Too Slow and the Med

Johann really wasn't liking the confusion that is Granada, so he suggested we hit up a little beach town enroute to Valencia.

I agreed since it seemed like a good idea, and then we scanned a map of Andalucia trying to find a worthy destination. Since the only pretty beach town I knew of was Cadiz on the west coast, we asked the bartender at my hostel to give us a hand. She suggested Almería, and we made plans to catch a train the next day.

Almería is a really pretty little coastal town, but quite modern in terms of appearance. We lucked out and found a room at the only youth hostel in town, and then went to the beach for a few hours to swim in the Mediterranean and to sunbathe.

I swear, only in Southern Europe can you sunbathe at 7 pm and honestly expect results.

Anyway, we got back to the hostel that night and it was beyond sweltering. Since it was the lone room, we couldn't afford to be picky, but it was in direct sunlight all afternoon and the one window afforded no relief or air circulation.

I sucked it up, but I can't say I had a very relaxing, fullfilling or even remotely decent sleep since I clearly remember sitting in bed covered in sweat drinking orange juice for most of the night. Johann slept like the dead. At least, the dead that snore.

Got to the train station before 11 hoping to just hop the next train to Valencia (and under the assumption that this was an easy process) and were informed that it was impossible to get a train to Valencia on the day. We were told that our options were to stay in Almería until the next day to catch a train at about 7 in the morning

Sat across from a funny Italian couple and 2 hippie mountain climbers on their way to fly home to Boulder, Colorado and that made the train ride go by really quickly. The hippies gave me their copy of Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse when I noted that I'd just finished my book the night before, and I hope my life will be changed by it, like theirs was. We led them to our hostel in Madrid since they didn't have anything booked and that brings me to the present.

I'm kind of looking forward to getting out of Madrid.. even if our hostel is right across the street from a really upscale looking tattoo place, and I've had the craving for some new ink this entire trip.