Andalucia part 2: Jaén and Granada

At Pedro's recommendation, we spent a few days in Jaén, mostly to climb, and ended up learning one of our favorite activities in Spain - picking wild asparagus near the climbing walls. We also learned that Jaén, much to our excitement, is the olive oil capital of the world and one of the cities in southern Spain that has free (yes, free) tapas at bars. The climbing here does not seem to be super well known outside of Spain, so we never had to deal with crowds. Lots of things to like about this place.

Dylan is Honnolding!

Olive trees, everywhere

Crag dogs

Pedro introduced us to Jose aka Kubata, who hosted us, showed us around the climbing spots, and taught us how to spot wild asparagus!

Once you see them, you can't stop finding them...

Wandering around town on a rest day.

View of the town, from the castle on top of the hill, of course.

Just can't get enough of these narrow alleyway views.

Couldn't avoid finding some more asparagus...

..which then turned into a major component of our yummy dinner spread.

We will be back!

A few days later we met up with Pedro and drove down to Granada, where we met some of his friends, climbed, and watched a burlesque show.

Stopped between Jaén and Granada for some climbing, surprise.. I think this is a pigeon eggshell.

Every climber we met in Spain had amazing vans, which made us miss ours back at home.

View of Malaga(?) from where we were climbing, just south of Granada. wish we could have made it there.

We rode in a 50 year old car on our way to the burlesque show. These Euros sure have style...

...and parking skills!

Journeyed out to get some free tapas after the show. This place gave you a sandwich of your choice, along with a healthy dose of cheesy poofs.

The entire neighborhood was just littered with big, white, professionally built-out climber vans. This is just one of the many streets full of them.

The following day we explored the city of Granada, after a leisurely breakfast/lunch/hangout session with the Spaniards. So we got to town in the late afternoon, to an Airbnb without functioning internet, trying to figure out meeting our friend Erich the next day in Valencia, finding a place to stay in Valencia, and seeing the Alhambra, which was HUGE. So yeah, we ran out of time to all of those things, but we made it happen.

The Alhambra from a distance.

Beautiful Granada

Peacocks on the trail, no big deal.

And the sun started setting...

And the sun started setting...

So we started heading out of the park, with a quick pitstop at this optical illusion.

And the sun went down. Granada was short, hectic, but sweet. We will definitely have to come back.

One for the moms!