Cuenca

So this happened June 18-20.  It's a bit late.  Sorry foks.

Two weekends ago, my group and I had decided to go to Granada to spend the weekend.  Everybody had been talking about how amazing Granada is, so why not?  We packed our bags and headed out for the train station in Madrid to catch our 2am train.  Everything was going well up until we found out that they had sold out of train tickets to Granada.  Yep you heard right, we forgot to get the tickets beforehand and couldn't find any the day of.  Even worse, it was after 12am, and the trains stopped going out to Alcala.  We were stuck in Madrid for the night.

It started out pretty fun though.  I mean, instead of an all night 7 hour train ride, we got an all night party in the biggest city in Spain.  What's not to like about that?

Madrid, 1am.  Still good times. (L to R)
Me, Sarkaut, Mimi (behind), Laci, Dani, Margret, Malcom

It was still pretty fun until we hit the first club.  Have you ever tried dancing with luggage before?  It's rather difficult.  It was the saddest clubbing experience in my whole life.  We just hung around the corner and wished that we had somewhere to put our luggage.  Looking back on it, it was absolutely hilarious, although it was very painful at the time.  After deciding that hanging around in  the corning of a club was pretty lame, we headed out to an Irish pub to hang out.

Me and the crew hanging out in the corner
of this club.  Observe the hand in the pocket for a clear indication of how good a time
I was having.

At around 3:30 the pub closed and kicked us out.  We went to this tiny park and through a frisbee around until around 4:30.  There is just something about playing frisbee while lost in a foreign country at 4:30am that is fairly magical.  We were so tired at this point, that everything was fairly hilarious.  I fell asleep on a park bench for about an hour while the others talked.

Us at 4:30.  A bit more dead than alive at this point.

There were a lot of firsts that night.  It was my first time to stay in a bar until closing time.  It was my first time to be in Madrid.  It was also my first time to be homeless in Madrid or anywhere.  Needless to say, it was a fairly eventful night.  We all went to the station at 6am and tried again to purchase tickets to Granada.  We just wanted to get out of Madrid, and fast.  More bad news: the earliest train to Madrid leaves at 12pm.  More hours in Madrid.  We were too fed up to stay any longer.  We decided to try somewhere else.  How about Sevilla?  No tickets.  Barcelona? same thing.  In an act of frustration, asked the teller for any train tickets leaving for anywhere at 8am.  He said that one left for Cuenca.  Sarkaut said he had heard of Cuenca before, so we just decided to go.

I was fairly apprehensive on the bus ride down there.  Here I was leaving for a city after getting 1 hour of sleep the previous night.  The only reason we went was because we were too mad to admit defeat and go back to Alcala.  Only Sarkaut had heard of this place, and aside from that he didn't even know anything more.  When we went to the tourist bureau of Cuenca, we asked why Cuenca was famous.  The cashier had to pause to think what was great about it before saying that it was 'a medieval city.'  Wonderful.  We were going to spend the weekend in a crappier version of Toledo.  Just what I wanted.

Except I was dead wrong.  Cuenca was absolutely gorgeous.  Not only could one see the beautiful medieval aspects of the city, the surrounding countryside was gorgeous.

The city was built on a hill so that it would be harder to attack.  By the bridge in Cuenca, you can see many houses built into the face of a cliff.  Very pretty.

Houses built into the cliff

We were taking pictures when these guys just came up to try to
panhandle. Everyone but Mimi thought it was hilarious.
Mimi was pretty freaked out by them, as you might be able to see.

The first day we walked around the city and enjoyed the views.  We got to see part of a heavy metal band that came to town.  They were called 'Total Death.'  Best band name ever.  English was their second language, in case you were wondering.

The second day we set out to traverse the wilderness around Cuenca.  We each went and bought bags of fruit before heading out.  Pretty much all the fruit sold in Spain is raised in Spain.  This makes it 1) really cheap and 2) really fresh.  The first stop was a mountain close by that had a giant Jesus statue on top.  We then visited a spring nearby and wandered around in the wilderness for a while.  Absolutely gorgeous.

Me in the wilderness outside of Cuenca.  You can see
Cuenca in the distance.

All of us were sad to leave Cuenca on Sunday.   We came to the city knowing nothing and left wishing we could spend more time there.  By the end of the trip, Cuenca became a byword for unexpected surprises.  Like if you got an 'A' on a test you thought you failed, we would say that it was a Cuenca.  Not ever making that up.  One of the most awesome weekends I've had ever.