Hiking in Las Alpujarras

In the South of Granada, below the Sierra Nevada lies 70km of valleys in a region known as La Alpujarra. La Alpujarra extends over Granada and Almería, and is sometimes referred to as Las Alpujarras. This region is one of the last areas of Moorish settlement in Spain. The name alpujarra supposedly derives from the Arabic word al-bugsharra meaning "sierra of pastures." La Alpujarra is made up of quaint hillside villages that have an average altitude of 4,000 feet above sea level. They're full of whitewashed houses and are thus known as pueblos blancos (white villages). Surrounded by streams, ravines, and woodlands, the make for some of the best hiking trails in Spain. So yesterday, Lyle and I decided to take a day trip and go for a hike.

Our day started with a bit of misadventure -- the bus to the bus station was taking really long, and we ended up missing the 10am bus by just a few minutes. The next bus was still at 12nn, so we ended up visiting a nearby Carrefour, and then made it back to the bus station before 12nn. We bought round trip tickets for around €11, and were off to La Alpujarra. The bus ride took a little over 2 hours since it made multiple stops at all the hillside pueblos. It was not a pleasant trip since the roads were winding around the mountains. I tried to sleep it off, but couldn't, and felt queasy most of the way. After 2 hours we finally reached our destination, and it was such a relief to be out in the fresh air again. Our destination was Pampaneira, one of three villages that make up the Poqueira Valley where we were going to hike.

The main plaza in Pampaneira

Pampaneira was a quaint village, and we got our first up close sight of the whitewashed houses and narrow cobblestone streets. Many of the houses were craft shops and small weaving workshops. La Alpujarra apparently has a textile tradition that dates back to Islamic times, and we saw many handwoven rugs, tablecloths and pillowcases for sale.

Stores selling local goods

In all of the towns in La Alpujarra you'll see spring water fountains. This water fountain below comes with a poem that says if you drink the water with the intention of wanting to get married, you'll find a girlfriend/boyfriend very soon after. (And no, I didn't get some water from there. Haha!).

Cool and refreshing water

There were also several bars and restaurants near the main plaza. After walking around a bit, we decided to eat some lunch, and tried a typical Alpujarran dish: papas al pobre (roughly translated to "poor man's potatoes"). The dish was made of potatoes, scrambled eggs, green bell peppers, morcilla, longaniza, and some paprika. It was pretty delicious, and just what we needed to get rid of the motion sickness.

After our lunch, we were ready to start hiking. It took us a while to find the path. At first, we weren't sure if we were even going the right way, but eventually we found the first marker!

The marker along the path

We were going to be hiking through the three villages of the Poqueira Valley: Pampaneira, Bubión and Capileira. We were starting at Pampaneira and making our way up, then hiking back down to catch our bus back to Granada. Below, a map of the path we were going to take:

The start of the trail was fairly easy. It was mostly walking up the town of Pampaneira and then finding the path through the woods. Unfortunately it was really foggy, so instead of getting to see a beautiful view of the mountains, we just saw white fog.

The foggy view

We made it to Bubión easily, refilled our jugs and rested a bit. Bubión was a really small town, and we passed through it quickly to make our way to Capileira. I don't know if it was because it was a Saturday or siesta time, but the town was pretty quiet and dead. We didn't see anybody except 4 or 5 other hikers.

Walking up the Bubión streets

Whitewashed houses of Bubión + FOG

On our way to Capileira we met this cute dog who started walking with us. At first it was really cute, but after around 20 minutes of him walking with us we started getting worried because he had a collar and his owner was nowhere in sight. He ended up accompanying us all the way to Capileira, and he turned out to be a life saver because we got lost!!

Our guide dog and savior

While hiking, we reached a fork that told us to go right to Capileira, and that it was 1.3km away. But we were walking for almost an hour, and we still couldn't find the village. At this point, the trail was beginning to disappear into just leaves and mud, and we couldn't see any trail markers. Thankfully, the fog cleared a bit, and we were able to see Capileira in the distance. But it seemed so high up, and there was no trail in sight, so we weren't sure how to get there. The dog really ended up being our savior -- he would walk ahead of us, and we were literally just following his path. He would even go ahead, and if we were taking long, he would come back and wait for us.

Are we lost?

At one point, the "trail" was really steep and barely visible; I was almost crawling up. It was also really really foggy, and we couldn't see Capileira anymore. We weren't sure how much higher up or further it was, and the trail was nowhere in sight. I wanted to turn back so we could at least make our bus back down, but Lyle convinced me to give it a few more minutes. Luckily we did, because after 15 more minutes of following the dog, we finally saw signs of Capileira and the trail markers made an appearance again! (They should really put more makers along the trail. The last stretch of the trail really had us doubting that we were on the right path.)

Yay, Signs of civilization!

Never been happier to see these trail markers! Haha

We made our way to the village center, with our guide dog still by our side. He was such a sweet dog, and when we got to the center, he just ran off and disappeared! A blessing in disguise :)

The foggy foggy view from Capileira

Whitewashed houses and cobblestone streets

Unfortunately it was ridiculously foggy in Capileira, so we weren't able to enjoy the view. We decided not to hike back down since we wouldn't make it back in time for the bus (and we were also quite tired), so we waited for the bus that would take us down to Pampaneira and on to Granada. (We had to pay an extra €1 for the bus trip from Capileira to Pampaneira, but it was fine.) While waiting around we checked out the shops selling local goods and souvenirs, then went to wait by the bus station.

Seconds after I took this picture, the fog took over, and it was just white on my screen!

It was quite an adventure we had today! We had a leisurely fun hike, that turned a bit worrisome towards the end, but ended up all good. We had another queasy ride back down, and arrived back in Granada at close to 9pm. After dinner at home I took a nice hot shower and was ready for a good night's sleep. :)