Salobrena

Saturday October 6

Today we went to the BEACH. The weather had been so good Friday that we decided it was in order to take a one day excursion to the beach before it got too cold. We met up in front of the school at about 7:15am to take a bus to the bus station. I should probably explain who “we” is. “We” is all the students learning Spanish at the Sociedad Hispano Mundial so; Myself, Rebecca, Felicity, Daniel and Ilona. Rebecca is a 3 month scholar from California and Felicity is a 6 month Rotary Scholar from Cali as well. Daniel is from Plymouth, in Southern England, and Ilona is from Holland. From the bus station we got a bus to the nearest beach, Salobreña. If you were to draw a line from Granada directly south to the Mediterranean you would end up in Salobreña, a quiet coastal beach town on the Costa Tropical, just a bit east of the Costa del Sol.

We arrived at the beach by about 10am and it was a little bit chilly and cloudy, but still nice. As the day wore on it got warmer and much more pleasant and a few daring souls tested the Mediterranean. It took me a while, but I took my dip, even if it was only once. The water was crystal clear, you could see the pebbles and your feet along the bottom. Felicity and Dan decided to swim out to the buoys that marked the limit that was safe to swim to.

When they got back they informed us that they saw a 4-5ft long eel. Well that about did it for me, no more water! Like I said, the water was so clear that you could see anything, even a creepy water dwelling creature. Personally, I’m most recently used to the muddy Atlantic, where you cant even see your own feet in water that’s 6 inches deep. The water was colder than the Atlantic during the summer, but it was much less salty. It wasn’t painful to go underwater and then open your eyes like the Atlantic is.


While we were soaking up sun we noticed a parade of some sort that was passing by the beach. It seems to be the season of festivals in Spain and we decided it was a festival to honor their patron saint. The horses also made their way on to the beach which was interesting and terrifying at the same time since some of them didn’t seem to want to obey the person on their back…

We stayed on the beach until about 4:45 when Daniel, Felicity and Ilona decided to take a hike, and I mean HIKE up to the top of a hill to see some castle. I could see the castle pretty well from the beach and I wasn’t exactly wearing good walking shoes. Rebecca and I decided to head back to the bus station and find a little café there to have some tapas. After a wrong turn and a 45 minute detour and a walk in the correct direction we finally found the supermarket we had visited that morning and bought some water and potato chips. The potato chips were probably not the best option seeing as we were already salty, but man, they were good.

We met up with the other three at the bus stop and then headed to a café to have some food and a coffee. We mulled around there for a bit and caught the last bus to Granada. Happy and sunburned we slept the entire way home. I’m not sure what’s in store for tonight, but I think its flamenco dancing. Not to be confused with flamingo dancing, MOM.