alhambra

ahhh, yes, my traveling friends, The Alhambra...

say it. you´ll love to keep saying it.

Alhambra.
according to my aboutspain.com newsletter...

Damian Corrigan writes:
The Moorish fortress, palace and gardens of the Alhambra in Granada have been named as the most popular tourist attraction of 2009, according to an article in El Pais: The Alhambra is the Most Visited (in Spanish). It beat the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona into second place. Third was the Prado, the most famous museum in Madrid.

sweet. 2 checked off that list!

it´s a 10 fold crisp and delightful morning in granada.
after my cafe con leche and churros con chocolate in the Bib Rambla Plaza, i exit to my right.
hazy and chipper does the morning huff and vendors flush out into the side streets.
every body, every vessel, every postcard, every pashmina.
all motos, all rebajas, all gypsies, all securitas.

every fiber of everything yawns onto the streets.
i visualize steamed, cherry carpeting exiting out every salida.
welcome.
welcome in, and buenas!
the sun with her fingertips, oh my,
i spy with my little eye
everything that is golden...

my audioguia for today is none other than, Washington Irving.
that bad ass!
lived in The Alhambra, a writer, a storyteller...a secret keeper of sacred grounds.
(look him up if you are interested, please!)
he, Irving, tells me to "delight yourself" in the surroundings of my choosing.
so, i do.

i wade in the Generalife for hours.
much attention is to water and the preciousness of it, so even when i must
return to the entrance, a 10 minute fast trot, at the gate, to release my bladder,
i quickly return to the site i left lazily dreaming, and continue, in my"delighting."

The Generalife, "laid out like a Persian carpet in a grey olive grove," Washington croons
in my ear, as i slip into soft saturation in this climate condition of too much decadent air,
too much water,
too much movement,
too much breathe from the Jardin de los Cipreses o de la Sultana y el Escalera del Agua.
it´s all too much, Washington, that i can only say i will be back again tomorrow
to collect more of whatever it is you wish to feed into me.
i will gladly succumb.

an earthy, namaste.