Day Two - Fountains, Flowers and Finesse

As we sat in one of the many open-air courtyards of Alhambra castle palace, fountains gushing, birds whistling overhead, and people taking pictures of the awe-inspiring art that covers every inch of the walls, I couldn't help but notice the recurring phrase carved in Arabic into every wall and pillar: "There is no victory except with Allah", the motto of the ruler of Granada at the time. Even though it's in everyone's faces and people are taking pictures of it, it looks like they're missing it's meaning; this place once stood only because of the people's faith in God, and it now stands as a lesson to later generations, that as seemingly easily as something can be gained, it can also be lost. Now, it's just a tourist attraction, but remains standing as a reminder of what could be, and was.


I'm kind of glad that my camera battery ran out before I had a chance to take pictures of this place; it gave me a chance to properly take everything in and not worry about documenting everything on film. No-one could properly take pictures of this place and do justice to its beauty at the same time, you just have to be there! You'd need to take a hundred pictures of one spot to understand how it feels being there. I just put my glasses on and looked at the most well-crafted place I've ever seen, the man-made and nature complementing each other brilliantly.


Then we just wandered around the gardens, climbed the castle towers, and honestly, the word 'amazing' is an understatement. I can't describe it. The gardens of flowers and fountains with goldfish and attention paid to every intricate detail. On the way to one of the gardens supposed to be representing one of the forms of paradise, we cooled ourselves down with the water gushing down either side of the tall garden staircase, shaded by the intertwined branches of trees overhead. You couldn't get more perfect a place than this. Our last 'wow' moment involved the longest corridor of roses I had ever seen! Engulfed by a tunnel of pink, you just had to stand and stare into the distance as the pinkish sunlight streaked its way through the gaps where the roses chose not to grow.

The way back to the town from the castle was fairly easier as we were all going downhill, and we sat down to a shawerma for lunch, happy with my souvenir postcards and clay plaque reading "There is no victory except with Allah". The ice cream shop we went to later was nice, with its wacky flavours and pretty ice cream decorations. I chose ferrero rocher. Then I had caramel. We then asked directions towards the small mosque where we prayed and met a moroccan/spanish kid (7 years old, and called Al-Ghali), communicating with him through mainly sign language, "face- book", "computer", "poke, yes?"

We made our way up to the main mosque, sitting on the peak opposite Al-Hambra. Inside we just chilled, had a little talk about our priorities during our travels, with the conversation gradually changing to which kebab shops were the best in England. After relaxing for a couple of hours in the shade of the mosque, we prayed maghrib (and to be honest I was quite freaked out by the whole chanting thing after prayer), then we met a moroccan man who said he'd help us with our trip to morocco, and who we'd meet after we found somewhere to eat. We continued down some narrow lamp-lit walkways until we found a nice spanish/moroccan tea place, and we had some nourishing rice and meat. they had a whole menu full of different teas, and the two young brothers running the shop made us feel very welcome.

We retraced our steps, guided by the streetlamps and familiar landmarks and graffiti, along the alleys, taking loads of pictures on the way. We again came across the mosque converted into a house, which we were quite annoyed with, and we finally found our way to the moroccan man's baklawa shop, where we met some other guys who spoke english, two of whom lived in Willesden for a while! It's a small world.

After my fairly long chat with one of the guys (an asian, who's travelling through Algeria to random places), and getting details about Morocco, Salman and I paid a visit to the nearby mosque we went to earlier to see if it was still open (it wasn't), but on the way we met Al-Ghali again! He took us to his dad and gave us each incense sticks, probably because of the euro I gave him earlier. Happy that we were rewarded materially for going to the mosque, we returned to the hostel to find Suzie (a fellow hostel stayer) jovially reminding us again to be quiet at fajr time and at night (with a few choice swear words :P), as she had told us on the roof earlier. Instead of going out and eating ice cream, we spent the rest of the night on the roof terrace pointing our laser down at random passers by (and their dogs)... too hilarious!

Then we discussed our plan for the next day (like the adults we were), which involved leaving the hostel at half ten, and probably waking up ten minutes before.

Here are a few more photos of Granada from my friend's camera: