Yes, yes, the cap was originally bought as a joke. Yes, yes, it says Austria, a place I like because of the lakes and the Sound of Music and that garlic soup that came INSIDE the bread roll. I had not counted on fricking Fritzl buying a house with a basement and souring the definition of the country.
Anyway, the point is, my cap was a clanger and everyone else wore jeans.
The café was shut at the bus station so I bought swits for breakfast. Pic’n’mix is a big deal in Spain. Big deal… big deal, huge. (That’s me pretending to be Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman shouting at the Chanel girls. Julia wore Spandex too, we are alike in a lot of ways) ( - Oh jamrag, on reflection she said “big mistake, big mistake, huge”, but… as we saw in the piano scene, she is very flexible)
Anyway, really, pick’n’mix is all the rage. Once again, you buy it from a “chino”. There are two types of chino; the one that sells plastic earrings and umbrellas that break at the merest cough of wind, and the one that sells “frutos secos”, which literally means dried nuts and fruit, but is translated by the Spanish/Chinese as gummy bears. Both “chinos”, however, whisk noodles into their mouths and watch telly as they serve you, their eyes never swerving from the screen.
Talking of swerving, that’s what our bus is doing. Round hairpin corners on a thread-thin road. Sweets for breakfast are never a good idea. I feel unhumanly ill. I think about that time at Horse camp when the quiet girl ate 2 Mars bars as breakfast in bed and then blew chunks out of our caravan window. Not today please.
I try and distract myself by beating everybody at travel scrabble in Spanish. The trick is to wildly invent words, but just look very, very confident when you put them down. Had I had the letters, “el cheatingo” would have been on the board in a flash. Triple word score; bing bang bosh, it’s in the (green, felt, letter-)bag!
We’re getting to the good stuff now, and the sweetsick sinks back down my gullet. We’re going to three of the highest towns in the Alpujarras mountain range. Lonely planet describes them as “splatters of white paint, Jackson-pollock style, against an arid background”. Nice reference, but first of all ‘arid’ is not a pleasant or fair word, and ‘paint’ is not the point. Being white, the villages have perfect, natural camouflage: they look like floats of snow.
We arrive at Pampaniera, not to be confused with Pamplemousse, which is French for grapefruit.
“Right gangkids, to the tourist info it is!”
It is closed for the foreseeable future. Gre-aayyytt! I ask an old man with angelhair broken veins for directions. He looks terrified. It is the combined effect of the cap and the spandex. He points up the mountain: this could be the path, or he could be trying to get rid of us. Either way, we can’t stand around all day chatting.
We trudge into the sharp jaw of the valley. We are not alone. There are Sheep. Everyone else gets soppy, but I’m not sure. There is a child-one which is ok, but there’s a crip up the back which puts me off again. I think I might not like animals much/ I definitely don’t like animals at all. I pretend it’s cool indifference, but it is actually terror. I am Shakira from primary school who cried with fear at a drawing of a cow. Cows can be big, mind. And please don’t get me started on fish.
It is good though, to be out of the city, and the path is downhill and dusty. We read the signs like good tourists, and take “photo breaks” to catch our breath. There’s an awful lot of photos for my liking – this could have been a moment to shine, but I am wearing paedocap.
We scramble down to a river to break for lunch and wash our hands in ice-cold mountain water. Pierre has brought French farmhouse cake made by his mother in France, in their farmhouse. Well done, Pierre!
We walk on, and the other side of the valley is even better. We see a horse AND Paul turns a branch – wait for this – into a Gandalf stick with a shiny rock/magic crystal!
Before we climb back up into Pamplemousse, we sit on silk smooth rocks and dip our muggy feet in the water. It is so clean and fresh and cold. I have happy feet; coincidentally also the name of an animated film about penguins which I liked though no one else did.
Back in village, we drink undrinkable water because some goose has broken off the “no” of the “agua no potable” sign. And we get a raft of local meats and cheeses. Jumbo chorizo, shavings of handcut cured ham, bruise-y black pudding, and soft hypotenuse triangles of goats' cheese.
On the bus home, the sky is apocalyptic. There is only one Zorro sword-slash of light, running right along the ledge of the mountains. Their trees look like ants gripping to the cusp of a leaf. But before the first thump of thunder, we have already ducked back down to Granada, with its flamenco shows and strawberry-salesmen and safeness.
Que guay!!!!!
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