Las Alpujarras, Spain

The Alpujarras is a part of the Sierra Nevada mountains, about an hour and a half bus ride from the city center of Granada. Starting from the small town of Capileira, the peaks are covered in snow in the distance, the hillsides around the white washed buildings are green and scattered with trees. There’s hardly anyone around Saturday morning. Our group walked through the town likely making a bit of a scene as a group of loud English speaking college kids until we reached the overlook “Mirador de Sierra Nevada.”

Mirador de Sierra Nevada, snowy peaks in the distant right

Mirador de Sierra Nevada, looking at bottom of Capileira. Past the farthest mountain is the Mediterranean sea.

The guide talked a bit about the formation of the Sierra Nevadas, tectonic plate movement between Europe and Africa and the plates are still moving today causing frequent but minor earthquakes in the area! I had no idea! While the guide was talking an adorable dog ran up to our group and it was so excited to see people and to get petted and I was so excited to see it. A lot of the dogs in Spain don’t pull their owners leash to try and say hi when you are walking on the street, they seem less excited to see people in Spain than in America, in my opinion. However this dog was like an American dog and I loved it. After learning a bit about the area we walked to the other side of Capileira. On the way we ran into a second dog who was also excited to see people! I was double excited and my day was getting better and better. We took a few photos from the other side of Capileira, looking at the town and other villages we would walk to. In the pictures you can see Bubión and farther in the distance Pampaneira.

Hills

Past this mountain is the Mediterranean sea.

Bubión and farther in the distance Pampaneira

Then it was time for the hike. Since it was rainy and cold the guide said we would be doing the shortest and easiest hikes, although there are numerous hikes you can take to get between villages and throughout all of the Sierra Nevadas. I was kinda bummed and annoyed we couldn’t hike because of a little rain, it wasn’t a downpour and it wasn’t very cold at all, but all the other API students were fine not hiking so I didn’t complain too much. The trail we took to Bubión took about 40 minutes, was not hard at all, very pretty, peaceful minus some very talkative and friendly goats and sheep.

Looking up toward Capileira from the trail to Bubión

Once in Bubión our group split up and those who didn’t want to hike anymore went to a museum while those who wanted to hike went on one hike plus 30 minute break for lunch. I went on the hike and only 7 out of the 35 people chose to hike not including me. The hike was good, green, quiet and peaceful, the rain wasn’t bad, it only drizzled a bit in the beginning and a little at the end after we reached Pampaneira. We saw a water pipe that is used for a hydroelectric energy plant that was pretty interesting. The Alpujarras were a great day trip and hiking area. I would love to go back and spend much more time exploring.