a slightly depressing reality check...

Today I have unfortunately had my image of Granada, the beautiful, old world, Arabic city in southern Spain cracked just a little. I decided that I wanted to see what was in the south eastern part of the city, and in three hours of walking I was able to cover quite a lot of distance. Too say the least there is just as much money in Granada as any other modern city in the world. There is so much construction going on in the south. All of it huge cement and steel constructions of 10 to 20 stories. The streets are still quite pretty, and there are a lot of trees and shade, but there are no benches, no public water fountains, no cafes on the street, no shops on the first floor of every building. There is a completely different feeling to the roads and buildings. To me it was simply that in the older parts of the city and in Albycin I feel encouraged to linger, to walk slowly, to stop at a cafe and have a café or two, to sit on a bench and watch life move around me. In this part of the city I felt more like a foreigner then anywhere else I have been in Granada. To top it all off I wandered into a gated community and had the hardest time getting OUT again. In all of it's tennis club, watered lawn, beautiful but impractical stone sidewalked glory I had no desire to be in that borough at all and it took me nearly an hour to get out. Why? you may ask. Because I had to go out exactly the same way I went in. I think there was only ONE entrance, and I hate having to backtrack.....
Something else that struck me was that once I had gotten out of that community in a matter of two blocks I was walking down a street where half of the house entrance gates were broken, and the smell of cat and dog excrement was so strong I could hardly stand it. Then at the end of that street there was more beautiful brick and steel constructions. Then I finally managed to find a drinking fountain and there was a young boy perhaps 11 or 12 years old there as well. He was trying to fit a stereo reciever into an old plastic bad that he had scavenged out of the bushes. He just stared at me while I was filing my water bottles..... What was I supposed to do? Should I have said Hi, and tried to talk to him? Should I have given him one of my bottles of water, the bread I had in my backpack, the 2 euro's and change I had in my pocket. Was he staring at me because I was a foreigner? or merely because I was a break in his routine. A singly unique american set down in a small dusty playground in a poor area of a spanish city surrounded by rich communities? I don't know, I ended up just filing my bottles and walking on.....
The pictures are from my walk yesterday and my walk today. Five from each. The ones in the mountains where from yesterday, it is absolutely beautiful, but I've decided that I need to be a bit more careful since I am walking by myself and they are not that frequented, need to think about my saftey a little bit. The other five are from today. Can you guess where I prefere?