Baza: Caveman and Cavewoman

Shane and I stayed one night at Al Jatib's Cave hotel. The hotel is located in a rural area outside Baza which is northeast of Granada in the Andalucia region.

By rural, I mean like really rural. Like the kind of rural that doesn't have a street address. Or at least not the kind of address that Val (the name I have nicknamed our GPS system in honour of one of the charming barkeeps we met in the only English-speaking bar in Baza) could understand. The website just listed a number, and then the town, but no street.

I assumed that the town had one main drag, and obviously the hotel was on it.

Nope, not the case. The hotel was about 15 minutes out of town, down a dirt road, that is literally unnamed. There are actually quite a few cave hotels around this area. I know this because I got all excited about the first sign I saw that said "Cueva" and so we wound up 10 minutes down another dirt road at another cave hotel. When we were "off-roading" on the dirt road I was feeling quite pleased with myself for coughing up the extra dough for the no-deductible insurance on the rental car.

Eventually we made it our cave hotel. Beautiful white caves built into the hillside. Complete with a pool and a beautiful patio for viewing the rolling Andalucian hills and fields.

It was hot, hot, hot outside. But our cave stayed cool all day. Our cave was fully equipped with a kitchen, bedroom, bathroom - and even a washing machine. All the appliances were "hidden" behind textiles so I actually didn't even know we had a washing machine until after I had hand washed most of our clothes in the bathroom sink. It even had 2 fireplaces - outdoor and indoor, but when we asked about the free firewood they mentioned on the website they said no fires. I guess most people don't want to light fires when it's been 30-ish degrees that day. Imagine that.

This cave hotel is also known for its Haman Bath. The bath is in a pair of caves (duh). One of them is hot and one is ice cold. The cave bath rooms have holes punched through them forming a crude lattice that allows the sun to stream in a way that almost made want to risk bringing our camera into a steamy water-filled room to capture it.

Cave Sweet Cave:

Shane is actually sitting in the fireplace in the above photo.