Once one leaves the highway, we reach Lanjaron, the main port of entry to the Alpujarras, graced with its own Arab castle, albeit only a ruin presently, and mostly known for its balnearium. The Romans had already laid out baths, making good use of the local water rich with iron salts. Shortly after Lanjaron, the road serpents and gains altitude, bedecked with sweeping vistas over rolling hills and lush, verdant valleys and olive orchards.

In the distance, dominated by its church spire, formally a mosque tower, a white village dots the brindle swathe. Along the way, we can stop at a roadside country inn and sample a churro con chocolate, some welcomed calories for the walk ahead. We are now at the foothills of the Sierra Nevada, with its innumerous barrancos and manantiales, fraught with trekking opportunities and legends about bandoleros, hidalgos and monfies. Soportujar, the witchcraft village, opens on our left. 

Later, we reach Pampaneira. We are now in the heart of Alpujarra: the villages, of a distinctly African character, contrast in a singular way with everything we can see in the rest of Andalusia. They owe this particular aspect to their flat roofs used as terraces, which also facilitate the passage, given the narrowness of the streets, from one house to another. Its uniqueness is also due to the very shape of the houses, an uncanny stack of cubes attached to a steep slope, akin to a waterfall.