Ronda, Spain

I know that you all have been dying to know what has been happing in my life. Sorry for being slow on the updates, life is crazy in Granada. Let's go back to my adventures of last weekend. Friday morning around 7:45 we left for Ronda & Seville, two extremely beautiful cities in Spain. Ronda was our first stop and it  has some amazing views! You can see for miles around out into the olive fields and to the mountains. We split into small little tour groups and walked around the town. I went with the program director, Javier and he took us down the mountain side to see a special view looking up to the town. It was a little bit of a hike but it was well worth it. We got to look up at one of the three famous bridges. This one is El Puente Nuevo which means new bridge. On the one side of the bridge is a a river that flows towards it. If you look over the other side the water comes through as a small waterfall heading to the valley below. It is so pretty. The was here was crystal clear even though it was a teal color.


After we did some walking around, we went toward the bottom of the town to see some old Moorish ruins. There used to be a wall surrounding the town, and at one section of the town is the ancient baths that the Moors used to use. Much of the Moorish architecture was destroyed when the Catholic monarchs took control from the Moors in the 1400's. Most of the baths are still in contact.  We were able to go down into the baths and watch a movie on how they worked. They were an extremely advanced society. They would build a fire in one room and bring in water throughout the rest to create saunas, actual baths, and rooms were they would do massages. It was a really neat sight. I believe when we go to Morocco that we will get to go to an actual bath house. I'll have to update later on how that goes, if we get to participate.

Once we left the baths we explored other parts that were left behind by the Moors. In one area of the town, beneath the king's home was a mine shaft. In the mine shaft was were the Moors would store all of their water and weapons in case of an attack. We were able to go into the mine shaft. There was well over 200 steps that we had to climb down to. At the bottom you come out of the mine and it opens up to this beautiful lake that is hidden at the bottom from the big cliffs. This was were they would keep the fresh water and weapons. 

 After we toured around the town we went back to the main plaza to a small park area and enjoyed our picnic lunches that our host moms had made for us. After lunch we all got back on the bus and drove another 2 hours to get to our next destination, Seville!