Day 25-30, Gibraltar – Granada, Granada – Iberian Peninsula by Auto-Stop

Day 25, La Linea – Granada I; ~245km, 5 cars, maybe 3,5h waiting time

Covered in ashes I got up and saw that the smoky cloud was now covering the Upper Rock of Gibraltar. I didn’t eat breakfast, but started hitchhiking nearly right away. A guy from Ireland drove me to a service area where I asked to guys who then drove me to a service area at Malaga. There I met a Polish couple, who wanted to hitchhike along the coast but didn’t have any success yet. I asked people for about 90 minutes until I found a Polish guy who drove near Granada. The hitchhikers had decided to stay and go with a Polish truck driver to Paris the next day.

It took two more rides until I finally was in Granada at 4pm. On the way I picked some of the special cactus fruit.

In Granda a friend of mine, E., whom I know since kindergarten studied for 2 years now. I waited for her at Plaza Nueva with some ice cream. She picked me up some minutes later and took me to her apartment which terrace had a stunning view of Alhambra, the famous fortress.

Together with her friend Borja and their two dogs Lanu and Umbra we went to a small stream to chill. In the evening her French roommate made crêpes with different tastes, very delicious, for us and some of his friends.

I chose the terrace as sleeping berth, because it didn’t get colder than 22°C at night and the view of Alhambra was just too nice.

Day 26, Granada II

We were invited for dinner by two friends of E. and I was shown the town for a bit. In the late afternoon till evening we went across the Alhambra are a bit and rented a car for the next day to go to the beach.

So I enjoyed the cliché day of Spanish lifestyle, siesta, relaxing, taking things easy (and slow).

Day 27, Granda III, beach near Motril; 80km, 1 car, no waiting time

At noon we went to the airport to get the car – a Volkswagen Polo. I was the one who should drive to the beach. We were 5 persons and three dogs – if that was legal, I don’t know, but it was quite an experience.

It was a bit difficult to find the beach but we managed. I just went swimming for some minutes and then searched for shelter from the sun.
E. and her friends intended to stay overnight, but I wanted to return the same day. So when the first people started to go at 7pm I just approached two of them asking if they were going to Granada and if so, whether I could go with them. And well, yes and yes. So E. needn’t drive me to a bus station where a bus would have left a time none of us knew and I saved the money of the ticket.

So I before I returned home, I stopped by at a supermarket and then had a relaxing evening on the terrace.

But this day really made me thoughtful. At home I would have never ever asked strangers that are about to leave a beach if I could go to town with them. I guess it’s mainly because I can hide behind the English language and “just being a stupid” tourist/traveller when I’m abroad.

Day 28 (Sunday), Granada IV

I slept till the heat of the sun woke me up. That was at about 11am. After a fruity breakfast I started a walk around the area. There are little mountains, since Sierra Nevada is not far away. Caves can be found in some of these hills in which people are living. You can see chairs in front of even wooden entry doors, washing lines with clothes on it. These caves are no temporary “apartments”. Since I thought E. and her friends would return late in the evening I arranged a meeting with some guys from the crêpe-event.

The bar we went to served ridiculous sized beer. It was more of a beer shot than a glass of beer. I wanted to go on quickly, that was depressing. On the way to the next bar, we saw some Serbian basketball fans partying. We went into the bar that served Tapas as well and ordered some beer. Among the guys was a Polish girl, A., and because the other guys were kind of afraid of the Serbs we both decided to join them alone. They were already in a good mood and invited us for some more beer. I was soon called Albert Speer or Albert….that’s how a part of Serbs are. When they started to fight each other, because one of the Serbs was given a shirt from the opponent, we left for another location and at 4am I went home.

Day 29, Granada V

I visited the famous Alhambra fortress, but since I’ve already been to Iran, honestly I didn’t find it that interesting.

Since I wanted to hitchhike directly to the Netherlands the next day, I bought food and nice falafel. But there was something inside, that made my stomach revolt again.

It is strange; after all these journeys, where I honestly didn’t pay much attention to what I ate or what I drank – sometimes I drank water from the tap although most people didn’t recommended it – never had any health problems. And now, in Europe, I have problems two times in a two weeks.

Day 30, Granada VI

That’s why I had to stay in Granada. Fortunately E. was OK with it, because I couldn’t have done extreme hitchhiking in that shape since it’s a 2300km trip to Breda.

So we cleaned the apartment, ate some ice cream and looked how I could get to my hitchhiking start spot. In the afternoon two funny friends of a friend of E. arrived and we had a nice chat altogether. But I didn’t join them going out, I had to be fit for the 2300km-nonstop-hitchhiking.

<– Previous (Day 23-24, Faro – Tarifa – Gibraltar)

Next (Day 31-33, Granada (ES) – Breda (NL) – Insane 2300km hitchhiking) –>

–
Photos of the inside of Alhambra
Day 25