The rest of Spain, Part 1

Lets see, where did I leave off, ah yes that is right Spain.

So After Barcelona, Jessie and I got on a night train to Granada. We had woken up to the sunrise over the hills of Spain. It had really been the first time I had ever watched the sun actually rise before, and it was beautiful. We pulled into Granada and meet a guy from England that had been wondering around France and Spain for a while deciding what he really wanted to be doing. He had come to Granada to find a job and for fill his hippie dreams. He seemed to be a little clingy so after deciding which direction we needed to go I hinted that we needed to find our hotel so that we could drop off our bags and get to Alhambra to get tickets before they sold out.

We had gone in the wrong direction for maybe a block before we asked for directions, and headed back to the main street where I bought an over priced map of the city. We found our way and arrived to the hotel about 2 or 3 hours early. so we dropped off our bags and headed up the hill to Alhambra to get our tickets. We had gotten to the ticket office when they had just sold out the morning tickets so we had to get tickets for later that day. We got the 4 o-clock time slot so we headed back down to town to see what else we could see while we waited.

We grabbed a quick drink and headed to a church in the middle of the city center. Walked around the shops near by and found a place to get paella that Jessie had so desperately be waiting for. After lunch we made our way back to the hotel where we took showers and naps before heading back to Alhambra for out 4pm tour. The thing was that we had not read the tickets very clearly and didn't notice that there was another tour before the main palace tour and missed out completely on the gardens of Alhambra. We had shown up to the front gates with 10 minutes to spare and we asked where the tour started for the main palace. The people told us that we had almost no time to get there since it was a 15 minute walk to the palace, so we had to run to get in before they closed the gates for our time slot. We got to a line and thought that we had just made it in time when the ticket person pointed out that the palace was still another 10 minute walk from where we were and that we only had 5 to get there. So we had to run yet even more, in flip flops mind you. We showed up and got in line hoping that they would still let us in. While we were waiting in line I read the ticket a little more closely and found out that they would still let people in up to 30 minutes past the scheduled time slot, so we were safe.

The palace was amazing even though the paint had long since faded, the craftsmanship in itself was stunning. There were pools of water and rooms that were designed to me cool even in the heat of summer. There was one room that was specially designed so that one person could be in one corner of the room and another in the opposite corner could whisper and the other could hear them. If you stood in the middle and talked it was as if you standing in between four speakers pointing right at you playing your voice back amplified. It was unlike anything else I had ever experienced.

After we were done we took a bus back into town to find a famous view point across from the Palace to see the sun set and light up the palace a bright orange color. It had seemed that the sun had been put on hold because it felt like forever waiting for the sun to finally set. There were tons of hippie people smoking pot all around and it was hard not to smell it. Once the sun finally set and the lights came on illuminating the castle, I got a couple really good pictures and, we headed back down to find dinner.

We stopped into an Indian restaurant for dinner. It turned out to be fairly cheap and pretty good. We were surprised that there were people coming in trying to sell copied CD's and cheap merchandise, but we had no idea what was in store for us when we got to Morocco.

We went to bed early that night because we had to get to the train station to catch an early train so we could stop in a town Jessie really wanted to see called Randa and still be able to catch a later train that would take us to the south coast of Spain. When we stopped in Randa we had a couple of hours to see the city and the bridges that were so famous, get a calling card so that Jessie could call Micheal and so we could call try and call the hotel we had planned to stay at in Tarifa. We got back to the station with enough time for Jessie to make her calls and she waited just long enough to where we just barely made the train.

We arrived into Algeciras late, and found a taxi to take us the rest of the way to Tarifa. The taxi drive stopped at a couple ATMs so that we could get some cash to pay for the ride before we left, and after the first attempt trying to get cash from a broken ATM we found one that worked and got some money. It was a short drive through the dark hills and we got dropped off at the bus station in Tarifa. We found our way to the hotel that Jessie had tried to call before hand and found out that it was more then we had read and that we had to pay for internet and there was no breakfast included. We really needed the internet so that Jessie could watch Micheal's football game at 3 in the morning so I told Jessie that we should try and find a different place. She was being a little stubborn but I just ignored it and we tried to find another place. Jessie had been going word for word of here Rick Steve's guide book and thought that we were going on a wild goose chase. I kept reminding here that she could always take the book word for word as things always are changing and that the book is not always 100% accurate. So after a little dragging of the feet we found another hotel that was cheaper and had free internet. We checked in dropped off our bags and found a place to eat. We then went back to the room and I went while Jessie just took a nap so and waited to watch the football game online.

The next day we tried to get ferry tickets to Tanger, but since the weather had not been very nice a couple of the morning ferries had been canceled due to rough seas. So the had told us to come back later and see if we were able to get tickets then, so we explored a little more of Tarifa in the day light. Walked down to the beach and around to the local bull ring before going back to catch the afternoon ferry.

That's the end of part 1 of Spain since I don't want to tie in Morocco with this entry since it is already long enough. So I will try to get the next part of our crazy excursion a little later. I will also post the photos soon as well, so that there is something for you all to look at too.