Life on the road … Morocco seems like months ago. Memories of getting scrubbed down in a Turkish bath amidst a steam room full of other naked women spring up now and then. But every day since then it has been a new town, a new city, new sites and more friends. Back to Tarifa, back to Spain and the creature comforts we were used to. Flamenco shows and the all important bottle of wine. Bus to Torremolinos. It is somewhat different from the hippy sanctuary visited by my dad in the 70s. However, it was really nice to make it there, to be at a Spanish seaside city where 30 years before me my dad had eaten artichokes and slept on the beach.
A day later it is the bus again. Back to Granada. Probably a silly move to double back when your schedule is as short as mine, but what can I say, Granada truly captured me once and there is no doubt it will do it again. Also I make the excuse of missing out on the street art tour and "Claire, you haven't been there, I honestly don't mind if I go back again…"
As the bus nears the city I pull back my curtain to see the stunning Sierra Nevada in the background, thick white snow covering the peaks.
We walk through the old quarter to get to our hostel, passing the Moroccan tea and hookah bars with their spicy aromas spilling out. The backpackers is the best I have stayed at yet and an hour later we are trudging through the city checking out the art that covers not only the walls of alley ways but of staircases, houses, public walls. I have never seen anything like it and I am now a massive street art fan and a fan of artist 'El nino de las pinturas'. We climb staircases and look up to see more amazing art, look down to see right across beautiful Granada, look out to the hill to see the hundreds of house fronts with the rest nestled deep inside the hill. There are mansions built into the Granada hills. On the other hill tucked away beneath the mystical Alhambra are hidden squats, obviously no mansions but comfortable enough caves for hundreds of hippies from all over the world to live.
The Pupa Tattoo Art Gallery has a cute story about written in tiles about a little girl with a big nose and beady eyes and her new friend Pupa. It has funky paintings, handmade dolls, brooches and regular exhibitions. You wouldn't find this baby down Hindley Street. Her tattoo studio room is filled wall to ceiling with her drawings, paintings and bookcases full of art reference material. Claire morphs into photographer extraordinare and attempts to district me with questions and stories. Then to celebrate she buys us vino and we eat the free tapas in the sunshine which until now has evaded us. Life is good, I adore Granada… and now I have my very own piece of Granada ink, a knot for my dad.
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