Friday at noon I got on a bus to Ronda, which is one of the pueblos blancos (white villages) in Andalucia. We got to Ronda around 3, after almost getting off at the wrong stop (oops!) and checked into our hotel, which was a quad with a kindof sketchy looking carpet. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around the city looking at the various puertas, the Arab baths, the city's main church, and a very strange museum that was located in a mansion built on the side of a mountain. The main attraction in Ronda is a fantastic bridge built by the Romans that is still used today and connects the old and new parts of the city. Between them is a huge gorge, providing some beautiful views of the surrounding mountains. We spent a while wandering around and taking pictures before we headed back to our hotel to shower and rest before dinner.
After dinner, we tried to find something to do, but were surprised to find out that the nightlife in Ronda is kindof a bust. We ended up finding this place that has individual taps of Cruzcampo (the local beer) on every table and a TV screen that shows the total amount of beer for each table. Pretty genius selling technique, if you ask me. We hung out there until it closed at 12:30 and then went back to the hotel to sleep.
Saturday morning we woke up and got everything organized to go see the Cueva de la Pileta (Cave of the Pileta), which is about 20 kilometers away from Ronda and inaccessible by public transportation. We took a cab there, which took a little longer than we expected because we had to go a different way due to some construction. Luckily, as the cab driver had told us to run up the stone stairs carved into the side of the mountain, we were the last 4 people to be able to take the tour that morning, but not for another hour since the one at noon had filled up. The cab driver charged us a little extra but waited the hour which was nice. The cave was really cool - stalactites, stalagmites, a lack, and prehistoric cave paintings. No pictures allowed on the inside, and they only let a certain number of people in per day and a certain number of people in at a time so that the paintings are not damaged. The only slightly disappointing thing was that most of the painting collections are in places they did not take us on the tour because they are 80 meters under the cave. I guess that's understandable.
After the cave tour, we went back to Ronda, got pizza for lunch, and bought our bus tickets back to Seville. We spend our last half hour in this place called Chocolat, getting the best hot chocolate I have ever had in my life - it was basically syrup. I couldn't even finish it, and that's saying a lot. Hilary and I were in heaven.
On the way back, the bus only ended up taking less than 2 hours because apparently there are local buses and direct buses. Who knew? Good thing the schedule really makes those things clear to us. So we got back to Seville around 7, and I got back to my house a little before 8, just in time to eat dinner with my Senora.
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