Cave life, a beautiful sunset and a Flamenco show

A drunk cave lady called me Jackie Chan.

 That's right. A drunken cave lady with three teeth and the baritone voice of someone who has smoked for 167 years told me I look like Jackie Chan.

In Granada's Sacromonte area, man-made caves dot the hills on the outskirts of the city - and it's common for people to live here. We had heard about these gypsy caves during a walking tour of the Albayzin quarter and decided to walk through the area to see it for ourselves. We weren't let down.

As we approached the rugged area, stepping over the random junk scattered everywhere, we heard the aforementioned voice roaring out incomprehensibly. We put our heads down and tried to keep walking, but it was too late - we had been spotted. In drunken Spanish, the cave lady began convincing us to visit her cueva (cave). So we went.

She actually took us to another person's, a living statue street performer, who gave us a brief tour of her home. Then we were invited to hang out on her "porch" (she actually had a beautiful view of La Alhambra and the Albayzin quarter from her cave) for a chat. This is where things got akward.

As the only one who spoke Spanish, I was the focal point of the conversation. As I tried to converse with the street performer, the toothless lady kept interrupting - yelling how she wanted more wine, demanding money for beer or asking if we liked "chocolate". This pattern lasted for about 30 minutes, as there was never an opportunity to get away.

Finally, the street performer asked us each for a euro so she could buy a bag of cement to improve her cave - at which point the drunk lady told me I looked like Jackie Chan. We each doled out a euro (a decent price for that interesting experience) and booked it out of there!

We made our way back to the edge of town and climbed up the old city walls (right) to watch the GORGEOUS sunset over the Sierra Nevada mountains (below). Afterwards, we spent our last night in Granada enjoying a Flamenco show with dinner (below).

Zack doing his best Batman impression.

The lonely trail.

Hanging out on the old city walls.

Granada at dusk.