La Alpujarra - The world's oldest hippy community

Roadside directions to Orgiva

I started my day wondering what to write on my blog, then I went to Orgiva and it became obvious.

Just south of Granada, Spain, and little to the left is an area called the Alpujarras. Bordered on 3 sides by the Sierra De Lugar to the south, the Sierra La Contraviesa to the west, and if that isn't enough mountains, to the north of the Alpujarras is the daddy of them all, the Sierra Nevada. Do you get the picture? It's a long valley surrounded by high mountains. Until fairly recently the area was very isolated.

The valley contains 80 or so white villages dotted around the mountains, connected by a twisting little road. Because of the altitude and dry air, the villages produce some of the finest ham in Spain. It's also famed for pure mineral water, chestnuts and fragrant honey.

The first person to write about this area in English was Gerald Brenan in his book South From Granada (Penguin Modern Classics). From 1919, Mr Brenan spent 7 years living in the village of Yegan in the Alpujarras. He had served as an officer during the first world war and wanted to spend a few years reading his collection of books.

His story is of village life, its colorful characters, their lives and love affairs, the customs and folk-lore. He writes of another age and of a very foreign place.

South from Granada was published in 1957 and became a classic of travel writing and a route map for those looking to find their dreams, the hippies.

The trickle of hippies started arriving in the Alpujarras from all over the world at the end of the 1950's and to this day Orgiva, the only market town in the area, is the centre of the hippy world - for all age groups! There is plenty of space on community land for life in teepees and yurts to flourish.

Hippy in Orgiva