Spain - Granada

Day 13 - Thursday 9 May, Rest Day in Granada

My only worry about getting up was to be up, dressed and breakfasted before my masseur turned up at 10am. We paid our €2.50 to the hotel reception and had our breakfast at the cafe next door to the hostel, which has no restaurant. This turned out to be OK, but felt a bit skimpy. Badger has bought new fork seals in Barcelona and was trying to get in touch with the English-speaking guy at JMoto - the local Triumph dealer. He'd had no joy by 10am, but my masseur - a tiny Spanish bloke called Carlos turned up with his portable massage table prompt at 10.

I was surprised that the hostel were able to find a masseur on spec, but they had and I had ordered a 30 min massage for €30.00. This turned out to be a bargain, Carlos knew his stuff and set to work on my neck, which was in pretty bad shape. He also did some work pn my damaged left arm. Chatting to Carlos I reckon that he was glad of any work he could get as the recession had affected him badly. Anyway both parties seemed happy with the deal and my neck felt very sore but a lot better.

I caught up with Badger, he had ridden down to the dealer, but much to his consternation the guy could not work on his bike that day, but agreed to look at it first thing tomorrow i.e. Friday. Badger was a bit annoyed as he had been emailing and texting since Barcelona without receiving any reply. It was decided we would go off for a walk then that Badger would go off sight-seeing and walking while I returned to my room to chill and catch up with the blog and emails. There was no way we could get tickets for the Alhambra as they are sold out weeks and months in advance, however you can walk round the gardens and go round some of the buildings, which is what Badger did.

Granada Piccies

I didn't get too much done that afternoon as my neck and arm were too sore for typing blogs, but Badger tramped round a large part of Granada having worked off some of his frustration over his bike. He had found a non-tourist bar for us to try Tapas. This was down the same alley behind the hostel, but in the opposite direction to the tourist attractions. This was opposite a square and adjacent to a huge Moorish gateway, which of course had modern grafitti scrawled on it. We took pictures of the arch as the last of the evening sunlight caught it and turned it a beautiful golden colour. We met a young english girl who lived in the Sierra Nevada who was waiting for a German friend of hers to turn up. He turned out to come from Chemnitz in Eastern Germany and had huge dreadlocks. He was studying Philosophy for a year at Granada University so naturally Badger showed him Monty Python's "Bruce's Philosophers Song" on youtube, which he thought was quite fun. During our chat the local Granada Scooter club - about 100 of them - turned up in the square, parked up, came into the bar, had a quick drink then zoomed off to do the same thing in another square. Some of them had "Who" roundels on the bikes or helmets, so Badger downloaded a picture of Keith Moon onto his iPhone and insisted on asking all the scooterists (in English) if they knew who this was? Amazingly one of them replied "Keith Moon" immediately, our young companions didn't have a clue what was going on.

Moorish Gateway

Granada Scooter Club

After supper we went for a final drink in the same bar we'd been in the previous night and made new friends with a local who was impressed that I was familiar with Koko Taylor, Howling Wolf, Buddy Guy, Muddy Waters and John Lee Hooker.

Day Summary

Day	13
Miles Covered in Day	0 approx.
Miles Covered in Trip	2130 approx.