Our bus to Granada didn't leave until 11:00 which left time to sleep in and have a leisurely breakfast.

I'd kill you for taking this if I weren't so hungry and sleepy.

Southern Man then decided that it was worth a few Euros to save his aching feet so he (and several others) took cabs to the bus station where we boarded the bus for the three-hour ride to Granada and then took a city bus to our hostel.

And this is an actual hostel with twelve-room units that have one bathroom and no tables and chairs and crappy wifi (Southern Man is retyping this entire post because of a crappy-wi-fi-related lockup) and no laundry facilities and a crowded and generally unpleasant courtyard. Our trip coordinator actually put four of the girls in a room "by themselves" and we four guys traded with them so they wouldn't have to sleep with eight strangers. And now we don't have to fight over the bathroom with eight girls, which is a Good Thing.

And this hostel is located in "new" Granada which is well downhill from "old" Granada where all of the interesting stuff is so whenever we go anywhere, it's uphill. But coming home is always downhill!

Once we got settled in we headed up the hill along the Rio Darro to meet our guide (Borja, a Muslim who has interesting perspectives on the long history of the conflict between Christianity and Islam) who took us by the Alhambra (a massive fortress complex that we'll tour tomorrow) but we went up the opposite side and tarried a while in a complex (Carmen de la Victoria) managed by the University of Granada...

The Alhambra as seen from across the river valley.

Above the church things got a lot more lively - there were plazas and shops and people and we eventually ended up at the Plaza de San Nicolas which was full of people and music and dancing and afforded an even more stunning view of the Alhambra.

Like this. Say, what's that in the background? Could it be the Alhambra again?

Southern Man has acquired a new caching buddy (Danni) and we ditched the others and headed down the hill to pick up a geocache, then went back to the hostal to figure out a "puzzle" cache.