La Alpujarra

The villages of La Alpujarra are like giant staircases on the mountain faces. Each step is another row of white stone buildings and churches, one on top of another. Laid out ingeniously, they have for a long, long time provided proper dwelling for communities in an area that, if I understood the guide’s Spanish correctly, has not one but five separate climate zones in the 30 miles from the mountain villages to the sea. Hiking the area, I found myself actually getting high off thin air and mammoth landscape. One section of path would feel like hilly areas in northern Wisconsin, with pine trees and familiar shrubs, while another would feel almost tropical, with trees that had giant bright green leaves and rushing streams. Every now and then I’d look up and see yet another small white village, perched securely near the top of a mountain face. How many of them there are extending from the south of Granada’s city proper to Spain’s small eastern coast, I’m not sure.
There’s not much else I can say about the place that would make much sense in writing. Some friends and I are already cooking up plans to return, this time climbing one of the highest peaks in the area, with little equipment and probably no guide.
A bit reckless? Perhaps.
But worth it? In every way.This was my first taste of mountain climbing/hiking, and I can already see why for some people, this becomes an addiction and life pursuit……