Tour de Andalucía, Parte 1

Recently I was lucky to have my friend Lisa came to visit me in Spain for whole two weeks! (yes the same one I met up with in Barcelona and visited in Munich… apparently I only have one friend…?) Rather than sit in my 3x5 foot room and bounce off the walls/each other, we took the time to explore as much of Andalucía as we could… over the two weeks, we were in Jerez, Ronda, Málaga, La Línea, Gibraltar (okay not really part of Spain or Andalucía), Granada, Cádiz (of course) and Sevilla. Oy oy oy that’s a lot of jumping around from place to place, but Spain’s public transport system with its (mostly) reliable bus schedule postings got us safely from place to place.

Since Lisa conveniently arrived mid-week of Carnaval (i.e. week-long vacation for me), I was able to meet her in Jerez, the closest airport to Cádiz. From there we bussed it to Ronda, a cute little white village in the neighboring province of Málaga. What makes Ronda unique from the numerous other cute little white villages of Andalucía is that the old and new parts of the city are located on opposite (separate) halves of a cliff with a dramatic, literally straight-down drop-off running right down the middle of it. Fortunately for the inhabitants and visitors of Ronda, the gorge is spanned by a bridge called el Puente Viejo, so transporting oneself from one side to the other is no big deal. However, the bridge itself is nearly as dramatic and remarkable as the gorge itself – I can’t even imagine how dangerous/difficult it was to construct. Anyway, that day we really lucked out on the weather and got some lovely blue sky and sunshine, which made wandering down the footpath to the bottom of the cliffs and looking up all the more impressive. While this is the main attraction that Ronda has to offer, we also visited the town’s bullring. Thanks to my body’s stubborn circadian rhythm/apparent inability to sleep in, we were the first ones in the bullring and got to walk around most of it without encountering any other camera-wielding tourists.

From Ronda, we went to Málaga, the capital city of the aforementioned Málaga province (sidenote: likewise, Cádiz is the capital of the Cádiz province -- I’ll let you guess which provinces Sevilla and Granada are the capitals of…). Anyway, before I share my opinion of Málaga the city, it needs to be prefaced with the disclaimer that my housemates wrinkled their noses, shook their heads, and called Málaga una caca when I previously mentioned that Lisa and I might go there. I chalked up their negative opinion of the city to the excessive amount of pride that most Spaniards seem to devote to their hometowns… that being said, I gotta admit, Málaga is a caca. True, there’s a decent Picasso museum to visit, an old Arabic fortress/palace to walk around in, and has beach access, it’s not enough to make up for the fact that the rest of the city is just kind of ugly… and a little boring… and I have to admit that in comparison, Cádiz’s beaches are far superior to Málaga’s mediocre ones. Sorry to hate on you Málaga, but I don’t plan on going back any time soon.

The last leg of our journey before heading towards Cádiz was a visit to La Línea/Gibraltar. La Línea is the Spanish city right across the border (literally) from Gibraltar. Since it’s a lot less expensive, we stayed in a hostel in La Línea, but walked across the border through the Gibraltar airport’s runway and went to see what Gib has to offer. The town itself creeped me out for some reason … I’ve never been to England, but now I kinda feel like I have. The pound, not the euro is the official currency, there are those obnoxious red telephone boxes everywhere and British flags flying, and the strangest thing of all: everywhere we walked, I kept hearing… English (gasp!). In all reality, it seemed like everyone there speaks/understands either language, but I kept getting confused and didn’t know how to talk to anyone, so I just made Lisa do it.

Anyway, I preferred walking around the Rock much more than being in the town of Gibraltar itself. Rather than pay for a cable car ride up, we decided it would be much better to get to the top walking, so we did. It wasn’t an especially sunny or hot day, but it was pretty humid and the road up was decently steep, so as a true recipient of my mother’s sweat genes, I acquired quite the accumulation of perspiration while trekking up to the top. Once finally there, it was fantastic. We walked around the Great Siege Tunnels, went in St. Michael’s Cave, and visited the Ape Den. I don’t feel like "den" is really an appropriate term for what it is though. When I hear the word den, I think of dimly lit animal caves that you need to duck when you walk through them… I guess it doesn’t really make sense for apes to live in this sort of environment, but that’s what I had been imagining during the laborious journey up the Rock. The “den” was actually just this open area right off the main road where a whole bunch of apes hang out and roam around freely. They are at complete liberty to sleep, eat, and play anywhere they please – and they're definitely not scared at all by humans. In fact, when one of the teachers at my school went to the rock, an ape took some snack food right out of his wife’s purse! Luckily we weren’t carrying anything edible, so we took some pictures and watched the babies jump around and play with each other. It was like going to the zoo, but better because the animals aren’t trapped in cages!

Okay, well that’s more than enough details about the Ronda/Málaga/Gib trip, so I’ll bring this entry a close. Try not to get too sad, because more Tour de Andalucía coverage is soon to follow…