Yoga And Raw Food Retreat In The Spanish Mountains Of Andalusia

Daily routine at Sunfoodyoga

Each day has at its core meditation and yoga with regular meals devised from recipes using only raw food packed with fresh vitamins and minerals. All of the yoga sessions take place in the fresh air under a beautiful red tent, with stunning views of the Sierra Nevada Mountains, and is suitable for all ages and abilities. You don’t need to be an expert, you can do as much as you can manage. This environment is really special. The garden, full of orange trees, roses, bougainvillea, wild flowers and ancient twisted olives, is very beautiful.

Mornings start with a group meditation in the white tent among the ancient olive trees. This is an extremely calming and grounding way to begin the day. After a refreshing smoothie — which will be something like spirulina and fresh orange juice — is a yoga session, followed by a delicious breakfast, which is a close to a dessert as you are likely to get here! Banana and strawberry pancakes with a chocolate avocado sauce was a particular favourite of mine.

Lunch at 2 pm is the main meal of the day, with dinner at 7 pm. Meals are social occasions and a good chance to get to know your fellow retreaters. There’s water or hibiscus tea to drink and lots of types of herbal tea available throughout the day. It’s usually quite an international mix of visitors. This is also the kind of place you can easily come to alone, as you are with a small group of like minded people most of the time, and there’s no pressure to join every session if you don’t want to.

Raw food

All meals are made up of raw superfoods, which is one of the most potent and powerful tools on your journey to physical health. They invigorate, boost and nourish the body and have been known for decades for their extremely high nutritional value of vitamins, minerals, antioxidants and other nutrients.

A raw food diet can boost your energy levels, build up immunity and even ease menopausal symptoms. All foods on the retreats use raw, organic and mostly wild-collected superfoods. You also get lots of tips and tools on how to integrate these powerful foods into your diet. Raw food takes time to eat and digest so you may well find yourself eating a lot less than you normally would, and a natural raw food diet often provides a very natural solution to weight problems by rebalancing your body and giving it the right amount of nutrition it needs. A western diet, although seemingly abundant, is often made up of a lot of processed foods which are high in fat and sugar, but low in nutrients. There’s also a brilliant session with raw food expert Veronica who is an absolute mine of information, and you can ask anything you want to know about changing your diet to adapt to this way of eating.

Other things to do on the retreat

There is plenty of free time for you to relax in your own rustically charming room, or there are some small houses in the grounds you may use if there are a few of you here together. There’s a lovely swimming pool too, where you can make the most of the fabulous weather with a refreshing dip. You might just want to do nothing else but relax and this is a very nice environment in which to do this but there are a few other options.

You can opt for beauty treatments from Sam or massages from Tara or her husband Inti who are both qualified massage therapists. I had an excellent Shiatsu massage from Inti while I was there, which really helped my shoulder which I’d damaged in an over enthusiastic trip to the gym. You might want to help out in the kitchen with the imaginative raw food meals that are provided by a trio of chefs: Pam, Sam and Amanda. You can have a go at helping out making the raw chocolate, which tastes incredible by the way, or watch a demonstration on how to make kimchi — a fermented vegetable dish which is great for helping digestion. All meals are vegan and feature lots of lovely fresh local produce. On Thursdays, there is a local market you can visit in nearby Orgiva, and you can opt in for walk up into the mountains for a picnic on one day. If you have a car, the majestic city of Granada and the world famous Alhambra are only just over an hour’s drive away.