Lino, our friend from UCLA and our wonderful host in Sevilla, invited us to visit the "white towns" and some of southern Spain with him and his girlfriend, Ana. We jumped at the chance.
From Sevilla, Lino drove us to Ronda: a town on top of a mountain, with a huge gorge dividing the old city from the new city. Ronda is beautiful. The vistas from the cliffs from the gorge make Ronda a city you want to return to again. We did lots of wandering and I did lots of trying to restrain myself from taking so many photos (as you will see, I failed.)
We were in Ronda on a Saturday afternoon/evening, and I think every church in town had a wedding that night. We saw countless wedding guests and even a few newly married couples riding in a fancy car or horse carriage.
As a special treat in Ronda, we went to a Flamenco performance in the most venerated bull ring in Spain. I had never been to a bull ring or seen flamenco, so this was pretty awesome. The flamenco performance (that we only could stay for half of) involved guitar, singing and dancing. We only saw one performance by a female flamenco dancer, but the entire performance gave me a much greater understanding of flamenco.
Flamenco is more than those recognizable female dancers. It is a “cultural tradition” born in Andalucía! (According to Wikipedia anyway.) Now I also know that I could never sing flamenco (it’s got to be hell on your vocal cords) and I would never try to dance flamenco (my bum would look huge in those dresses.) Flamenco seems to be so personal to the Spanish and performing it seems to be pretty soul-baring.
After Ronda, we wound our way through mountains and past many tiny “pueblos blancos” nestled in the mountains and seemingly isolated from the world. We arrived at destination, Jiména de la Frontera, late. At supper, I expected little from the dirty, fluorescently lighted bar we chose to patronize. But, Spain is full of surprises. We had some delicious shellfish that I would never have ordered without Lino’s recommendation.
In the light of morning, Jiména de la Frontera looked even more depressing that it had the night before. I mean, if you live here, what is there to do? Litter, drink before noon and look shifty-eyed apparently!
We looked at this old castle or something and Brad and I were obviously getting a little punchy . . .
It's a bird, it's a plane . . .
It's a big goober standing in a centuries-old Moorish castle!
After we departed "Sadberg," as I like to call it, we drove on to Castellar de la Frontera. (Everything is “de la Frontera” around this area – don’t ask.) Castellar is a city built entirely inside a Moorish castle on top of a mountain. By city, I mean like 10 little 2-story buildings where a bunch of hippies selling cheap jewelry to tourists or Germans live. It was pretty cool, but do those people get cell phone service up there?
View from Castellar de la Frontera
We had a picnic lunch on our way down the mountain. Through the fog (we’re really close to the ocean at this point), we could see the rock of Gibraltar! Brad and I started singing a made-up song, “Gibraltar Rock,” to the tune of “Elijah Rock” by Moses Hogan.
On to Tarifa – in Lino’s words “quite a beautiful city.” But we only spent 20 minutes there. Oh well, I guess we’ll be back to Tarifa when we take the ferry to Morocco some day.
Next: Playa de Bolonia. A gorgeous beach! I was reminded of California beaches with the mountains near the ocean. Brad and I grabbed a couple of ice cream cones and hit the sand. It was so relaxing to lie in the sun. As a side note, some sunbathers were nude. We plan to revisit Playa de Bolonia and I’ll be sure to go topless. My motto is, “When in Spain . . .”
Whose sexy leg is that? Es la pierna de mi esposo!
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