Loja.

It's a small town about an hour to the west of Granada set in a valley with the autovia on one side and beautiful, nearly untouched mountains on the other. Todya was my first time visiting. We caught the bus at 9AM and arrived at about 9:45 on this Sunday morning. Now, if you are to learn anything about Spain, especially rural or southern Spain, you should know that on Sunday, people sleep in and shops do not open. So we arrived in the deserted Loja with not a clue of where to go so we aimed ourselves toward the mountains and started our journey into the city. In the entire walk through the center of the town we saw maybe 4 people total. However, we did see an unnatural amount of dogs running about or barking at us from behind fences and balcony railings. Something was very wrong.

Turns out, as rumor has it, that people get turned into dogs when they go to Loja. And all the dogs are barking trying to warn the non-canine visitors and citizens of the town to get the hell out while they still can. BUT the genius of Loja is that people are turned into small dogs. Not like Australian shepherds or golden retrievers. Rather small ones with shrill barks that drive anyone crazy instantly. So no one listens to their warning. Ok well, this was the rumor about the town we made up while we were there. But I sure hope it sticks. Some other interesting things we found out about Loja are the following:
- The Lojan mafia buries their victims upside down so the feet are at the surface of the ground. We found the foot of someone while frolicking through a field.
- All the old men of the city take their morning walks on the dirt roads in the back of the town. And the rest all drive identical tractors along those same roads.
- Maria cookies make excellent Frisbees if you throw them from the mountain tops ...and if you know how to throw them right.

Other than those things, our trip to Loja was a great success especially after our steep hike/rock hopping when we bought Magnum bars (for those of you not in Spain, they are some of the BEST icecream bars you will ever taste). Also, today I felt a big step into integrating myself into Spain and the Spanish life. Not sure why, but on the bus ride back to Granada I was looking out the window and felt very at peace with my spanish surounding. Yay!