.. This past month of December, I travelled to Granada. Being it the city where my dad was born and having visited it several times, I decided on this trip I would explore the nature surrounding the city, rather than getting lost again in its beautiful streets. However, I ended up doing both, because nobody can resist a sunset reflecting onto the Alhambra, walking through Granada's squares adorned with fountains or visiting the cool local shops that have become a must in my visits.
My favourite hike I did on this trip was undoubtedly "Los Cahorros", a trail along the Monachil river that meanders through Sierra Nevada. Whilst this wasn't the longest hike I've done (I turned around after a while, not being it a circular trail), it was one of the most fun hikes I've had with Darwini (if you're reading this, you probably already know who Darwin is).
The river flows strongly downstream creating little cascades of blue, almost turquoise, freezing cold water. Whereas the trail must definitely be most beautiful during fall, we powered through this humid, cold and slippery path in winter, which added an extra feeling of adventure. As you can see on the pictures, I wasn't as prepared as Darwin was for this hike - in my ignorance I thought this would be a pretty chill day and I didn't think of wearing an appropiate jacket or mountain boots. It was alright, though :)
While following the trail you'll find that sometimes you have to crawl to get through the projection of a cliff. Some other times, you'll have to hang yourself from some iron grips attached to the stone and with half body hanging into the river, carefully place half a feet in the tiny path to get through. We actually saw a woman falling into the river! And whilst I worried a lot about her at the moment of the accident, she didn't hurt herself and remembering the fall now makes me giggle quite a bit. We also went through three suspension bridges - Darwin crossed the first two like the brave boy he is and asked me to pick him up to cross the third, the longest suspension bridge I've been to, so far. I picked him up and we crossed together feeling like reckless Indiana Jones.
As I already mentioned, the trail follows the river and so you can go on and on, getting every time deeper into Sierra Nevada. Not being well prepared for this sudden adventure (we didn't have any food or water, for that matter) we decided to end our hike when we found a nice patch of sunshine and green grass in which we could lay down and rest our legs and paws before heading back.
While in Granada, I also visited one of my favourite illustration art stores. La Madriguera is a rather small shop on which her owner, Clara, works her magic changing and moving stuff around in order to fit every illustration art supply you can imagine. I like this shop not only for being a local, small business, bit also for the love and care she puts into decorating her store. And in top of it all, this is the only place where I've found items I had long been looking for, such as the Prismacolor Premier colored pencils sold individually (apparently you can't find Prismacolor in Europe, except for some shops in the UK or Amazon 🙄, of course), as well as this Holbein gouache brand I couldn't find in Barcelona.
Next time you go to Granada, swing by La Madriguera - you may find beautiful books, all the pencils you dream of and endless cute little things. And while you're there, also go to El Tiempo Perdido bookstore, a lovely little place to lose track of time.
Hope you enjoyed this entry - a rather different one this time! Remember, if you'd like to help me writing some more, you can support this and future entries by buying me a Ko-Fi :) (one time only donation). If instead you'd like to send a monthly donation (generosity overload!) you can also do so through the subscription button in my shop.
Thank you for passing by and reading this blog :)
See you next time!
Marina.