Ronda

Abe and I had good time in Malaga as we were waiting for his emergency passport to come in, but I really wanted to check out another city on a day trip, since I felt we had Malaga fairly cased. We went in to the consulate on Friday morning as soon as it opened (10 AM for those industrious Spaniards) and, low and behold, his emergency passport was there waiting for him. There was nothing keeping us from staying in Malaga. We made a mad-cap dash for the bus/train stations which lay on the other side of the city centre, I with a big backpack and wearing sandals. The bus, typically, was not keeping to its advertised schedule, and we had a few minutes to pick up some lunch at a grocery store. We did, but ended up making another mad-cap dash for the bus, with two minutes to spare. At this point in time, we decided to be more conservative in our scheduling.
Ronda is somewhat west of Malaga, about two hours, above the Costa del Sol in some nice mountains. The drive was a pleasant one, going through little villages whose primary industry seemed to be pressing olive oil. We arrived in Ronda in the early afternoon, found a map, and headed for the historic centre, stopping only at a video store so Abe could ask if they had "Nacho Libre", an old, presumably very awful comedy which he was obsessed with finding. No dice.
Now, a word about Ronda. Ronda is, quite simply, spectacular. It is the largest of what are called "puebla blancas", Spanish for white villages, a fairly self-descriptive term for white-washed villages in the mountains which the Moors made for defensive value. Ronda is one of the most scenic, as it is situated high on a mountain side, with a 100 metre deep gorge gouging it through the middle, and two magnificent old bridges spanning the chasm to the medieval part of the city. The streets were narrow, steep, and winding, with old men and school-children walking inclines which at times were around 45 degrees. Old churches, monastaries and shrines littered the streets; it would have been nearly impossibly to even walk by all of them. I particularly liked a beautiful, centuries old fountain which the local kids drank out of. It provided cold, clean mountain spring water in the hot dry weather of Andalusia. The town was incredibly beautiful, historic, and peaceful.
We approached the old Arab gates to the city, going by old tanneries and baths which were around a thousand years old. We saw old winding paths going down the river, which in turn flowed out onto the valley floor, littered with olive groves and wheat fields. Guitars were played softly in the streets. How do I describe the sights there? Churches with horse drawn carriages and mountain vistas and old moorish tilework in centuries old houses. The old part of the city was hemmed in by mountain cliffs for about 270 degrees, making all but the most stalwart siege impossible. We checked out a free historical museum, and it chronicled the old Celtic, Roman, Visigothic, and Arabic history of the area. After walking and seeing many sites, we decided it was time to eat. We settled into a little restaurant, got some tapas, and watched the USA play Serbia in the world cup. It was a very satisfying day trip. It was there that I discovered that my debit card wasn't working.
Ronda was definitely one of my favourite places in Spain, and I would highly recommend it.

We got the evening bus back to Malaga, got some more cheap tapas, and stayed our last night in Malaga. In the morning, we checked out of the comfortable Hotel Tribune, I got Abe a taxi going to the airport, and I was on my own. I picked up some chorizo sausage and pears at the farmer's market, and trucked with my bag out for the bus station, blazing my own path.