P2: Granada is a love poem.

*tap* *tap* *tap* is this thing still on? Is anybody still there? Or have I been away too long and written to many words at this point to keep up? I’ll keep standing like a bad comedian on this self created soapbox of mine, actually no, let me sit down, and speak my stories into the voids of the internet crossed legged. 

P2 Continued: 

As I cycled into Andalusia, I found peaceful solitude. I rode for a few days along a greenway, an old railway rode turned into a bike path , a slow gravely incline along the mountain range “Sierra Los Filabres” it was quiet and peaceful beside mountains with snow, with rabbits, foxes, tunnels, and more goddamn Ramblas. I met a German guy, a total character, with the most packed bike I’ve ever seen, and who I could barely get a word in with. He had been cycling for 15 years. One leg From Vancouver to New York City up and back up to Valdor. His bike had trinkets from Nepal and a flag for anti-nuclear energy and a gay pride flag, but “not for the gays, they don’t own the rainbow. It belongs to nature.” He pulled out his Nokia to put my number in and was using paper maps stuffed inside ziplock bags. We were going opposite ways underneath the dying winters light, and said farewell, but as I pitched my tent in a farmers field in the dark, I couldn’t get over the incredible feeling after being alone for 6 hours on a path and all of a sudden, like a mirage from around the corner, another bike packer is suddenly coming towards you. 

I woke up too early in Guadix, the beautiful village where people still live in caves. I walked the liminal misty streets at four in the morning and mediated on the top of a hill, when I opened my eyes to the light that I now understand intimately, changing from an deep indigo to a pale blue grey. 

My photoshoot of Guadix where I started to see this little cherub baby everywhere:

The next day due to snow, I took the train to Granada, where I found myself on easy street. The first train station i didnt have to carry my fully packed biked up and down stairs. The corners of Granada full of tapas bars, and cafes and family’s and well-dressed city slickers. Etchings of Pomegranates in the cement underneath your feet, and rainbows in the fountain square mist that stopped every passerby. 

The community bike house was in Pinos Genils, a 45 minute bike path to Granada along the river underneath creamy mountains and paraglides. I planned to stay 4 nights and I ended up staying two weeks. It was winter after all, and it’s hard to get moving again, especially in -4 weather. I had envisioned being there would be the biking equivalent of the highlining community in Sardenia, but my shared company was Tina (yin) and Tony (yang), two kitten siblings who were white and black with opposing energies, and Roy, a very silly and funny German who speaks fluent Spanish, French, German, English and some Arabic who practices Flamenco everyday till his fingers bleed. 

The house belongs to David and Angeles who generously opened their home to this community project. They quickly felt like family, and In exchange for staying i helped them fix up their other house before they set out on lifelong dream world tour and are doing a house exchange (a big thing in Europe- I’ve met a lot of people who do it). I spent my days listening to Flamenco fill the 100 year old house well I painted the mud walls a fresh white. We would sit down for lunch together, finished with alcohol and coffee, and where my brain would hurt from trying to make sense of the rapido Spanish conversation. 

For David’s birthday I suggested we go out for Flamenco. Roy and I biked in the cold wirh our headlamps and met them at the show. As we waited outside to go in, the dancers were warming up, practicing their quick steps on the cobblestone. We were front row underneath the blue light and I’ve never been to a performance that felt like time had passed so quickly. The eyes. The way the dancers and guitarist responded and spoke to one another. The guitarist had a solo where he closed his eyes and looked almost in pain, his facial features dancing as his hands looked effortless. My jaw literally dropped. I didn’t know you could dance with an instrument like that. The main male dancer had an ego and he took over the stage for sometime. The tapping of feet an impossible Rhythm to understand. The crowd yelling “Olé” at times. The musicians speaking to the crowd. My body got physically hot from watching it because of the energy that was moving around the room. It was alive and it was awesome. If I could afford it I would have gone every night. 

I ended up on the Spanish regime of eating dinner around 10 pm and going to bed around 1 or 2 am. It didn’t help that things with Roy turned romantic, my request after the tidal waves of anxiety of leaving Europe were engulfing me and I just needed to be held. I learned a lot about myself once again, in honesty I don’t think Roy even liked me that much and often our relationship felt quite tensioned. I found he had a heart like a saloon door, swinging open wide and shutting just as fast. I’ve loved many with hearts that have felt like this. One night as I lay beside him, I looked at the little square window of light on the attic ceiling, listening to the river flow and damned myself for returning to old ways once again.

 Little by little, the wiser, kinder part of myself said. Perhaps a similar experience but for once I wasn’t internalizing it, blaming it on myself for not having access to a the connection I was needing, for once I knew it wasn’t me, for I am currently wearing my heart openly and proudly on my wool sleeve. 

I turned into a bit of a tired wreck in Granada. Clumsy, and sensitive. I fell off my bike and crashed into a fence (luckily with no traffic) lightly spraining my finger. I tried to nap often but it’s hard in a room without a door and kittens running around and a private flamenco show happening downstairs. I would wonder into the hills to meditate or lay on public park benches in the rare moments of sunshine. On Fridays David and Angeles jam with their band at the community house and I was brought in as a singer and loved it. They told me it was one of their best jams ever and now i either had to come back every Friday night, or I was never allowed to go, nor did I want too. 

The days blended together there, a welcomed normalcy of life, until my poor planning smacked me across the face. Ferries from Spain to Morocco were not leaving from all the ports they used too and highly infrequently. After a stressful couple of days trying to figure it all out (very much with Davids help qnd Spanish) I was set to leave one day past the expiry if my European visa from Motril-Granada to Mellila, a part of Morocco that is owned right now by Spain. I would bike 80’ks on the Sunday and take a night ferry. 

I felt emotional leaving Spain, leaving Europe after three months already, wowza. I felt disappointed that I didn’t continue on biking through the south of Spain, and scared as hell to enter Africa. Roy rubbed my back and asked if I needed anything as I stared into the fire. My bags were packed and all I needed was to go to bed at 8 pm, I stepped outside under the full moon and breathed in the cold mountain air and crawled into the attic, in beside Tina and Tony and went to to bed. 

The next morning I was elated, full of energy and excited for adventure. Surprised too, I had questioned often in the last two weeks where my gusto spirit had gone. Did I want to keep cycling? Was I still having fun? I wasn’t sure! Another tip of my toque to what rest can do, I was restored! That day was one of my favourites of my whole trip, maybe because I was just so grateful for it. I felt grateful for Granada as I cycled away from it and stopped at the stop of a hill, looking back at the pretty city with snowy peaks and I felt I really would return one day. David and Angeles drove to the community house to watch me bike away and we all said a tearing goodbye. Except Roy, who was weird in the morning, shoving me out of his heart like a pirate ship made to walk the plank but I didn’t care, because everything that day felt like it opened up, the morning frost melted and there was sun all day long. I passed people who were next level excited to see me yelling OLÉ and cheering to me from the sidelines. It felt like a confirmation from the world that I was meant to be amongst it, and it was all going to be OK. I passed rock, climbers, rivers, and streams Olive Groves with the backdrops of snow covered mountains, my knees ached a bit  after being off the bike for a while, and again I couldn’t  believe that three months had passed, and my time and in Europe was finished…for now. 

In Spain I had found my groove between riding and resting, keeping warm and being present. I biked through, underneath and alongside gorgeous Sierras. Spain was learning to ask for what I need, a ride in an RV, a cuddle, a warm bed. I felt full. It was empowering. The idea you can just ask for what you need…and even get it! It’s often only through writting these blog posts within reflection that i get some Aha’s as I try to make meaning and sense of this trip as I bob along it, and the meaning making also isn’t static, it can change and re-arrange itself if it needs, as I grow and learn. It also helps me feel connected to you- internet void that isn’t a void at all but, *gasp* my community! Who through reading helps me feel so supported and valued and loved! I’m taking to you Rosie, Riley and Kelsey, my mom, uncle Danny, Grandma, Auntie Terra, and Uncle Ernie and Sheila, and Bonnie.  (These are my very dedicated and known readers)(if there are others plz announce yourselves). 

I am so grateful. 

Grateful, even after in the pouring rain, getting on a night ferry to Africa, sleeping on the floor in my sleeping bag, where everyone around me was fully set up with mates, and I slept in between a tight set of empty seats, in the dimly lit part of the ship. One one side laid a snoring man snoring loudly beside a women side-by-side and behind me a couple who kept talking and eventually I grabbed their shoes from underneath and they’d quickly retract them. 

A man came to wake us all up, and I stepped outside the darkness, I watched what felt like a 1000 seagulls illuminated by the ships light follow us amongst the gusting wind and pouring rain, as a castle clear as day welcomed us to the port. I felt really confused when I got there. I was still in Spain. How did I leave? Where was the border? I kept trying to leave and would hit an actual wall that’s surrounded the city. The rain kept pouring, and I stopped at a gas station and got coffee. My period had come in the night, red like the Moroccan flag. Finally I found the border, helped by a police officer carrying a large gun with only his eyes showing. I was nervous they would be angry with me for overstaying my visa. Instead they asked me for my Instagram, imagine telling a border patrol officer your handle is “hannielulu69”. He asked if I was cycling to Cape Town. On the Morrocan side, the patrol man with his front teeth black and dead asked me if I had ever been to Morocco before. “No!”  I said and we both looked at each other excitedly. If Spain could be summarized by gratitude Morocco is instantly defined by curiosity in a way that feels like coming home to myself. To put it lightly I think Morocco is going to be incredible. It’s going to be different and wild and spiritual. It’s gonna challenge me. It’s gonna change my life forever. No pressure.

And after 10 minutes of crossing the border i couldn’t get any money out with any of my cards, had 50 euros to my name, and my mother to meet very far away from Nador. 

OLÉ!