A rutilant Andalusian sunrise casts a long shadow before me: a fuse that, if left to burn, would surely lead to my demise at the hands of the furnace that each day bakes this land, leaving not a drop in its wake, but dust, scrub, and brittle grasses. That is, if it weren't for the aqueducts that weave across the mountainside and feed the fortress that lies ahead.
Scaling the switchbacks to Sacromonte, a church bell tolls from across the valley: a harbinger of the heat‘s relentless march, a gentle prompt to keep moving. Much longer out on these winding, exposed trails would see me roasted, immobilised and sapped of all vitality - rendered helpless vulture fodder: a paralysed, pale, parched human crisp splayed out in the dust and gasping for a few drops of water.
These are the trails that put the pump to work, fueling the legs and honing the mind's sharp edge as scree and rubble give way underfoot, tumbling down sheer cliffs to the Darro river below. Granada rises from the valley, cloaked in the brilliant gold of the morning light and with it, the menacing battlements of the Moorish citadel rear up in all their domineering splendour.