The last sultan

The English couple Jacob and Sam are on holiday in Las Alpujarras in Andalusia. They get lost during a walk and meet the ex-bank robber Ángel and his English wife Betty, who live in a ruin. Jacob and Sam spend the night with them and whilst smoking a joint, Ángel comes up with a paste, he calls Sage of the Ghosts. This hallucinating serum, derived from the plant Salvia divinorum a.e., should bring Jacob into contact with the past. Jacob is not averse to mind-altering substances, and as a history teacher he is interested in Andalusia's Arab past. With this serum he has a bizarre encounter with Boabdil, the last sultan of Granada and his [dead] wife, Morayma. Of course, Jacob should never have taken that serum, but the trips 'back in time' appealed to him so much. Besides, the relationship with Sam and the holiday mood is not too good, because of their recurring dispute: Sam wants children and Jacob absolutely not. His fascination with the past turns into an obsession and when Sam notices Jacob is drifting away from her, tension rises further. Under the influence of the drug, Jacob puts his health and his relationship at risk. More and more often he takes a bit of the drug, without Sam noticing. What follows is a series of hallucinations to the highlights from the last twenty years of the caliphate of Granada at the end of the fifteenth century.