Ronda

Let’s talk about Ronda.
Two weekends (February 13-14), our whole group, known as ISA (EEE-suh), went to Ronda and Málaga, two cities southwest of Granada. On Saturday, we went to Ronda for the day before heading south again toward our hotel in Málaga.
Ronda is in the Málaga Province, and, along with Toledo, is quaint and incredibly beautiful. It sits atop a huge cliff. Also, there is a ravine that splits the city into two distinct parts (new and old) that was carved by the river snaking its way down toward the Mediterranean. Connecting the two halves of the city is the Old Bridge, which is at the bottom of the cliffs across the river, and the New Bridge (so cleverly named), which is the impressive one at the top.
Our tour guide was a really sweet guy with a thick Irish accent… It’s just funny hearing Spaniards speaking English differently than I expect. He said he had been an engineer in Ireland for many years, and that was where he learned to speak English.
The first thing that we saw was the Plaza de Toros, which is the oldest in Spain. Here, I digress for a brief etymological monologue…
Why in the world is a “Plaza de Toros” called a “Plaza”? Is not a “plaza” simply a city square, or open space where streets converge? Well, many years ago, the great peoples of the Iberian Peninsula, Spaniards, began to have bullfights in the main plazas of their respective cities. They would simply block all the entrances and let the bulls roam free. (Mom, this is exactly like when we would put trash cans at the entrances to the baseball diamond and let Buckeye run like a maniac.) They didn’t have buildings dedicated solely to bull fighting until many years later.
After the Plaza de Toros, we walked around the city taking in the vista from many angles along the cliff-line. We also stopped at a mansion to look through the house and see the view from the back porch (which, I have to say, destroys the view of the fruit lab behind my house). After that, we made our way down to the Arab baths and saw another mansion that had distinctive Aztec sculpture around the doorway. We learned there that Montezuma, one of the kings of Tenochtitlan (México City… capital of the Aztec Empire), moved here to live after Tenochtitlan was conquered. After that, we continued on our way to the Arab baths where we saw… Arab baths – places of cleansing and socialization that were built in the 11th century and still used until the 17th.
Once the tour was over, we were set free and allowed to roam the streets to find food and shelter from the ever-increasing rain (oh, did I forget to mention that it was pouring rain at this point. Originally, it was just a serene fog… that didn’t last too long). Or, that was what we were supposed to be doing.
I had heard from a fellow Grover, the legendary Jonathon Riddle (see, already a legend and you haven’t graduated yet), that there was a path that wound its way down to the bottom of Puente Nueva (New Bridge) to see the waterfall there. Molly, Meta, Devin, and I decided to find it regardless of the precipitation, and I’m really glad we did. I’m also glad that my camera is moderately “weatherproof”.
Following our descent, we raced to a tapas bar, grabbed a quick lunch, and headed to the bus to go to Málaga!