8.Febrero.2009.
What a couple of days...
Roommate news (yes, there is more): Anna is coming back! She left today and will be back tomorrow in the morning. Kathryn moved in on Friday and had to move out today. It's all been silly. Angeles... Wayne, the program director, came and basically said they were cleaning up her mess. Thank God!
On Friday night, we only went out for a little bit but went out last night to go and watch some of the Sevilla/Real Betis game. Betis won! It is something like the 2nd time in 20 years. They were yelling and singing in the streets.
We got up early this morning and headed to the bus station to catch our 10 am bus to Ronda, the pueblo blanco. They are famous in Andalucia and called that because most of the buildings are white. A group of 13 of us showed up to go and we boarded, ready to go.
The Spanish countryside is peculiar. No one lives there. Granted, there are small huts/houses where farmers tend to the land but otherwise, it is barren. When you first leave, the land around Sevilla is flat and not many trees grow. You can see for miles. The day was perfect with plenty of sun. I think the sky is bluer here in Spain. I have never seen such a sky that felt so close. It is so blue, so vibrant, you feel you could drown in it like water. Farms pass and the occasional abandoned building. The road is two-ways, but not more more. There are no grand highways, as far as I have seen. As you continue toward Ronda, hills appear like smooth green afterthoughts. They are very out of place. The ground has been raked and appears to have been recently seeded. With the latest rain, shoots have peeked through and so they are the bright green of spring.
As you continue toward Ronda, the lonely awkward hills begin to roll together and more foliage appears. I assume the scraggly trees are olive trees. They are planted in lines over the hills, giving the whole countryside a planned surreal quality. More trees sprout up, but they are gnarled and have silvery sage leaves. The hills hump up and lose their smoothness, growing rocky and jagged. The scenery would look more at home in Arizona rather than Southern Spain. 35 kilometers out of Ronda and the hills have become mountains. A rain-swollen river cuts through them and forms the valley which sports more and more greenery. Some of the rocky hills are spotted with white dots: sheep. A farmer on a horse herds them. Cyclists hurry before the bus in the curves, their jerseys unzipped and fluttering around them like flags.
Ronda appears at the top of a mesa and glitters white in the sunlight. The sky is very close and there are fat nonthreatening clouds that throw mammoth shows across the valley in mottled splotches as you climb up to the town. The town itself is situated on two separate plateaus and overlooks the valley. The sides are connected by a nearly 400 foot tall bridge spanning the Tajo canyon where the river runs between its legs and splashes down in a waterfall. It has an opaque green flow and its name is Guadalevin, which we were told means "Milky River" in Arabic.
We made our way from the bus station to the office of tourism. On the way there, we discovered the overlooks the canyon and valley below. Someone got a map and we were off to discover. Let's just say I took nearly 200 pictures.
The view from the edge of the town is incredible. My pictures only give you part of the experience. A panoramic view would have helped but my camera can't do that. The wind whipped our hair back and forth; it was colder up there, but bright from the sun. The valley does not have much: dirt roads, abandoned shacks, small farms. You can see for miles. In the distance, those rocky hard mountains jut up and obscure the horizon. We pondered the view for a while. Many of us wandered off a little to our selves to just look. From there, we could see a trail winding down a less steep part of the plateau, leading down to the ruins of the wall previously surrounding the town. Even from far below, we could see a small group sitting and taking in the view. We determined it to be the perfect picnic spot and set out to get to it.
On the way there, we crossed el Puente Nuevo which is the bridge Ronda is famous for. The river splashes in a waterfall down that gorge. I cannot fathom how they built such a thing and they did it more than once. It is the "New Bridge" because it was finished in the 1700s. It was incredible.
On the other side of the bridge lies the Moorish quarter of Ronda. It is the smaller part and we easily found a way to the path leading down to the ruins. The descent was steep and we all inwardly groaned at the idea of climbing back up the stairs. It was worth it, however. We ran into the people ascending, who we had seen from the lookout point. It was a group of about 5 from our program. They had come the night before and were exploring for the day.
After saying hello, we headed to the end of the path and set down to picnic with the most amazing view. We had gone down a good part, but were still up pretty high. From there, you could see up to where the town watches over the valley. More pictures were taken. We sat in the ruins and picnicked. Now, when I say picnic, I do not mean a basketful of food. Here, our senoras pack us something called a bocadillo which is a very large sub sandwich with only meat and cheese. They're huge. It was a filling lunch and we sat in the sun for a while. If there had been a nice patch of grass, I think everyone would have wanted to nap in the sun.
We had heard from another group to go visit the palace gardens and las minas or the mines. It was 4 euro to enter and although it was not as extensive as I had hoped, it was still very fun to descend down the mines. It is cold and wet inside with very steep stairs. The descent takes you all the way down to the bottom of the gorge and you stand on a platform above the river. Another photo op! We puffed our way back up the stairs. It was a day of climbing!
By that time, we were all nearly dying of thirst and went in search of refreshments. I got a coke and one of those giant liter bottles of water and we browsed through some of the souvenir stores. I did not see anything I really wanted. We had the option then of taking the 5 pm bus back or finding something else to do and going back at 7. There is the bullring in Ronda but it holds an entrance fee as well. We heard about a pass you could buy to go see three or four museums in the city, but we were all tuckered out by then and caught the 5 pm bus back. I slept the whole way home.
I think the pictures will speak for themselves.
Love you and miss you all
Elle
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