-folk, and yet they are so well engineered that irrigation is bartered and sold by the half-hour.

Pete explains the water-management system for the uninitiated and goes on to underline that although you have your designated half-hour a fortnight (which he tells us is more water than you can possibly imagine) you cannot be entirely sure when it will arrive. Your upstream neighbours’ neighbours may be dilatory in closing their sluice, or they may miss a turn thus impeding or expediting the flow on its way to your precious crops. Thus you must walk (or “chase”) the water: trying to fathom its progress in meters per minute to your garden.

We must trust that C & P have been walking their own stretches. Certainly they had not been walking this stretch as we discovered the point at which our route should have taken us along the waterbed itself was more than boot-deep and flowing freely.

Thus we picked our way alongside spreading and bunching as routes became clear or obscure or irrelevant. Again and again the sheer sense of place silenced those I was walking with. The sound of the water, the clarity of the air, the scent….

Somewhere round about now there was talk of the waterfall descent. P suggesting that it shouldn’t be done with this many people, C saying he’d take any that wanted to…
We were called to order. Pay attention. This bit is tricky. There is an alternative route. If you are remotely unsure about heights, have the slightest twinges of vertigo, you should not do this. This isn’t tricky. This is dangerous. At one point there is a death-drop. Pure and simple. You slip here, you fall, you die. (And we don't like to lose clients, the paperwork’s horrendous!)
But on the other hand it is worth doing. It is truly beautiful.
My experience is that grown men don’t speak of beauty frivolously. I kept quiet about my qualms. And Oh, it was stunning!
That waterfalls should be always the haunts of sprites and nymphs and gods and the Virgin Mary herself is no surprise. They are among the planet’s own sacred spaces. Awesome in power, staggeringly beautiful, mind-stunningly inviting ~ impossible to capture in word or on film. That man should worship water before any greater concept of god is self-evident, it is the giver of life. That he should see it tumble in such majesty, casting light at whim, and not worship it would be unthinkable.

The death drop was possibly one of the safer parts of the descent… The path was broad enough to permit you (me!) not to look straight down. Thereafter it became an increasing scramble, following Connor’s instruction for finger and footholds, and trusting your body-weight to the flimsiest looking vegetable fibre. I’ve said in other places, always be nice to the trees on the way up, you may need them on the way down. Clearly this goes for shrubs and mountain grass too.

So down we scrabbled one way or another, duly rewarded by sight and sound and spray.

Only to be rewarded again, as we reached the riverside… Sheilagh waiting, picnic prepared…. such Victorian decadence….
Juice chilled in the river, fresh salads and cheese and meat and bread and fruit and ‘more juice anyone?’ (which will be engraved on Connor’s gravestone).
Mannfred handing round cereal and chocolate bars.
Ann passing out trailmix

Sometimes it’s as though the earth herself decides a place should have a particular purpose. This is a place to stop and just be for a while. There is beach, a patch of meadow, tantalising paths leading upstream, clear water shallow enough to play in, tall cliffs to keep out the real world. It’s a place to eat picnics with friends or family. To play childhood games. To keep a lover’s tryst. To be alone. A place that reaches into your mind and whispers about it’s other moods, other possibilities for other days. A place you would want to go back to, just to see…..

The beach, the rockpools and the slowflowing river have a ‘ground-level’ feel about them. It came as something of a shock to rediscover the truth.

We walked with Sheilagh up to the road where she parked and wandered onto the bridge, and looked straight down. Some-one threw down a pebble and we counted. Yes. It’s a long, long way down. The view ahead opened out to valley, more distant hills and the sea beyond.

Downwards now, along the road, then across country: the talk turning, as it so often does among the content, to books. But the landscape would not be denied. Rocky outcrops demanded that we pause and be still and look, just look at it all.

Eventually we emerged on the trail above Bubión and, scorning offers of lifts, set off up the last 2km of road back to a cold beer in the main square of Capilliera.

Dinner at a Capilleran restaurant that I didn’t note the name of evolved (or degenerated, depending upon your point of view) into a party. Connor played the spoons and lamented the lack of accompaniment. A song was called for. We learnt who can sing, and who can’t, as all did. Shortly after midnight our ever-attentive host arrived with champagne, having spotted the rounds of Happy Birthday among the other renditions. A chorus sung for Cynthia, and then another for Lesley’s daughter away in New Zealand.

Further hospitality was enjoyed in a bar over the road as the restaurant closed, and if more alcohol was consumed than was strictly necessary, encouraged as we were by another Connor catchphrase: “If your glass is empty..… you’ve only yourself to blame”. …at least we knew we wouldn’t be walking tomorrow.

That particular tomorrow we'll draw a veil over.

Day four: Sierra Nevada

Mulhacén is the highest mountain on the Iberian Peninsular. The summit at 3,482m was not to be an option today. The long wet spring with late snow meant that the national park transport had not yet arrived, and no other vehicles are allowed into the Park.

The service bus dropped us at the park gates.

Connor had driven up, and the first duty was to distribute the picnic-fixings. Today is an unsupported walk: we might have half-expected to find Sheilagh waiting for us up beyond the snow line, but no: today we had to carry. Despite that, it was still a traditional Connor picnic… he handed out bread, and fruit and tomatoes, and chopping boards and cutlery, meat and cheese, and chocolate… that we squashed into packs already full of northern European paraphernalia that we clearly were not going to need despite the warnings. Waterproofs and fleece jackets scrunched in amongst the sunscreen. We were going high, but it was already looking like that just meant closer to the sun.

Up through the stunted pines, we were very quickly above the treeline, and climbing steadily over open moorland hill. Not so steadily in my case. The going was easy, if a bit steep, but the pace C was setting was beyond me. Quite simply I could not keep up. Very soon, I decided I was not going to try to. I considered offering to drop out and let them steam ahead, but decided that I wanted to do this walk, but I was going to do it my way. Any other decisions were for others to make. They could accept the adage that a good leader paces for the weakest member of the team, they could forge on ahead and I would catch them up at my own pace or whatever. They chose some kind of compromise.

The downside of group-walking is that you don’t always get to walk your own way. Generally I’ve been allowed to walk on…. gaining on the level and gentle inclines, being caught and passed and dropping back on the steeper ups… getting ahead of the group and dropping back through it I’ve found works. For me. C will not permit that. He would have to give you advance intelligence of the route, and trust you with it, and with yourself.

So on the ups I dropped well back…but in the final analysis, even that had its rewards.

From the first upward spurt, we hit a lateral track and a spell of gentle rambling. Valeta and the ridge still pocketed with snow filling the frame ahead and left. The mountain refuge looking tiny and forlorn ahead. And I found one of those spaces. A couple of the guys striding out ahead, a small bird keeping abreast and telling them who knows what tales of the mountains… a couple of grouse (?) start at their passing. Most of the group behind at this point. I carved out a silence for myself… and knew that I would back on this hillside, with all my options open.

Leaving the track, we again headed up, cross-country. Sadly I was most conscious of people unnecessarily worrying about me, and of the fact that I was delaying them. I don’t know how much that dented their pleasure, I know it robbed me of some of mine. My attention was distracted from the hill.

Coming up onto a higher track, the group all standing looking down a rocky slope. There clearly outlined against a snowfield, a pair of Ibex. Cameras were reached for with comments about this being the point at which they flee… instead of which one animal stood up to silhouette himself against the snow, posing for the tourists as if to the manner born. With no zoom he’s barely visible on my shot even so. As we stood and looked, the true camouflage of the creatures hit home. We spotted another one, and another pair, and more… a whole flock scattered among the boulders and tussocks, unseen.

Connor finally gets the message. Yes I am actually okay. Yes I am drinking water. No I do not feel sick, or dizzy or ill in any way shape or form. I am actually reasonably happy. I simply cannot match the pace… and I am not going to knock myself out trying to. Perhaps it was that final phrase that convinced him that I knew what I was doing.
He decided to press on ahead… with promises that we would be able to see where we were going…

As it turned out, not for much further. One kindly soul took some kind of pity: whether on me or the rest of the group I’m not sure, and offered to hang back with me (thanks Ade!), but we’d barely got to falling into easy conversation, when we reached the halt.

A rocky outcrop, whose wind-shelter wasn’t needed, but which provided scattered seating. A convenient snow hollow.

A temptingly short (?) distance away was the larger outcrop that marked the 3,000m target for the day. Our leader’s view that it would leave too little time for lunch, or make the descent too frantic to warrant, was accepted without demur (almost!). A couple of driven individuals with a point to prove insisted on going on and scaling the mini-peak. Had we been actually talking about the summit I would have understood, but this purely artificial numerical achievement (meaningless if converted into feet)? Only they can tell if it was worth it.
When they returned with only 10 minutes left for lunch. Conviction was somewhat lacking. Except for Dave: the third member of the advance party, who always seems more natural in motion than he does at rest, as if movement is his natural state of being. As the other two purposefully strode out towards their goal, determined not to be beaten. Dave gave the impression of ‘I suppose I may as well go too’ and strolled after them. He returned to lunch, and spoke as if he’d enjoyed the jaunt and ate lunch with equal pleasure and no comment on the timings.

To speak of the food at this stage of the week is almost superfluous; it was what we were rapidly becoming used to. Treats of the trip were figs ~ which actually I don’t much like, but were relished by the others ~ and snow-chilled chocolate.

We’d been granted a 10minute extension to lunch (for the advance party’s benefit) and were enjoined that 5 minutes is a long time on a mountain, and that the downward pace would need to be picked up.

After an initial rock-hopping plummet, the descent was an easy track’n’trail walk.
Pace ceasing to be an issue. The group formed and reformed. Bunched and strung out. Conversations came and went, verging on the philosophical and the deeply personal, straying through the general into the idiotic and back again.

The tracks and trails up here are actually roads. Not metalled it’s true, but two-truck wide routes, complete with signposts. That they’re now used by the Park authorities is obvious but I had to wonder how they came to be in the first place. Connor confirmed that many of them are historic tracks between the valleys. Trade routes, presumably. Goat-droves etc. The present roads however, we were led to believe, were built by Franco, some as late as the 1970s, whether for troop movements, to improve trade potential or merely as job-creation exercises remains a mystery. What is clear, and is to be commended, is that these roads are now Park-vehicle only: these hills are not going to degenerate into an American-style RV carpark.

As for the person who said that this roadwalk descent was “Boring”: she can’t have been paying attention. Views across the valley were arresting, a 1:1 scale relief map which had us debating the layout of the towns and villages we knew or had read about; the opposite rise being at that precise distance and with that precise vegetation cover that results in a squidgy sculpture… the sort that would tempt you to leave off the parachute.
“Squidgy?”
“Mmmm”
“You do mean, soft, squashy, like foam rubber..?”
“Yes. Well, don’t you think…?” The expression on my companion’s face said enough: I was clearly engendering pity again. I shut up!

* * *

Back in the bus, we head downhill, pausing only to meekly encourage an equine couple out of the way, who seem intent on completing their courtship in the middle of the road.

* * *

Tonight we dine out at Cortijo Catifalarga “set apart in the hills above Capilliera” “Transport is provided” ~ well yes, and no. It would seem there a problem. Is it the climate, I wonder, that makes you respond to this news with “yeah, whatever…. How far is it? Can we walk?…”
Connor steps into shuttle-taxi mode, four at a time, but yes, if we want to start walking: it’s that way
So we do.
Manfred insists it’s not far. True…but slightly further, since he’s looking at the wrong building. It happens to the best of us. In the cool of the evening, it’s a very pleasant stroll... and we allow C to skip the last shuttle.

The Cortijo has a bar and a small stage and below, a tiny restaurant sitting maybe 20 people. The menu is limited: a choice of two starters, two mains, two afters. All were pronounced “excellent”. If an unconscionable amount was sent back to the kitchen – it was only the result of over-generous provision. This was real food. Simple, and totally delicious.

After the meal, we were enjoined to take our chairs upstairs. The tiny bar was now packed. If you cannot come to Spain and not see Flamenco, then watch it like this. Most of the people in the bar were almost certainly tourists ~ but window shutters were opened and locals watched from the terrace.

The basic ensemble three musico-vocalist males, joined in parts by a mean percussionist filling the space with the simple notes of finger-teased tom-toms, and three dancers providing backing when not centre stage, one of whom gave us a song of her own…. the show was shared.
But the stars just shone.
He was a leather-skinned peasant (okay he may be a stockbroker for all I know!), and he meticulously explained his music to a roomful of people who understood not one word of what he said. The songs were full of lamentations for lost love. Passion was restrained, subdued…. but ultimately released…
She wore red. Her hair and eyes were as black as only a Spaniard’s can be. Even when sitting out, clapping along, she was so focussed on the music, as if her life depended upon it…captivating even then…but when she danced! Did she dance! The passion, the anger, the restraint and control, the joy…If Flamenco is where dance and drama merge (or separate), this woman performed. She did not merely dance. She acted, lived, whatever the story was: and I at least regretted not knowing enough of the language to follow the commentary being sung around her.
Then she stopped. Took her applause with total dignity.

Then her eyes danced and her smile lit up her face as she stepped back to warmth of her troupe.

Day 5: La Atalaya

Bread bought, picnic distributed amongst anyone with pack-space, we set off through the backstreets of Capiliera, down towards the river, quickly discovering how little the tourist trade has yet touched the village. Two or three sharp steep turns away from the plaza and already the white paint is streaked and peeling, the balcony flowers slightly less exuberant. Black-clad old ladies struggle down the lanes so steep they could not be but cobbled and stepped, with their bags heavy with the daily shop. Not timeless exactly, but of another time. Mediaeval almost. Changeless. I’ve no idea how old this place is, but it’s hard to resist the image of generations making this daily pilgrimage to church or to market.

Now they pay in Euros, but is it any different to the days of peseta or the réal.

Skittering downhill on pavements, and then well-walked tracks, you quickly realise just how precariously the place clings to the gorge and wonder, once again, how and why such places come to be.

The village stops, abruptly, by the last water spout and we’re among the lower gardens and sparse orchards. Dry-stone walls, and banked field boundaries. The track banks are flowered blue and pink and white and yellow. Borage I recognise. The scents of lavender and rosemary and thyme again. Spurning the company of experts, I’m happy to enjoy the remainder in ignorance.

The power of water. The gorge screams of it…but the Poqueira tumbles frivolously down under the bridge in playful mood, and we pay it little heed as we cross over.

From the river, the only way is up.

Steep short climbs and pauses. I remember most clearly the colours of the ripening grass. More red than gold.

Reaching an alpine meadow, we scatter and sit. Does the chatter cease or do I just tune it out? Somehow I seem to have become a focus: now let’s be honest ~ photogenic I am not, so for people to talk about me ‘making a picture’…well, maybe, if they’d had the sense to take it before talking about it…they might have captured what Connor called a faraway, wistfulness…someone else referred to as “Heidi”…and Chris described as ‘as happy as pig in shit’… Fact is, I was. All of the above!

Bliss.

We followed the road and Connor-cuts upmeadow, to reach the O Sel Ling retreat.

Connor had made much of our ‘being Buddhist for the day’ and respecting the monastery’s right to silence…but hadn’t stretched it as far as the picnic which turned out to be as carnivorous as ever.

Entering the grounds, we crawled over the incomplete prayer wheel construction site, and circumnambulated the Stupa, largely in ignorance and almost certainly not for the requisite number of circuits… I wondered after what the thoughts of my fellow-travellers had been during that alien ritual…

We ate in the sunlight, and observed the silence.

I wandered back to the tiny Stupa. Intrigued by the offerings: traditional grains and rice, but also Christian symbols and plastic toys. As always, the sense of peace, acceptance, joy. I thought, as I do in such places not about the Buddha with whom I cannot forge any connection, but about the Buddhists, with whom I can.

We sat in the shade and meditated, or just thought, or maybe just sat. Each to his own.

Called to move on, I wondered which of my companions had been touched by the spirit of the place. As we entered the inner grounds we passed a couple, simply sitting reading, a picture of contentment. Their greeting was a silent eye-smile, my response an automatic namasté. It could have looked pretentious, but if anyone noticed, they said nothing.

Wandering along the paths that lead through the retreat grounds back into the park ~ a boundary unmarked ~ and looking up, there are hidden eyries, retreats, hermitages, barely visible, rock on rock. I envy what I imagine to be the experience of waking there to the glory of the gorge in the morning mist and sunlight. Only much much later do I pause to think about sleeping there through the snows of winter.

Skirting the hillside on an ancient overgrown and crumbling aquifer, we then drop down to a track, leave it almost immediately to cross a meadow where we’re briefly troubled by a cobbled mare who’s got herself so trussed up in her reins as to be unable to stand. Perhaps the affront to her dignity caused by our scrutiny stirs her into more concerted action, for it seems more brute force and ignorance, than intelligent application that finally brings her to her feet. We worry about the beasts being tethered in full sunlight with neither shade nor evident water, but they do not seem the worse for it so conclude that they will be moved and watered soon enough.

So onwards and downwards. Steeply scrambly downwards to emerge at the waterfall below Pampaneira. An over-sized weir rather than a true fall, but as always the power of water to entrance. Hypnotise.

That, though it didn’t register at the time, was the real end of our walking the Alpujarra.

From there a short uninspired trudge up the road into the village… for a long well-inspired cerveza y tapas.

… And this time, the bus turned up on time.
It happens, even in Spain.

That evening we ate outside a wonderful restaurant in Bubión. Connor & Sheilagh stayed to eat with us (not the plan, apparently). When it got too cool to be outside, we spurned desert and retired the back bar, where the locals were playing an unidentifiable game of cards, and put a few more Euros in the local coffers.

Reluctantly, we had to leave. Pedro was there with his bus to transport us back to our hotel. Whence we persuaded him to take us back down into the heart of Capiliera, and then to join us in another local hostelry for a drink (us, not him, obviously).

There was a final day to the trip. A day spent in Granada. The old town, the Alhambra. A long and lazy lunch at a restaurant that made space & made up tables for us (literally: hauling them from storage, creating space, and setting) Getting lost in the small streets. Watching horse-back bullfights on tv in a backstreet bar. Eating & drinking late into the night in a gentle side street.

I can see why people fall in love with this country.

 

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