Ronda- El Rochio: "If you can't live longer, live deeper"

We leave Estepona headed up to the town of Ronda, a place that I have been very excited about seeing.  Along the way we see numerous signs indicating danger on the road…

 

Despite the danger, we make it to our destination.  I’ve been saying it all along, but every town we end up in is always bigger than I expect.  Not sure where I am getting my information from but I have been completely off in terms of size.  

We head down the main drag and end up at the Plaza del Toros.  Pepe had to catch a selfie with El Toro, oh and his twin.

Without really knowing where we were going, we end up at a look out point. Let’s just say it was a wee bit windy and I was in a skirt.  I kept doing the Marilyn Monroe move while attempting to take pictures.  

 

And Ray got a face-full of my hair too, I don’t think he minded though.

We walk along the edge of the cliff and come across a man creating amazing paintings. Here’s a hint to what I was so excited to see. 

 

We come around a building and completely unexpected, I'm face to face with the bridge I had been dying to see. 

The Puente Nuevo bridge stands 390 feet tall over the El Tajo gorge.  Absolutely stunning if you ask me.  I just couldn’t get over how deep the bridge went.  

History says that during a civil war between 1936-1939 captured opponents were actually thrown from the bridge to the rocks below, that wouldn’t be a fun way to go.

We walked around the city for a few hours and knocked on some random doors.

We stumbled into a small tapas place off the main drag called “La Algeria” for some delicious tapas, cañas and La Rueta de la Fortuna (Wheel of Fortune in Spain).  Here was a true way to test my Spanish.  I did end up getting one before the contestants and before all the letters had been filled in so I was quite proud of myself for that.  

As we were paying for our meal, the bartended poured us a shot of a local vodka with caramel. 

I was a little afraid at first, but it turned out to be very tasty.  He then poured us another and we convinced him to take one with us. Gotta love the photo bomber in the background.

After our lovely shots, we were on a mission to find the “Casa de Jamón”. Upon arrival, I knew it was my heaven. It’s here we got out first ham snowcone for this trip. The following pictures are not for a vegetarian or vegan’s eyes. 

 

Back in the car now to El Rocío.  Along the way we passed hundreds and hundreds of acres of sunflowers.  They were so beautiful.

El Rocío was a cute little dirt road town (recommended by a friend of ours) in the Parque Nacional de Doñada.  Compared to most of the places we have been so far, this one by far had the least amount of tourists. On one side there were gorgeous white buildings and the other a huge pond with dancing flamingos.

Pepe checking out his flamingo friends...

I couldn't get over the dancing flamingos.  And it goes a little something like this...

That night we randomly ended up in Punta Umbría, in the province of Huelva.  A tid bit of history, apparently this is where Operation Mincemeat occurred during World War II.  This British operation was a part of a disinformation exercise, where a body of a supposed British Mayor carrying false top secret documents washed up.  Nonetheless, it was a cute beach resort town and perfect for an overnight stop.