We rose early (8:30 is pretty early these days) and set off to catch a bus to the Marbella regional bus station. We had no real clue as to which bus to get on as the schedule was ripped off the bus stop glass. Fortunately, I used Google translate the night before to learn how to ask "are you going to the bus terminal" the night before...yet still I managed to screw it up. The driver seemed to understand and nodded yes, gesturing for me to produce more money. Off we went to the estacion de autobuses.
We arrived in good time and rather than linger in the station with the many seniors that were also headed to our chosen destination for the day, we decided to kill an hour by walking to a small cafe in a nearby residential area. Once again I tried my hand at Spanish and asked for a bottle of water and a latte. I guess they only serve lattes in the English cafe down our street. "Latte?" asked the bewildered man behind the counter, "Cafe con leche?" he smiled. "Uh, si. Gracias - I mean grathias."
I'm really struggling with the Spanish here. They speak so incredibly fast and not only do they pronounce their 'c' as 'th' but they drop the 's' at the end of the words. I'll get used to it eventually. Jim, on the other hand, has learned to say bano (bathroom), hola, and a few others along the way. Turns out he's a quick study!
So anyway, yes, we set off to Ronda today. It's a small-ish town built up in the mountains that boasts a strong Moorish history. After the Romans reigned, the Moors rebuilt the area and the town was one of the last remaining Muslim centres in Spain. We took an hour and a half bus ride into the limestone hills and desert-like shrubbery. Ronda is parted by a deep and most awe-inspiring river gorge. Any architecture that survived from the 12th century is stunning. Enormous archways of stone stand throughout the old town and the extremely well-preserved Arabic baths are an incredible work of engineering.
Four hours of sight-seeing, picture-taking, tapas-eating, and cerveza-drinking later we pushed our way through the crowds of seniors and Japanese and boarded our bus back home. This was the first time we saw other tourists - none of which seemed to be Canadian or even American. The sun was out in full force and the day was completely perfect. We can only hope the rest of our outings go just as smoothly!
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| As you can see we're the only ones under 65 on the bus ride to Ronda. |
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| The stunning view of the gorge. |
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| The Arabic baths. |
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| The most prominent of the archways. |
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| The landscape that surrounds Ronda. |
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