Granada, Malaga and travelling when sick
Three weeks into my trip, I got sick. It started off with a husky voice on my last morning in Sevilla, which I tackled with a lemon tea and carried on ignoring until I arrived in Granada at my hostel. I had booked the hostel because it was a partner of the awesome hostel I’d stayed in Sevilla, and also for the hammocks I saw in a photo. I’m a sucker for hammocks.
I arrived after a lovely scenic drive through the andalusian valleys (coughing all the way and probably scaring all the passengers around me that I had smallpox). It was a cool 12 degrees and grey. After a confusing walk through the labyrinth of cobbled laneways uneven enough to make any weighed-down backpacker with fragile bones nervous, I arrived at my hostel. Reggae music was playing, the staff had dreadlocks and piercings, people were rolling who-knows-what in papers, a man was passed out in the ‘chill-out’ room and the hammocks were damp. I was shown to my room and, to my delight, I had received the first lower bunk of my trip so far. I was excited to chill out in bed chatting to friends and watching netflix to regenerate.
WRONG!
The wi-fi worked only outside. I headed outside to be sociable and enjoy the vibe of this alternative hostel. After 10 minutes of shivering, I wrapped myself in a blanket I found on the back of the chair, not wanting to know the last time it had been washed. One of the staff was making a menu for the hostel family dinner. I had heard that the best tapas were in Granada, but considering the weather I was more than happy to stay in.
“Hope you are ok with vegan food!” announced the guy proudly. In that moment I had my first temptation to book a flight immediately to Mexico where I know the tacos had plenty of cheese ad wouldn’t disappoint.
But I’d come all this way for the beautiful Alhambra, which some people wait weeks to get tickets for, so I was going to push through.
La Alhambra
The Alhambra is an Andalusian palatine city that consists of a set of palaces, gardens and a fortress that housed a real citadel within the city of Granada, which served as accommodation to the monarch and the court of the Nasrid Kingdom of Granada. It is the second most visited attraction in Spain after the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona, and you normally books weeks in advance for entry, unless you can squeeze in a group tour ticket a week beforehand, as I did.
At approximately 10 degrees and rain, the tour was not enjoyable at all. At started tensely when the tour group leader arrived just on time for the commencement of the tour and without apology, pissing off the very punctual Australian and Italian people in the group. We then dawdled as we waited for another two families who arrived late, one with five young children and other family without any English and needed to wait in line for an audio guide in their language.
Throughout the rest of the tour, I shivered in the rain as we waited at every stop for the family with the children to catch up to us, dragging their stroller with them. I felt so bad for not enjoying this place, but I was honestly so cold and miserable all I could think about was bed and the warm beaches of Mexico. Hopefully the pictures do it better justice.
People tell me that Granada is beautiful, but by the time the tour was done and I made my way back to the hostel, I was so unwell I did nothing but stay in my room coughing and watching Friends on my laptop, with the odd emergence from my room to hang my phone out the door in the cold to get the slightest wifi connection.
I was pleasantly awoken at 4am the next morning by someone vomiting in the trash bin next to my bed.
Ah, hostel life.
People tell me that Granada is beautiful, and that it rains only a couple of days a year. People tell me I was very unlucky.
People say a lot of things, but all I learnt on this trip was how sickness affects your positivity about everything, no matter how unique the experience is that you’re having and no matter how many years of history you’re standing in.
Malaga
I was happy to move on to Malaga, and immediately felt the air warmer as I stepped off the bus and headed towards the beach.
Walking through Malaga’s commercial streets and past its port with tall skyscrapers by the beach, I felt immediately comfortable and safe. It felt just like my home on the Gold Coast. Tall buildings, beach, and loads of rich white tourists.
But being at home wasn’t what I was here for, and I was still quite unwell. I went to the pharmacy to ask where the nearest doctor was, only to be told that doctors won’t see me under the Spanish free healthcare system as I’m not a part of the European Union or Spanish-colonised Latin America. If I wanted medical treatment, I would need to go to emergency at the hospital under my insurance cover. I was absolutely NOT going to use my health insurance for a cold so early into my trip, so I spent a day almost entirely in my room, plowing myself full of lemon lozenges, painkillers, anti-inflammatories and cough medicine. One guy checked into our hostel room, took one look at me and an hour later returned to move to another room, telling me rudely “I’m travelling by bike, I can’t be sick right now.”
Having other roommates going out partying whilst I was sputtering and dying in bed was torture, knowing I could have been out enjoying Spain with them and meeting new people, dancing all night like in Sevilla, however a long term trip needs a healthy body, and the last thing I wanted was to be sick that weekend in Girona for a weekend with my friend Sarah.
The next day I had the strength to rise up and explore the port and beach of Malaga, working my way up a hill to the Castillo de Gibralforo, once a castle and fortress with an incredible view of the Mediterranean sea. I would have forgotten I was in Spain were it not for the stark reminder in the form of a massive bullfighting arena that dominates the view.
I booked another night to completely recover and spent the next day chatting with various people in the hostel, losing my voice yet again from how much I laughed at the dark jokes of an English guy I met. I had forgotten how much I missed that humour, which has a lot of similarity with the offensive sarcasm of Australians. We both got talking to a young English traveller leaving near Ronda in Andalusia, an aspiring DJ intent to introduce funk and soul to Andalusia and get her own show in Malaga. Talking in English, telling jokes and discussing music with these people re-energised me, and by the next day I was ready to move on to Catalonia.
