Highlights-Near Málaga Day 5
This was a near Málaga day. I spent most of it on a bus traveling to and from Ronda. I suppose that made it a started in Málaga day. I looked at, but did not climb down to, the gorge (yup, big hole).
The Canyon
Don’t lean over too far!
Make it stand out
For the people lacking an intuitive sense that walking behind buses that have to back out is a bad idea.
Notable Items
The Ronda visit was recommended by the LLM I consulted before leaving the U.S. After rejecting the “you could rent a car” non-helpful advice (what does an LLM know about driving in rural Spain?), I opted for the three and a half hour bus trip to reach it. I suspected it would be a basic bus (no bathroom) when I couldn’t reserve a seat. I was right. No bathroom? Did I mention that it was a three and a half hour trip?
The other LLM “advice” I rejected was how long to stay. “You should stay for seven hours.” Right. The LLM had obviously never visited a small Spanish town. Two or three sights, lunch, and done in five hours maximum.
When you arrive at a bus station in any country, the first thing to do is check the monitors. You should confirm your bus’s destination, departure time, and parking space for boarding. _Sure_. Not for the Avanza bus to Ronda that I wanted to take. There was no one to ask, but there was a bus with Ronda on its LED sign (rotulación), so I boarded and asked the driver if I had the correct ticket. I didn’t, but he pointed toward the correct bus. That seemed harder than it needed to be.
At the archeological museum, I noted a seven-century gap from the Visigoths (who were always more dangerous to themselves than invaders) straight to the Reconquista in 1485. Either I missed a room or someone has a grudge against the Moors.
Many parties have fought over Ronda through the ages: Iberians, Romans, Germanic people (tourism runs deeply among the Germans), Byzantines, Visigoths, Moors (who fought among themselves over it), Spaniards (troops of Ferdinand and Isabella), and French (Napoleon’s forces). That’s a lot of fighting over a big ditch (El Tajo canyon).
I had another opportunity to evaluate the performance of tiny, waxy napkins in restaurants: unchanged, still bad (especially with very greasy food when I need them most). The wax raises their disintegration resistance over toilet paper by compromising their ability to absorb liquids. The paper (if they don’t work as napkins, they aren’t napkins) just smears them around.