Last Stronghold of the Moorish Kings by Maureen Barry

When I was told that just an hour’s drive from the razzle-dazzle of the Costa del Sol was an oasis of unexploited “wild country” I found it very hard to believe. I was given the tip off about the Alpujarra Alta (that’s the wild bit, the Alpujarra Baja is rather like a Moorish Garden of Eden) by a Spanish friend, who considered that the Spanish equivalent of “see Naples and die” was “see Granada and the Alpujarras” - and leave the rest of Andalucia to the coach parties.

The bucolic Andalusian valley known as the Alpujarras - the last stronghold of the Moorish kings in Spain - lies just a mountain range away from the glittering coastal strip and yet has remained surprisingly untamed, virtually unexplored and untourist-trammelled. Often described as one of the most inaccessible areas of Spain, sandwiched between the Sierra Nevada and the Contraviesa chain along the sea coast, the region is hardly spoiled, and with a road that resists upgrading and a wealth of exotic flora and fauna on either side, it is the perfect place to find a peculiarly Spanish brand of peace and quiet.

When Spain’s last Moorish ruler, the Boy King Boabdil - el Rey Chico - was booted out of Granada by Ferdinand and Isabella in 1492, together with his manipulative mother Ayesha, he was granted the fiefdom of this verdant valley to the south of Granada. As young Boabdil left the scintillating city he turned for one last lingering look at a spot known today as the Suspiro del Moro, the Moor’s Sigh. In the way of manipulative mothers everywhere, Ayesha reproved him: “You weep like a woman for what you could not hold as a man.” It must have been difficult for Boabdil to turn his back on the glories of Granada. Inscribed on the ramparts of the legendary Alhambra are the words:

Give him alms, lady, alms,
For there is no pain in life so cruel
As to be blind in Granada.

Nature was generous with Granada’s setting, placing it at the foot of three low mountain spurs, from where the city stretches gracefully up to a luminous horizon with the grandiose backdrop of the Sierra Nevada to the southeast; from the north the elegant Darro, a mountain stream, winds through the city between the Alhambra and Albaicin hill. Granada - its name comes from the Moorish “Karnattah” and not from the Spanish for pomegranate, “granada”, which has been adopted as the city’s arms - basked in a golden age as capital of Moorish Al-Andalus for over two and a half centuries. As neighbouring Muslim kingdoms failed, Granada prospered. The fertile, irrigated vega to the west provided the Caliphs with a lavish table. As the arts, science and humanities flourished, Granada reached its material, intellectual and spiritual apogee in the triumphant creation of the Alhambra. “Al Qal’a al-Hambra” the “Red Fort” sits on a ridge acrest a wooded hill, the most imaginative and exquisitely delicate manmade fortress ever to be built on a natural fortification. This is what people come to Granada to see and no amount of description can do justice to its refinement and subtlety, precisely because the essence of Moorish art is its simplicity.

Millions of visitors come to Granada and miss the finest garden in Spain, the Generalife, the Alhambra’s garden of seduction, a mass of hedges, shrubs, orange trees and flowers, a perfect spot for romance and indiscretion. Rumour has it that Boabdil’s sultana kept assignations here with her lover Hamet, and screened by tamarisks, overpowered by the scent of orange blossom, who could possibly blame them?

The Albaicin, on a hillside facing the Alhambra, has preserved some of the atmosphere of Al-Andalus. This is the oldest quarter of Granada, the haven to which the Moors fled when the Christians conquered the city, and for centuries it was the poorest. Now its tangle of Andalusian alleys hide simple whitewashed homes, with long walls screening gardens as luxuriant as anything the Caliphs lovingly tended.

From beyond the Albaicin hill comes the heartstopping sound of flamenco. These are the notorious caves of Sacromonte - the home of Granada’s gypsy population for several centuries. Gypsies expelled from north-west India by Tamerlane found their way to Spain where their rhythms blended with those of the Arabs and Jews to form flamenco; through the group’s shared persecution and exile, suffering and isolation, pride and pain, flamenco grew. “Over here, Ma’am, best dancers... “I tell your fortune, Lady, you have lucky face...” nowadays Sacromonte’s flamenco is more à Ia turista than à la Andaluz. Dinner on the Albaicin is an experience not to be missed; El Ladrillo fills a whole plaza with tables and serves up vast quantities of fish and wine at bargain prices, while the somewhat trendy Cocetin de Ia Parron on the Plaza Larga, tries to outdo them in seafood and gazpacho.

From everywhere in Granada mountains peer over, tempting you to explore the jagged snowy wall of the Sierra that hides the valley of the Alpujarras. I was told to dress warmly, for the Sierra Nevada, as the name implies, are snowbound nearly all the year, and even in July and August when the road is clear, it’s still chilly at 11,000 feet above sea level. The highest peak, Mulhacen, is less than 40 kms from the coast. At Veleta you enter the Solynieve ski area and then if you are adventurous and the road is clear you continue down into the valley of the Alpujarras. You don’t have to chance the mountainous route from Granada, of course; if you prefer you can use the Alpujarras’s front door by way of Motril on the coast to Lanjaron, the only real tourist centre of the region. Lanjaron is a well-known spa, and produces most of the mineral water drunk in Spain.

Arriving in the Alpujarras is like entering a time warp; the purity of the Moorish architecture and the customs native to this area have persisted because of the isolation in which the Alpujeños lived until quite recently. Veiled women drew their water at the village pump at Ugijar until 20 years ago and each white village was completely self-contained; to marry into another village was to marry among foreigners. Only the Algerian and Moroccan Atlas has the same style of architecture as the Alpujarras - the flat-roofed two-storeyed houses join on to each other haphazardly and appear to slide down the slopes of the Sierra like melting candlewax. The roofs are made of heavy stone slabs which keep the walls firm during the odd tornado which can blow up in the colder months.

In the open-fronted azotea or attic room of the village houses, corn cobs, sliced egg-plants, strings of red peppers and tomatoes are hung up to dry. While I was admiring a particularly spectacular display of suspended goodies in one azotea in Yegen, the lady of the house, Tia Ana, invited me inside to see her storeroom. The room was next to the kitchen and was a place of great importance. Two or three hundred pounds of grapes hung from the ceiling keeping fresh until the Spring, but becoming more shrunken and sweeter with each passing month; quinces, oranges, lemons and apples were stored, along with pots of green fig jam, rows of ripening persimmons which would be eaten with a spoon when squashy; jars of home-cured olives and of dried apricots and figs, chick peas, lentils and all sorts of beans in large baskets. There were one or two of the famous Alpujarra hams, rubbed regularly with salt to preserve them through the summer months and of course onions, onions hanging everywhere, for olla sin cebolla, es baile sin tamborin, “a stew without onions is like a dance without a tambourine”.

To complete my tour Tia Ana showed me her kitchen, with its charcoal stove set into a tiled shelf, stone sink and mellow walnut cupboards. I commented on the sprig of elder hanging at the window to ward off witches. Tia Ana nodded sagely. The Alpujeños are wildly superstitious and revel in tales of witches and warlocks, hechiceras and hechiceros, who fly about on dark nights giving off the sound of sweet music as they pass. A mortar and pestle is the witches’ standby, next to the frying pan and way ahead of the kettle in culinary importance, and used now mainly (and very seriously) for making love potions. Tia Aria showed me the garden where herbs medicinal and herbs amatory went into the making of her famous simples. Trevelez, 5,000 feet above the sea, has a great reputation for witchcraft, they even say that its famous hams sold at Fortnum’s and Harrods owe their particular flavour to the spells said over them.

That evening in Yegen I ate a marvellous cazuela -a stew of rice, potatoes, green vegetables, meat, tomatoes, pimentos, onions and garlic, powdered almonds and saffron, named after the pot it is cooked in. Choto al ajillo, baby goat with garlic is another Alpujarran speciality, the Trevelez ham stewed with beans is rated highly and the sweets are very sweet, of the Moorish kind. A strange concoction is migas, a sort of porridge fried in olive oil, garlic and water. Some diners seemed to favour migas with sardines while others preferred hot chocolate poured over it, and I even saw the two served together.

Among the villages of the highest and loveliest part of the region, after leaving Ugijar, are Soportujar with its primeval oak groves, then Pampaneira, Bubion and Capileira, all within sight of each other along the edge of the beautiful ravine called Barranco de Poqueira. Trevelez on the slopes of Mulhacen claims to be the highest village in Europe as well as being renowned for its snow-cured Serrano ham, raved about by gourmets everywhere. At Berchules you can watch the art of carpet weaving unchanged since Moorish times. Ten kilometres farther on the village of Yegen became famous as the home of British writer Gerald Brenan, a young man anxious to educate himself on a limited income. He imported two thousand books, became something of a local curiosity and received the likes of Lytton Strachey and Virginia Woolf. Times have changed since 1919, even in the backward Alpujarras, when Brenan paid his housekeeper one peseta a day.

Everywhere in the Alpujarras you are made to feel welcome; even when there is no-one in sight the overhanging trees, the wild flowers, vines and donkeys come right to the road’s edge to greet you. Spanish hospitality, especially here with the Arab touch, can be overwhelming; people will invite you to their homes, or press you to share their peasant lunch of rough bread, olives, home cured ham and red wine at ease among the olive groves. “Over the mountain” as the locals say, lies the coast and another world; a fortuitous mountain that has helped preserve this valley as an enduring stronghold of Spain’s Moorish heritage.

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