Rosi Cornwell26th December to 3rd January
In summary, Granada felt super safe, it was the first place we experience hostels without locks for the dorms, it was very beautiful, and we made great friends! My only dislike was seeing the horse and traps. I think we could have spent less time here and gone to Leon for a bit, but it was a really relaxed time and a lovely place to be. Full story below…
After checking out of Paradiso and asking about the chicken bus which would entail two buses, we got lucky as there was a shuttle going to Granada for only 3 dollars. Although upon reflection I don’t know how lucky it was, because I think I lost my St Christopher necklace during this time… (the bus driver picked up my bag and my necklace caught onto it… I didn’t think it had broken, but it’s the only explanation to its disappearance). At least I have the St Christopher coin that my dad got me… There’s still a level of protection for us!
We were early for something for once in our lives (mainly Hollie’s life) and so we put our bags away at our new hostel ‘De Boca En Boca’ (‘word of mouth’) and had a walk around our home for the next 8 days.
I decided quickly that I already loved Granada due to the beautiful architecture and colour. The only thing letting it down was the horse and traps used to take sight seeers around. This I did not love.
We checked into our hostel and our dorm room where we met two sisters from Ireland (there was also a girl and a guy staying in there who we didn’t speak to the whole time, they seemed so frosty… It was strange). We went out on a walking tour to see more of Granada, and signed up for beer pong later in the evening. Sara recommended that we try the vegan burger at Tostermetro so we dashed there before it shut and it was so so amazing. Thank’s Sara!
I sat to write my blog and never got a chance as I got chatting to a guy called James, who was from Camden but now lives in New Zealand. He is biking around Central and South America. James said about how it’s a special thing going travelling, but there are times when you’re laying in your bed, staring at the fan and you just wonder what the hell you’re doing… And I totally related to that. Those fan staring moments really get you.
We were joined by a guy called Edo, who got down on one knee and said a way to remember his name was ‘will you marry me, I DO’… I fully appreciated this, as remembering people’s names has proven to not be my speciality. We all headed out to the Oasis hostel to play beer pong.
I don’t wish to sound like a broken record, but at this stage it should just be called water pong. It was a tournament and the volunteer who worked at Oasis was really grumpy about waiting for the 4 of us to get a drink to play ‘beer’ pong with. We were limited to just 5 minutes per game, so there wasn’t even really time to think about drinking inbetween… Me and Hollie got knocked out, as did James and Edo, so we sat and chatted some more.
We then all headed to The Town House hostel, and there was a guy playing the guitar and a guy on the drum.. It was a band for karaoke! Me and Hollie asked for Mr Brightside but were offered ‘hey yeah yeah what’s going on’. Hollie is a better singer than me, and so I took a step back from the mic… Some of the people we arrived with left during this song, but I don’t like to think it has anything to do with our singing….
Myself, Edo, Hollie and Ledo all left for some upbeat dancing fun. We went into a bar that was fairly empty and threw some shapes. Edo is a salsa teacher so he was very animated and entertaining to watch. We went to a 2nd bar that was full of locals and it was really fun. That was the perfect night out after a very calm time at Paradiso.
The next day I had my first hangover in a while, that is what happens when you mix beers and spirits… No amount of milk thistle can help that.
Today was a chilled today, we explored the markets and learnt the hard way that buying veg (tomatoes and onions) was more expensive at the market, as it seemed like they just buy them from the shop for 22 cordobas for a big bag of tomatoes, then bag 4 up and sell them for 20! Hey, I guess its very entrepreneurial!
As we came out of the shop I rolled my foot on the uneven ground, which was annoying as it was salsa night at the hostal and a booze cruise the next day!
I managed to take part in most of the salsa class but had to stop when it hurt too much, I got a bag of ice and Hollie and I watched half of the new Matilda!
Thankfully I woke up and my foot was fine, nothing is getting in the way of this booze cruise. It was $20 for the trip which included 5 drinks. Being British, budgeting and generally very well prepared we filled Hollie’s camel bag with a vodka mix. A litre of vodka is about £6 – mental! We got chatting to people also going on the trip and made our way to the boat in the back of an open top truck.
The boat had music, amazing scenery, sunshine and then it stopped for everyone to jump in. If you haven’t seen the video on my Instagram then you won’t know that it took me about 10 attempts to run and jump, but I couldn’t even run, I had to almost suspend myself off the top.. I did do it twice, so I’m getting braver! After a refreshing dip in the lake (which has sharks in apparently) we sat in a lovely warm hot tub! The boat carried on to ‘booze island’ where there was a gazebo set up with decks under it, the music was groovy, we did the limbo and I grazed my knee… I’m usually so good at the limbo, but this was low, and clearly that is not how low I can go. There was lots of free shots being given out, from the bottle and people’s belly buttons.
We got a minibus back.. Ate some pasta and met some guys at the hostel who were heading to town house, it was hard house trance, the dj was loving life and it was pretty banging to be fair. Hollie ended up walking back to the hostel but met some children on the way and bought them some nappies and food. We ended up going to bed about 3am and had to check out the next day at 11am.
… We did not end up checking out at 11, but that I’m sure will not come as a surprise! I charged up one of my spare phones so I could give it to Dom who we met last night and had lost his phone. Then we made our way to our 2nd hostel in Granada.. Hostal Azul.
We were greeted by a lovely lady called Maria who gave us a tour, let us choose out beds and gave us a name tag for them. As it says Rosi Bell in my passport this is what she wrote, and she always called me Rosi Bell and it was just so cute. Only a few people call me Rosi Bell and it just feels so special and nice when they do.
This hostel won us over with their vegan options on the menu, we ate a burrito and were excited for the 2 breakfast options in the morning. We had a hangover chilled day, and that’s when it’s so nice that we don’t really have a time frame… We can chill (recover) , and it doesn’t feel like we’re wasting a day.
The next morning we awoke to someone playing the guitar and a lady singing. It was lovely! We had a chilled day and later went to Boca De Boca for trivia night with Nat and Edo. I have a complex about not knowing anything, and my love for trivia really doesn’t help this… Me and Hollie didn’t even know the age of the Queen when she died. Terrible. I guess there is more important stuff to know in life…soz Queenie.
There was a parade going on outside, which involved dancers and drummers. It was quite the spectacle, especially when they got the flare out! We enjoyed the festivities which was apparently a competition, then went to get some crisps and go to bed.
The next day was also super chilled, we went to The Selina for their pool which was cold but refreshing. I managed to stab a cactus with my finger so had a lovely new project of trying to get that out (it took 2 days and I had to push and Hollie had to pull with tweezers).
Edo met us and we walked to the supermarket to get curry supplies! Hollie cooked a banging curry and we had an early night ready to get up in the morning to get tickets for the NYE rave…. There were only 100 left and we hoped we would get one…. Spoiler alert…. We spent New Year’s Eve at the Tree House Hostel Jungel Rave (sadly not jungle music… That would have been a dream) , but that’s going to be a separate blog post…
