PS to the day of my arrival and yesterday “Granada”

Upon my arrival the day before yesterday I took a taxi from the “Estacion de Autobuses” to the town center, not all the way to the hotel inside the Alhambra - I wanted to walk about a bit and thought the Alhambra was easy to get to being right there - you just go up from anywhere and that’s it. 

You do, but where I had found a tourist office to get a street map was the steepest side and no way up to be found. Andrea called to find out where I was - she sensibly had the taxi take her straight to the hotel. leaving the walkabout for later. And without a pack! Anyway she organised, on the app "Windy Maps”, a way for me to follow, nicely marked in blue, which I did. 

However I like to see where I am on the blue line and see the arrow, me, advancing. So I pressed “navigate”. Result: I think I then became a car (previously I had been a little man walking). And to go up to the top of the “mountain” by car in a quarter of the town with narrow streets you go in long serpentines. Whereas pedestrians cut through those serpentines in successions of mostly easy stairs with large(deep?) and not very high steps. By the time I realised this situation I had spent a good bit of time walking. I then took to those pedestrian streets with the sole aim of just getting up and then making my way around the top to the hotel. And I did. And it worked.

At the top I asked a young woman who was getting her two dogs into her car which way to go  - one of the dogs immediately jumped at me and bit me in my upper arm (which is bruised now) - and she sent me in the right direction. By then Andrea had contacted me again via her app, and with a system of live contact accompanied me (in the app she could see me advancing) “Don’t go there, turn left from where you are!” etc etc. Amazing! And thus we found each other.

The reason why I am telling all this is that yesterday morning after a beautifully restorative sleep upon getting up I found my calf muscles were aching slightly - the result, I suppose, of walking up all those “stairy” pedestrian streets. The pain does not last. It is just when I start to walk, like you feel a pain in your back when getting up or “unfolding” after a long sit. 

So last night Andrea fed me one of her magnesium pills and this morning I will take some Arnica. Wait and see... End of PS 



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