Day in Las Alpujarras

Even though we’ve been in Orgiva for four nights already, we haven’t really gotten to properly explore the area.  Today, I insisted we check out some of the other mountain towns in the Las Alpujarras region.  After reloading on “magic water” from Lanjaron, we drove up, up, up to a cute little town called Pampaneria.

I almost wasn’t going to stop – since it seemed like a tiny speed bump village, but Sue and the kids were wearying of the windy roads, and parking was readily available.  Now, I’m glad they spoke up.

Pampaneria is about 4500 feet above sea level, and as we explored it for 90 minutes or so, we were delighted by the cute shops and people we met.  There was an excellent rock and fossil shop, which had some cool trilobytes and other geological curiosities.  And some of the crafts stores were neat as well.  And as we walked deeper in town, everything got better.

First of all, we found the Abuela Ili Fabrica de Chocoloate (Chocolate Factory).  In spite of the fact that chocolate doesn’t grow in Spain, they had a great collection of custom chocolate flavors, including some unusual ones like rum raisin, pepper, and mustard, and other tasty treats like lemon, orange, raspberry, banana, coconut and more.  They also had an ice cream bar, with various chocolate flavors, as well as a honey almond that was to die for. I picked up a “Nestle’s Crunch” style bar to go.

Next stop, dinner shopping.  We’ve been eating in for dinner, primarily since our house has great ambiance, and we eat lighter and healthier if we do so.  My go-to meal is Spanish Ham on fresh baked rolls with local Olive Oil, and I found an amazing little ham shop (called Museo de Jamon). The owner was extremely accommodating, and I bought some slices of his best local ham, and container of Olive Oil to take back to San Francisco.  He even let Laurel pose for a photo slicing ham.

 
Laurel, "hamming" it up. 

Finally, we went to a store that has a loom from the 16^th century, and a woman named Mercedes who has been working ot for 35 years.  She was extremely friendly and accommodating, and made some amazing tapestries and wall hangings.  She even showed us her “silk farm”, with the works busily making silk cocoons.  I bought a really nice scarf from her, and she agreed to pose for a photo with us as well.

The other cute thing about Pampaniera is the way the town is laid out.  Like some of the other towns in Spain, the streets can be really narrow, and one we encountered had an aqueduct/creek running down it, as Bryce demonstrates:

After Pampaniera, we drove up a little higher, past the towns of Bubion and Campaniera, and did a small hike. This area is known for its hiking trails, and there are tour guides that will take you trekking from village to village.  I wanted us to get some exercise, and also check out a little bit of hiking and natural beauty. While our hoke was short, we could see the Mediterranean in the distance, and the mountains all around were beautiful.  Behind us were snowy peaks, still mostly covered despite it being mid-May.

I really like this area, and I feel we haven’t really explored it as much as I would have liked.  I can see coming back here and really getting to know it better.  The people are great, and it’s really healthy living.

I leave you with two more photos that show a few more facets of this marvelous region:

 

A Bird of Paradise from our Garden

 

Campaniera and Bubion, from our Hike