Help me Ronda

It is quite hot here, so the beach boys seemed appropriate.

The afternoon of July 28, 2008.

I got to my bus with all my things intact and headed out for Ronda, mercifully, my bus mates relieved themselves prior to the trip or held it until I fell asleep.

I got to Ronda about 7pm and got to my hotel without problem. It was a lovely little spot with my own bathroom (except for staying with friends, I now will only have my own washroom for the rest of the trip, how decadent!) and a honking AC in the room. I spent a little while on the hotel computer which was painfully slow and then wandered out to shop and eat. Ronda has a main pedestrian shopping street that is about 2 km long. I did a lap of it, noting in my head the camera store, to replace my beloved and the prices for the 'menú del día' s along the way. (Fixed price 3 course meals with a drink, the best deals.) I had dinner at a nice place and even though they didn't have natilla (vanilla-custard pudding with a digestive cookie on top) on the menu, when I ordered flan for dessert, they sadly informed me they had natilla instead, I was thrilled.

After dinner I wandered around looking for an internet café with a quicker connection than in my hotel and found one in a teeny little bar close to the gorge. I had an excellent msn conversation with sumantra and researched my stolen camera and replacements.

July 29, 2008.
The next day I got up, stored my stuff at the bus station (the shop stored it for me because apparently their lockers are not the best) and went shopping. Well not at first, first I called the insurance company to make damn sure they were going to reimburse me for the stolen camera before I bought a new one. Then I bought my new best friend, at least while I am here alone that is. I got a new canon IXUS camera in a fun shade of reddy-brown. Jay asked if there was shoes to go with it, I told him to shut up. It is the same model as the one I had, just the newer version, and much smaller, which actually makes it easier to keep track of. I later found out I got a bit ripped off pricewize, compared to Canada that is, but seeing as how now is the time I need a camera, I will get over it.

I had lunch at a restaurant built into the side of Ronda's famous gorge and took a stroll. I made it for my bus and was off on a nauseating, but beautiful trip to Arcos de la Fronterra, a pueblo blanco built perilously on the top of a mass of earth jutting straight up from the ground. It is not a mountain, nor a peninsula, just this huge piece of earth carved out by a river, that somehow has a town built on top of it.

After realizing that the reservation I asked my Spanish friend Lidia to make for me was non-existent, I booked myself a room at the Hotel La Fonda. Again, the room was great, AC and my own bathroom, and as I related to Jay, the highest ceilings I have ever seen in a bedroom anywhere. Want to know what he said? "Makes it tougher for the guests to hang themselves" Sick. I decided to ignore this comment and instead focussed on the beauty of the place.

I made my way up the steep winding streets to the various places of interest Arcos has, all of them closed for visitors. Most interesting are the two huge churches perched up there, which for years battled for supremacy, St. Mary of the Assumption and The Church of Saint Peter. The feud between the two grew so great that at St. Peter's they stopped saying the word 'Mary' in their prayers, and replaced it with 'God' or something else to try to make it fit. Those wacky catholics.

I had dinner and retired to my room to watch several hours of American crime shows dubbed over in Spanish. It was sadly pretty easy to follow even when I couldn't understand the dialogue, I think the 'subtleties' are even less subtle when you miss what is being said, because in every show within 5 minutes in I was sure of who committed the murder.

June 30, 2008.

Today is entitled 'looking for the bus station'. After asking the hotel desk to call me a cab to the bus station, they said, nonsense, you can just walk there, it is just down the street and then make a right and then...... 5 minutes, maybe 10. They even offered to store my luggage for the 4 hours until my bus. I thought, 'Super! I will walk their now, check the schedule, buy my ticket and have loads of time for a nice lunch and to find the internet café!' Not so much. After wandering for 2 hours and asking as many people as I thought necessary without looking like an idiot I found the station.

When I got there it was just after two and so the ticket terminal was closed and all there was posted was a sign of when the buses headed to Seville. This is how the times were written:

Arcos-Seville

Salida Salida Salida
07,00 07,00 07,00
15,00 15,30 16,00

Clear no? Do they have buses at each of these times? Are the departing (Salida) buses the ones on top, on the bottom or both, what do the columns mean? I called the numbers listed below and spoke to a woman who first told me the bus was at 5pm. I said, the sign says 4pm, she checked and said oh, 3pm. I tried to ask if there was another bus at 3:30 or 4, as it was now after 2 and I still needed to eat. She repeated 3pm. I took a cab from the bus station to the hotel, had him wait while I got my stuff and then drive me back down to the bus station, where I had lunch in the cafeteria. It was one of the better gazpachos of the trip.

Two hours later and I was in Seville! I am at the most beautiful hostel yet of the trip and I am having a wonderful time, save the fact that it is time to come home. I am trying to keep busy and keep enjoying this time I worked hard for at the camp, but I am ready to be back with friends, family and Jay, especially since I will be moving so far away in September.

It is dinner time once again, so I will bid you adios, and regale you with stories of Sevilla tomorrow,

Kate