Sacromonte

Sacromonte

It is raining in Granada.  Water runs off tiled roofs and splatters fatly on the cobblestones.  Flamenco guitar from a neighbourhood show drifts through the wrought iron window bars.  I’m sitting on my couch, drinking a bottle of cheap red and watching the world pass by my ground floor window.

In the Albaicin, where I live, everyone is interesting.  Or at least they look it.  The style of the day is arty hippy, all loose cotton trousers bought from the Moroccan stallholders that have set up a second home here.  Dreadlocks,

handmade silver jewellery, and flat soled leather babouche shoes to walk comfortably up the steep stone alleyways.  The smell of dope hangs permanently in the air, and everyone seems to have a dog.  Walking through the Albaicin is a constant exercise in looking down – there is dog crap every metre.  Strange, though, how it doesn’t impinge on the charm of the place.  In the same moment that you step over crap, a pomegranate tree hangs over a whitewashed wall, and charms you completely with its delicate leaves and sensual red fruit.

Today I walked up the Sacromonte hill.  Since I never read guidebooks – I am strangely phobic about them, worrying they will somehow steal the magic of discovery – I just followed my nose and rambled.

I’ve been somewhat confused about the Sacromonte.  The facts I knew from unavoidable tourist literature:  The Sacromonte is home to the local gitano (gypsy) culture, dating back to the fifteenth century; many dwellings on the hillside are caves; and it’s the place where tourists looking for a flamenco show are shamelessly fleeced for their last cent, whilst watching mediocre performances.

For the two weeks I’ve had my flat in the Albaicin, I’ve daily looked over the Sacromonte hill, wondering how and when I should approach it.  Whilst fascinated by the history and culture, instinct warned me that it is a barrio best saved for a date when my Spanish is fluent and, perhaps, my connections more solid.

But this morning I wandered up into the high Albaicin, and found a square I never have before, with tiny restaurants staffed by gitanos.  The clientele were all local, the food was good and cheap, and the music was fantastic.  Buoyed by a wonderfully cheap lunch that included a glass of decent wine, I set off, with the vague intention of wandering through the Sacromonte in the safety of broad daylight.

I crossed the road that separates the Albaicin from the Sacromonte barrio, and began to climb.  At three in the afternoon, the alleyways were deserted.  Cooking smells wafted through the air, but doors and windows were firmly shut.  Graffiti adorned every blank concrete wall, of which there were far more than in the Albaicin.  As I climbed higher, the houses tapered off to

become ramshackle affairs built into the hill, their front boundary demarcated by a couple of old gates wired together.  The doorway was usually no more than a curtain blowing in front of a darkened opening.  Outside a jumble of old pots and torn armchairs suggested that most of the cooking is done on a camp stove or fire outside the cave.

It was hard to believe that anyone actually lived there.  The paths, dirt by now, cobblestoned alleyways far below, became increasingly steep and fragile, loose dirt and stone crumbling underfoot.  The detritus in front of the unassuming curtained openings was both poignant and haphazard – broken bicycles, rusting metal drums, mattresses with bare springs.  The same mess that litters a thousand derelict suburbs, only more interesting for existing in front of caves and amongst tall prickly pear plants.

My goal, as such, was the church I could see at the apex of the hill.  I was propelled upward by the increasingly breathtaking perspective of the city

below – from up here, even the mighty Alhambra was beneath me, and I could see not only the whole city and the snow of the Sierra Nevada, but the great plains of the Vega stretching out to the sudden peaks of the surrounding mountains.

The lone person I passed on my ascent was a man peeing into the prickly pear.  I waited at a diplomatic distance until he’d finished, then approached and asked if I could pass over what appeared to be the roof of his dwelling.  Dreadlocked and dishevelled, he grunted his assent, and turned back to his marijuana plants.

The church was closed and lonely, surrounded by a barbed wire fence.  On the steps sat an African man, smoking a spliff and chatting up a European girl.  We greeted each other and I walked around the back.

There is an ancient stone wall that runs down the Sacromonte hill.  Having walked up on one side of it, I now found myself on the other side.  The city may as well not have existed.  On this side, the landscape rose in sharp hills and deep ravines.  A thousand well worn tracks led off in different directions.  A plantation of cypress trees rustled in the wind, their hushed sound eerie in the late afternoon.

I walked to the top of a nearby peak and looked down at the Rio Darro, and

people meandering along a pretty cobblestoned path far below.  They seemed a long way away, another world.  Wild thyme grew all over the rough hillside, sending up a heavenly scent.

I thought about walking back the way I had come, but it seemed silly to backtrack.  I figured that people on this side must be able to get down to the city somehow, so I started walking downhill.

The first place I encountered was even more ramshackle than those on the ascent.  It seemed deserted, although the inhabitants could have been sleeping.  The disconcerting part was the lean and rather intimidating Alsation that barked threateningly at me, and nipped at my heels as I passed, uncomfortably close to the property boundary – the path gave me little choice.

A couple of times in the next few minutes I stopped and questioned my choice of direction, thinking that perhaps I should retrace my steps rather than venture further into what was obviously a rather offbeat area.  I have never been good at taking my own advice.

The paths wended between fenced off gardens, and amongst tall standing prickly pear.  Dogs barked at me from every place, lean mutts with attitude, whose job, I couldn’t help but think, was to guard the sleeping inhabitants within.  Eventually I could see a proper road not two hundred metres below, with wandering tourists.  Which was fine, except I was high up on a crumbling path, with no discernible route down.

I came close to a place where some kids were playing out front.  A young man began walking toward me, and instinctively I clutched my bag more tightly.  Then I shook myself off – why do I always expect the worst?  He got closer, I said, ‘Hola’, he responded in kind, and all was fine.  Meanwhile, the kids sat slackjawed and fascinated as I got closer.

I took a look down the hill and figured it was just a slip and slide to the road, so I took a sharp right and stumbled down.  The dogs barked and the kids were calling, undoubtedly to tell me that there was an easier way down, but I’d had enough of walking past silent caves and along tiny paths, with mongrel dogs growling menacingly.  I tumbled and stumbled down the hill until I hit the road.

I came out right at the base of the steps to the Sacromonte cave museum, and after a moments deliberation, walked back up and paid my five euros to go in.

I enjoyed it – cave living is nothing new to anyone who has been to Coober Pedy, but I loved the information about the plants and their medicinal purposes, and the area dedicated to flamenco.

I came back down to find the tourist route that I guess all the guidebooks talk about.  I walked past the flamenco bars, all shut at that time of day, and could understand how it would be a cavalcade of hustle at night.  Whilst the bars of the Sacromonte gave birth to the first incarnations of flamenco in the late eighteenth century, an authentic zambra is no longer something an unsuspecting tourist can wander into.  The bars now come prettily packaged and postered, and tour guides lead groups through the winding streets to bars where they are treated to overpriced stage shows.  Like anything ‘culturally typical’, in the last twenty years the area has been exploited and homogenised into irrelevance.

The thing I wondered, as I walked, is whether or not the impoverished, eerily closed neighbourhood I had just wandered though, is still a gitano barrio, or just a haven for alternative culture, now?  Or are they one and the same?  And was I being overly precious for guarding my bag so tightly, and wondering if I was about to be accosted at some low point in the path, or simply realistic?

I can’t help but feel that if I want to find true ‘duende’, the spirit that drives true flamenco, that I am more likely to discover it up those steep, crumbling pathways, behind the snarl of dogs and amongst broken bicycles.  But equally, I was surprised at how relieved I was to leave them behind, and emerge into the bland tourist act.  Perhaps it is age, but I no longer feel drawn to discover the back alleys.

As I walked home through the utterly civilised alleys of the Albaicin, I passed a very respectable flamenco joint.  For eight euros, I could buy a ticket to an intimate night, not a big flamenco restaurant show, but local musos doing their thing.

I lingered for a long time at the door, wondering if I should go in.  After walking through the Sacromonte, I almost felt obliged to go and watch, to embrace where I am.

But I saw flamenco, years ago, stamped out in dusty fields by old women as they made their way on the pilgrimage to El Rocio.  I know the power of the dance, and I am romantic enough to want to see it again from a personal level, because I have been invited, rather than paying to be part of an anonymous show.  I got snobby about it.

Instead I stopped in a local bar, one I really love, although I’ve only been there once before.  Every time I walk past, the staff smile and wave, and great music drifts from the open doors.

Tonight I got chatting, in my very basic Spanish, to the people who work there.  In the end they bought me a drink and I had great tapas, and we talked for a couple of hours about the city, the Sacromonte, gitano culture and the world in general.

I wandered home in the gathering rain feeling tired and happy, not least because I now have a date to catch up with them all in a couple of days.  Given that I’ve only been learning the language for two weeks we actually managed a halfway decent conversation, and they didn’t seem to think I was

too stupid.  I kept thinking I should go somewhere – DO something – and then I thought:  all I want to do is go back to my lovely little flat, open a bottle of red, eat some tinned calamari and watch a bit of trash television.

And so here I am.  I’m sure that on a Saturday night in Granada, I should be doing a whole lot of other more cultural, worthy things.  But you know the nicest thing about living in a place, rather than travelling through it?

You can have a day of very low key adventure, then retire to your own little cave.  You can read a book in Spanish with a dictionary close at hand to interpret it.  You can eat Spanish cheese and drink wonderfully cheap Spanish red, and check out badly dubbed sitcoms when you get tired.

But best of all – you can open your window, and hear flamenco wail across from the Sacromonte hill, and know that the place you found slightly eerie today, will soon become a friend that you understand.