The Cumbres Verdes

I live in the northernmost end of La Zubia - the bit nearest to Granada. The thing is, La Zubia sits on the slopes of the Sierras and north is at the bottom of the hill. This always seems counter intuitive to me. North should be 'up' and south 'down'. I had the same problem in Lanark. The South Vennel is at the top of the High Street and the North Vennel at the bottom. It's just not right and I never got my head round it.

It seems the good burghers of La Zubia agree with me. They have a few cast iron streetmaps welded onto lamposts dotted around the town and they all depict north at the bottom of the map and south at the top, as if to confirm that uphill and downhill are more relevant than north and south. It seems to make sense to sensible people though I admit to being thrown the first time I encountered one of these maps and thought I had got my own geographical bearings of exactly where I live all wrong.

Anyway.

Disillusioned with being permanently starving while the shops here always seem to be shut I went for a walk this evening. I turned left out of the flat, left again, right, then left, and then just decided to keep going up and up and up and up. South if you will. Within 15 minutes I emerged from the far end of town and into the 'Cumbres Verdes', our very own foothill mountain range. One of the peaks here (Trevenque) reaches a respectable 2,000 metres - a fair height - and within half an hour I had a magnificent vista of the Granada plain laid out below me. All I had done was go due south and 'up' (it still seems wrong) from leaving the flat. Impressively simple.

However, due to knackerdness (I'd already walked for two hours in Granada earlier in the day), impending darkness, and vague hopes that the shops might be open back in La Zubia, I turned back with much of these mountains still to be discovered. Forty minutes later I was back in town. The shops were still shut and I was forced back into a bar and the oppressive cerveza/tapas treadmill. It might sound great to you to but a) I can't afford to be going to the pub every night, and b) my body's not designed for heavy sustained periods of drinking.

But it was a great discovery, that I've got walkable mountains a walkable distance from my flat. Next time I hike up there I'll take the camera and let you see the sights. It's nice but seems to kind of lack something in terms of drama. I don't know what it is. The countryside here just seems... scruffy. That's the only word I can think of.

It's still not as good as Scotland.

Or the Lake District for that matter.

Or, let's be honest, Lanark Braes.

Here's a map I found. I reckon I reached between the number 2 and number 3 of the bottom scale. Height is in metres of course.