Day two, Happy Anniversary!!

Saturday was our actual anniversary, and we decided to rent a motorcycle and cruise up into the mountains, to a town named Ronda. Ronda has the oldest bull ring in Spain, and also has a super famous bridge that spans a huge gorge that seperates the Spanish side of town from the Moorish side.

I woke up early again, for the second day in a row, but managed to read in bed for a while until I couldn't stand it any more and woke Jesse up so that we could go get our bike and get movin'! We got some darling pictures of us in front of the hotel with the bike, but the camera was on the wrong setting when we gave it to the bellboy, so none of them turned out. Sigh.

So up into the hills we went, on long, windey (as in the road wound all over...how do you spell that??) roads, past pockets of villages where every building was whitewashed completely white, with the sea in the background. Talk about gorgeous views!

As we pulled into Ronda we quickly realized that they were having a festival that day, apparently some kind of celebration of said bull ring, with festivities and amazing costumes all day, and then a bull fight in the evening. As we sat in traffic trying to get somewhere, anywhere, we nodded to the couple on a motorcycle next to us. Which turned into saying hi to the couple next to us. Which led to realizing that they spoke English, which led to spending the next several hours with Jon and Trish, who had ridden their bike from England and were cruising around Spain and Portugal.

Arriving in town (please excuse the tennis shoes and helmet hair, casualties of riding a bike):

At the start of the main street which led to the bull ring, all decked out for the party:

Jon and Trish:

There were several characters along the street, but they wanted us to pay for pictures with them. So one of us would walk behind them while the other took a picture:

Lots of the local ladies were dressed up for the festival, and we kept taking pictures of them, as their dresses were so cool!

We saw so many sets of twins during our whole trip, it was crazy! But I think these were the cutest little ones:

More ladies (these ones were a little tipsy):

Making friends with the locals:

Jesse at the top of the bridge:

Jess is a little tiny spot at the top of it, it was crazy huge:

We ate lunch right underneath of the bridge, so cool:


Not sure why, but a bunch of men in traditional dress went riding by us:



Oh man, I need to start doing this with my girls, they look so cute!

Just more street:

Leaving town (Ronda is a bigger city in the area, so it didn't look as compact and white as the smaller ones. I wish we had taken some pics of those):



It wasn't easy getting my helmet on and off with my hair and sunglasses. So it stayed on for the pics:

We got back to the hotel and swam for a bit, then got dressed and headed to dinner. Jesse made reservations for a really good seafood restaurant down the beach, so we decided to walk and enjoy the evening.
The walkway in that direction is paved, and is lined with shops and restaurants on one side (the ocean on the other) and is so fun to walk along and people watch. Our table was literally on the walkway, and we spent several hours eating (including fish pate and octopus for one of us) and watching people. We finally headed back to our hotel close to midnight, and people were still out and about with kids, even toddlers. Way different lifestyle there, some things don't even open until after dark at 9 or 10 at night, and the nightlife goes easily until 3 or 4 am.

Another crazy fun day.

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