Adventures Abroad

Yesterday I went hiking in the Cahorros Mountains, very near the Sierra Nevadas. I went with a group from El Centro de Lenguas Modernas, which is the language school that I’m attending. There was a group of about ten students from all over the world, and a leader, Paco. We took a half hour bus ride from Granada to this little farm town (I wish I could remember the name!) located in the nest of the surrounding mountains. There is a river that runs through the town, dividing the highway from the pueblo.

When we arrived, we began walking up a paved road, as both cars and horses passed us. Then we cut away from the modern path, and onto a dirt trail that wound through little gardens and farms. The terrain in this part of Spain is somewhat similar to that of Southern California, perhaps a little less deserty. The land is dry and hosts shrubs and other dry trees and plants. Once in the mountains, we walked across our first, warm-up suspension bridge. It took us across the river to a fairly well groomed trail. Paco decided to lead us off the trail through an unfriendly bush with very aggressive thorns to a secret water source. It was “escondido” (hidden) behind this fortress of a plant, but the fight was worth it, as we filled our water bottles with clean water from a tube hanging off the side of the mountain.

We headed back to the trail, crossing a few more warm-up suspension bridges before the true test: the suspension bridge that was possibly as long as seventy yards (judging from my knowledge of a football field) and probably sixty feet high, traversing an angry river and neighboring a waterfall. Only four people at a time could cross, because it was so long. Once you reached the middle, every step was a like a step on a stiff trampoline, and the spray from the waterfall was the cherry on top of the experience.

The rest of the trail (after the bridge) was a two-foot-wide path sandwiched between a rock face and a relatively fast moving river that would be very hard to swim against if you fell in. At times the rock face jutted out so that there were only inches of path, and we had to shuffle side-ways holding the convenient handles that were stuck in the rock as we leaned backwards over the river.

The challenge of this hike was so exciting, and I kept thinking to myself “Wow, this was SO worth getting up at seven on a Saturday morning”. We ate lunch on a hillside where the sun was perfect, and we could see the entire canyon.

As we went back through the town, ideas were ping-ponging off each other in my head. “I wish I could just live off the land. I could live on a farm for a while, grow olives and raise chickens and cows and sheep. Oh, this house right here would be perfect. A small cozy farmhouse set in the shadow of the Cohorros Mountains.”

Sorry it's sideways! This is the long suspension bridge.

You can see the farms and the town

This was the view from where we ate our lunch!

The top picture is of the buildings who live in my favorite plaza, Plaza Nueva! I love it because clearly it has beautiful colors, but it also hosts a pretty fountain (as most plazas do), but the best part is its location.  It’s an open plaza that is located a block down from a beautiful old church, and the best viewpoint of the Alhambra! Oh, and the Rio Darro is just up the street too, right by the church and La Alhambra.

The second picture is of La Alhambra, with the snow-capped Sierra Nevadas in the background.  I took it while standing in the Albaicín district of Granada, an old fortress and one of the oldest neighborhoods in the whole city.

The last picture is of an old building that stands on the lower part of the hill upon which the Alhambra is located. When I took this picture, I was looking at the building from across the Rio Darro.  I love how mysterious it looks!

When I first arrived here in Spain, I understood about half of what my host mom said.  Often I would sit and smile, laugh when she laughed, say thank you when she served us food, and ask her questions about Spain (knowing that she would likely embark on a twenty minute telling of the Alhambra, the Albaicín, etc).  After a week and a half, I’ve worked myself up to seventy percent comprehension, which makes me both happy and relieved.  Now, when my “madre” asks me to unplug the heater, she doesn’t have to demonstrate the action.  Or when she tells me that the floor is wet, I will understand and not walk on it three seconds later.

Walking on the streets is a lot more fun, because I can overhear people’s conversations about novios (boyfriends), children, or the beautiful weather we’ve been having.  In a way, I feel like I’ve cracked a code.  Whenever I understand a passerby, I want to turn and say “Ha! Your language isn’t that hard! I know what you’re saying! I’ve been kept in the dark for nearly twenty-one years, but I finally understand all you Spanish-speakers.” (This would all be said in perfect Spanish, of course.)

However, I thought I’d share a story or two about some instances when I didn’t quite speak correctly, or understand correctly for that matter.

As some of you know, my bags were lost for a week and a half, so when I first arrived I had to wear the same smelly clothes (minus the few articles that I bought) for several days. One time, I was at a bar with my same smelly clothes, and the only purse I brought was a HUGE leather-like shoulder bag.  The bartender came over and commented on my big purse, and I told him my luggage was lost so it was the only thing I had to carry around my stuff.  (I brought a smaller purse, but it was in the lost baggage).  He said he was sorry, and asked if I wanted a free Guiness shirt.  Of course I said yes, because a) I would look kind of hard-core in a Guiness shirt (I hate Guiness, it’s too strong for me) and b) I was really getting tired of my airplane clothes.  So, he gave me the shirt, I said thank you and that was that.
My host mom had been very worried about my bags and always asked if I’d heard anything from the airline.  So, when I returned home from the bar, I attempted to tell my madre that “the nice shopkeeper at the bar gave me this free shirt”. I didn’t know how to say “bartender” so I figured she would understand if I said “shopkeeper”.  Apparently I didn’t know that word either.  The word for shopkeeper is “tendero”, but instead I said “tenedor”, which means “fork”.  So my sentence came out like so: “A really nice fork at the bar gave me this shirt”.  She laughed and patted my arm, saying “bueno mi hija”. I didn’t realize what I’d said until my roommate, Mary, began hysterically laughing next to me.

Last night, my host mom was talking about how mine and Mary’s Spanish is very good, and that she’s been doing this for over twelve years and some girls who come and stay with her don’t know a word of Español.  We smiled, and thanked her for the compliments, as she continued to talk about our “nivel alta” (high level) of Spanish, and how it wasn’t very hard for us to understand her, or for her to understand us.  We politely argued to the contrary, as she told us how our Spanish was just going to improve with time.  Ironically, during her entire speech about our language skills, she kept using this one word over and over that neither Mary nor I understood completely, throwing off our comprehension of the conversation.  Of course we understood most of what she was saying, we understood the sentiment, but that one word kept springing out of her mouth, and striking us in the face with an ironic confusion.