Leaving our newly made friend in Marbella and paying a visit to Picasso’s works in Malaga we arrived in Granada, actually more accurately we arrived in the small village of Quentar. Granada is definitely a city I could live in, or even come to study Spanish for three months before our next world adventure to South America (in the not too distant future). The Alhambra was beautiful, especially the gardens with the intricate stone wall carvings covering entire buildings and the ancient patios overlooking the river that runs into and under the city. From the other side of the city we climbed the winding, whitewash streets to take in Granada from the Saint Nicholas lookout, gazing across the ravine at the sun rising from behind the Alhambra and its gorgeous gardens. The dominantly student town of Granada has character. Hiding in the winding streets amongst the street art and Indian bazaar shops are tapas bars serving up mouthwatering free meals every time you buy a beer, and the most amazing Moroccan tea shops where as you walk past at night you can hear the slight bubbling of the jasmine shisha as clouds of fragrant smoke billow out of every door and window.

But I don’t think I have ever been more in love with any other place that I have with Quentar. Located around 40kms out of the main bustle of Granada, Quentar is on the main road coming out of Granada at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada and overlooks some of the most amazing mountain range and harshly rift valleys that I have ever seen. For me this place rivals the Pyrenees. We found the village through the couchsurfing website (www.couchsurfing.org) which links likeminded travelers and allows people to offer a bed or couch for weary backpackers to stay and become enveloped with local culture. We organised to stay with a group of families in the small village who followed the way of the Sufi. The Sufi’s are better known as the ‘Whirling Dervishes’ from Turkey who dance and spin during their prayers, sometimes for hours at a time. The night we arrived we were invited to take part in one of their ceremonies. All the men (including myself and two other travelers) sat in a circle in the centre of the dimly lit room with the women filling the outer areas. The Sufi Grandfather begins reciting mantras in Arabic and clicking through his prayer beads, swaying slowly from side to side. After a few moments the whole room erupts in an echo as everybody joins in prayer. The atmosphere is electric as I battle with my poor damaged ankles, knowing that the ceremony will last for around two hours. The mantras start to pick up pace, as a voice next to me starts to sing in Arabic through a microphone so that I swear the entire town could hear. With everyone know standing, holding hands in a circle that completely filled the room we began to move in a clockwise direction, singing in harmony, as the Grandfather and two others move faster and faster in the opposite direction within the circle. It was here that the Whirling Dervish entered the room and began spinning at an incredible pace round and round, inside of the smaller circle containing the Grandfather.

The whole experience is mind blowing. A rather confronting experience for having just arrived in the small village but at the same time giving us a peak at something so rarely seen outside our own lives. It is one that I will remember forever.

After finishing the ceremony with drinks and biscuits at the Grandfather’s house we made our way to our host family’s residence.

The Sufi lady we stayed with, Salima, helps run a Moroccan/Turkish tea shop in Granada, owned by her father, which serves up mouth watering Moroccan sweet green tea that is to die for. We spent almost six days in the village with Salima trading our English for little snippets of Spanish such as ‘hasta luego’ (see you soon) and ‘muy malo’ (very bad), and talking about our travels and future plans. It doesn’t seem to matter which culture you are born into, or your religion, but we have found that individual dreams appear to always follow the same basic path: a desire to travel a journey of discovery. As we sadly leave Quentar and Granada, we leave knowing that our journey has only just begun and look forward to everything that we are yet to experience.

[View with PicLens]

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I’ve come to realize it’s the little challenges of travelling that help build the ‘backpacking character’ of even the well seasoned adventurer; the 21 hour cross continent connecting flights, those just-too-short-for-a-six-foot-three-guy airplane seats, the early morning arrival at an international airport just to realize you have a 6 hour wait before your final flight, and the formalities of being woken by the Swiss police after falling asleep in what was an empty airport only to find it now bustling with business people wandering aimlessly in and out of Armani, Bvlgari, and Hugo Boss.

Our adventure has begun. It is currently 10:10AM in the city of Zurich and I am eagerly watching the flight board for a glance at our final gate number before we make it to the tapas capital of Spain. Well I guess that is debatable especially since our last trip through San Sebastian and the La Rioja region will be hard to beat for wine and finger food.

Katie has taken her turn to sleep, with every bag and piece of hand luggage wrapped around her leg and arms to deter any want-to-be snatchers. Although it seems we have jumped into ‘Nai-robbery’ mode a little too early. There are no dodgy characters. Switzerland seems so organized and structured, with things rarely out of place. I am looking around the Zurich airport and it is filled with a mix of likeminded travelers and business men. A couple taking what looks like a well needed nap on the makeshift couches, a young guy reading with intense focus a book on trains, and what looks like an undercover paparazzi with sunglasses and a tan overcoat, collar popped. Ok, so he may be a little dodgy but all in all everything is normal even in our warped, overtired state.

We land in Madrid in around 5 hours where old friends of Katie’s have offered to put us up for the night, and I have no doubt we will be heading out for sangria and our first taste in a long time of that amazing Spanish bread, balsamic and salt combo!