Exploring Nairobi Nightlife
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It’s January near the Sacromonte Caves Museum in Granada, Spain. The air is as warm as a summer’s day back home in the UK, without the humidity. We navigate the narrow paths around the hill, the Albaicín behind us, the Valparaíso valley plummeting into the Darro River below and then rising again to the red sandstone walls of the Alhambra.
After a pitched tent with reggae music pumping out of it, we see a pink plush armchair and our first cave house. I point it out to my 10-year old nephew, “That’s where Hobbit’s live,” I say. But he tells me he’s more interested in Star Wars than Lord of the Rings and I can’t think of anywhere in the Star Wars universe that’s anything like this place.
We take a bend around the hill. In the distance, a village stretches out, each house a dwelling set into the rock face like prehistoric caves. The path winds every which way and we struggle to find the way across. We pass skull-and-crossbones flags and laundry hanging out to dry. From the doorways ahead of us, some villagers watch out, their hands raised to shield their eyes against the sun.
We’re only a stone’s throw away from the city and everything looks rural and rustic. We find our way across to the other side and the villagers wave across to greet us as we approach.
Behind the Albaicin
A while ago, I wrote a post on the three major miradors of Granada’s Albaicin district: Mirador de San Cristobal, Mirador San Nicolas and Mirador San Miguel Alto. It took us an afternoon to visit these three viewpoints and we decided to repeat the adventure when Ola’s mother came to visit.
But this time, after gazing out at the stunning vistas behind us, we turned around and wondered what was behind the lonely monastery that stood sentinel over Granada. Behind, we found a path leading up to the top of the Albaicin hill. More interesting to us was the path that followed the hill round towards Sacromonte and its famous cave dwellings, winding over a steep drop into the Valparaiso valley below.
About Granada’s Sacromonte caves
It’s unclear when people started to burrow into the earth in the valley below the Alhambra. Some say that they were built by Muslims and Jewish inhabitants who were expelled from their homes during Isabella’s and Ferdinand’s reign. Others believe (including the locals, it seems) that the Arabic population created them long before this, perhaps to house the people who built the Alhambra.
But whoever originally inhabited the Sacromonte caves eventually moved out to be replaced by the Granadian gypsies who live there today. Now, you can walk the narrow village streets to meet these wonderfully genuine people and explore some cave houses in the museum to get a glimpse into how they live.