August in Spain is hot. August in the south of Spain is so hot it’s unbearable. Sometimes on the Isle of Skye you need a jacket in August. In Granada, I wanted to take off all my clothes and jump into a fountain and never come out.
Don’t get me wrong – Granada is beautiful, wonderful, magical even. Just don’t go in August!! We took the five hour bus south from Madrid, and then a city bus from the bus station into town. Standing sweating at the Gran Via 3 bus stop with our backpacks, we saw another girl with a backpack; I went up to her and introduced myself.
“I’m Lisihe” the girl said. “Do you know of a place to stay?”
“We heard there was this hostel. Want to go check it out?”
And so we joined forces. Lisije worked for an opera company in Belgium and was on her holiday here. One day she had sat down, and bought five plane tickets, and left on a tour of Europe the next day. It was one of those meetings where you are both so lonely for a new friend, and within 10 minutes have told your life stories, both talking at the same time, and after that feel like you have known each other for years.
The hostel was full. “There’s this place up the hill” they said. And so we got on this mini bus that was not designed for people with backpacks, or mice with backpacks for that matter. We stood up in the back over this long and windy road, trying not to fall over or die from the heat. The hotel was disorganized. The girl at the check in desk had only been working there for one day. And she didn’t really speak English. Or Spanish even. We did get a room and the best thing – there was a pool on the roof! I went straight for it. I stayed in for hours. When I got out Kate told me I resembled a drowned rat. That’s a very deep insult for a mouse. So felt it necessary to point out that she was just bummed because she had to get out an hour earlier because she is a pathetic human, and then shook water all over her. Laughing, she pushed me back into the pool and jumped in after.
It took only about five minutes to dry, and then we walked back down the hill with Lisije to the center. All the buildings have been whitewashed, and so the whole place is white. I suppose maybe they do it so the sunlight will be reflected. We found a little white washed bar on a backstreet, and discovered the amazingness of Granada bars. Tapas. They had tapas in Madrid to, but you had to pay. In Granada, every time you ordered a drink – any kind of drink, even coke, food came along with it. A little sandwich, some pasta salad, meats, cheeses and olives on a plate. Small, cute, and different with every time. And the olives – the olives were fantastic! The cheese was good, bit if you ask me it has nothing on a good Scottish cheddar. Anyways, Lisije told us that Tapas means covers. “They used to put a piece of bread over the drinks to keep insects and stuff out” she said “and then they began to put little pieces of food on the bread. Each bar would have a special thing to put on the bread. And that’s how tapas started.” It should have started in Scotland too! We just drink, sometimes with crisps, but mostly just straight. Much better to have tapas!
The next morning, the hostel down the hill had space. The building had been an old Moorish style courtyard house, but for modern times they had covered up the open air courtyard at the middle of the building with glass. So now you could sit on the glass and look down into the hostel, but when you opened the windows, there was much less circulation of air. The air just sat – hot and dank. Which could have been fine if they had air conditioning. But they didn’t. We were in a room with no window to the outside, and no air conditioning. Just a tired old ceiling fan. Moving on! Things to see!
The moors as they are called, North Africans speaking Arabic and practicing Islam conquered Spain in 711 (think convenience store) and were finally pushed out in 1492 (and you thought Columbus had that year all to himself?) Between these years, while 
most of Europe was in the Dark Ages, life was good in Spain. Mathematics and Science ruled the day, and in Granada, the rulers lived in the magnificent Alhambra. I don’t know where to begin, really I don’t. I’ve been lucky, and seen a lot of castles as we traveled. But this was different of them all. There are three parts – the Generalife gardens, the Nasrid Palaces, and the Alcazabah. The gardens are amazing! There are lots of fountains, hedge walls with arched doorways, courtyards with pools of water and roses. My favourite thing was a staircase that had really cold water running down the hand rails.
The Nasrid Palaces are also amazing, but I think they are more amazing for other people. The decoration is the same as the decoration that is used all over Morocco – mosaics, carved plaster, and wooden ceilings. Since we had come from Morocco a week before, we had gotten a little spoiled. The tile work 
and the carving was so elaborate. I think it was the best example I had ever seen, but unfortunately it was super crowded, and as everyone was looking up, they kept almost stepping on me. Everyone is given a 30 minute time slot to see the palaces, that's how crowded it is. They were also doing some restoration work, so the courtyard that is most famous was hard to see in it's full glory.
The Alcazabah is the fort part of the Alhambra. The walls you can see from the outside are part of the Alcazabah and so are the towers. Inside the walls there are the foundations of buildings, but not much is standing. There was no guidebook, but it was fun just to wander around and imagine what things would have been like when it was constructed.
The whole place was so amazing. I think Kate was tired of me walking around with my mouth hanging open and saying how everything was amazing by the end of the day. But it was.
That night again featured tapas, and then we returned to the hostel, exhausted after a day in the heat, just hoping to sleep. But oh no. I slept some. Kate didn’t sleep at all. When I fell asleep she was in the bed next to mine. When I woke up the next morning she was stretched out under the fan looking absolutely miserable.
We spent the day hiding in cafes, visiting cool cathedrals, and avoiding the sun. Fortunately, Granada has tons of cafes. We were sitting at one, outside in the shade, eating lunch, and there was a fountain next door. I got so close to swimming in that fountain. The tradition in Spain is to take an afternoon nap, a siesta, to escape the heat. I think it would be better to take an afternoon swim. Anyways, the hostel was too hot, and so leaving an extremely grumpy Kate (she hates heat and now hadn’t slept in two nights) to wander on her own, I went off in another direction.
I was loving Granada. If only there was a large air conditioner I could turn on at night. During the day it’s not so bad, but 40 degrees Celsius at night is not good. When I woke up on that third morning, Kate looked up at me from the floor under the fan
“I haven’t slept in three nights. And now I’ve been bitten by bed buys after spending only 10 minutes in my bed. We’re going north! As fast as we can!"
Usually we decide together where to go, but this time I understood. She head reached her breaking point. It made me feel better to know she had one.
“Someday, I’m coming back to Granada!” I told her.
“Me too!” she said “and Cordoba, Sevilla, Portugal. In the dead of winter.”
“Do you think they have heat here?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” she replied. “I can always put on more clothes.”
And so we began the speediest overland trip north possible. I started to feel like speedy Gonzales.