And the incredible thing is that I didn't step foot into one tourist spot, one cathedral, one souvenir shop, or anything else like that. All it took was for me and a couple of friends to decide to go on a hike on one of the mountains outside of Alcala. And good times soon followed.
First of all, let me begin by saying that being pickpocketed makes you pretty much famous. Everyone wants to talk to "that guy" and hear his story of how his pocket got picked. My plan was to keep things on the DL so that I wouldn't have to re-tell the story 100 times, but that went out the window pretty quick. So now, even though I'm basically a tourism statistic, I've at least gained some popularity around here.
Okay, on to the fun times that were had today.
After class I got a facebook message AND a text message from Kayla and Hannah to go on a hike on one of the mountains around Alcala. And when those two tell me to be somewhere, I've just got to give in and go with it. haha
So we met at the school and made our way to the outskirts of the city led by Hannah who had gone on this hike last month. We get out to the path and come up on the river, which we have to wade through to get to the mountain.
Here is a picture of Kayla and Hannah right before we trekked across the dangerous, slippery pathway. :)
For real though, there was this little dam where the water was rushing pretty quickly over the side, and a really slippery walkway that made it kind of tough to walk across. So we all slowly inched our way across because none of us really wanted to walk away with a soaking wet cell phone or iPod.
And here are Hannah and I crossing over. You can tell pretty well how quickly the water was rushing if you look at it pooling up around our feet.
We were SO lucky to get this little surprise at the river as well. You know, there really is nothing quite like an old, fat, hairy man in a tiny purple man-thong. It just really brightens your day, you know?
And of course he was completely oblivious to the fact that we were taking pictures of him. Whatever he was reading must have been really interesting.
Finally we got to the other side and begin the hike up the mountain. Which for a smaller mountain, it was awfully steep in some parts. So we got quite the workout making our way up the mountain. This picture was taken right as we got near the top, where you can see it kind of level out. And I can't lie, we had to stop and take several breaks. Pretty much any shady spot became reason enough to stop and wait for awhile. But we got some great chats in and made tons of plans for next year in those stops. :)
But the view from the top was definitely worth the climb. I've always thought that Alcala was a beautiful old city, but the view from high up made it look even more spectacular.
And while we were up there we all took the time to stop and pose in front of the view. This is Kayla and I. And yeah, I know I look pretty shaggy. I needed to shave and I've been needing a haircut for about a month now.
Here is a picture of Hannah and I. Hannah has pretty much become my travel buddy throughout the summer, which has been great. We both get stared at a lot, me for being tall and Hannah for being tall and pretty, so it takes a little bit of the awkwardness of it off. haha
And here are the girls with a little bit of a view of the other mountains in the background.
The sun finally started getting to us, as Spain definitely heats up in late July (over 40 degrees Celsius pretty much every single day), so here is a picture of us making our way down the mountain. You might notice that the path we took down is a bit different than our path up. This mainly revolved around the fact that there was a lot more shade on this side of the mountain.
So finally we got back down to the river. And I don't think you could see in my earlier pictures of the river, but there were several spaniards hanging out in the river. There were a few guys fishing, the random old fat guy in a thong sunning himself, and a bunch of kids that had either brought swimsuits or just stripped down to underwear and jumped in the river for a swim.
And as hot as it was outside, the three of us looked at each other and basically said, "You know, these kids have got the right idea." So we all stripped down and made our way into the water to cool off.
Here is Hannah jumping in.
And here is Kayla.
And of course I was the last one in, so no pictures of me. But I promise I stripped down and jumped in, too!
However, one thing that you can't really see in this picture are the 3 boys (probably around 13 years old or so) who decided to come swim with us. Except these weren't just your ordinary, run-of-the-mill Spanish boys. These were some vulgar little dudes. In addition to making some fairly lewd hang gestures, they pretty continually said to the girls "Madre Mia, las tetas!"
Which I'm pretty sure you can translate on your own. :)
So they kept swimming around us and being general little pests and the girls finally started getting some payback by holding their little heads under the water. hahaha
And finally, here is a picture of the 3 of us after we went for our dip. It was a really incredible afternoon, dirty little 13 year olds and all. Definitely not one I'll soon forget.
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