It's hard to believe that we’re just about half way through our trip. What was even harder to believe was that I was sitting in a t-shirt at 10 am, at the end of January. I had been swimming a few days earlier in Portugal and now I was sitting outside in a t-shirt – it was going to be hard to head north again at the end of next month. At almost 20 degrees in the sun, I soon came to understand why there are so many folks from the UK seeking real estate in southern Spain. The sunshine (and some warmth) was finally here after a long spell of cold, rainy days (sorry Minh-Yen, you just missed it by a week). We got off to a late start today because it was time for laundry. We used the machines (thanks Agnes!) and around half past noon, with the laundry hung over three lines, we walked into the nearby town of Ronda. This is one of the towns on the "Route of White Hill Towns" of southern Spain. Back in the day, they held strategic positions because of their obvious vantage point but ever since the threat of invasion ended, they have resorted to being sleepy towns that bask in the sun and survive mostly on tourism and the olive industry, which seems to surround Ronda from all angles. Speaking of olives, the trees in our campsite had a plethora of ripe olives. Despite advice from Sheahan to not try them off the tree, I couldn’t resist and bit gingerly into one. It was no surprise when I immediately spat it out, but my curiosity had been sated.

It was a gently downhill sloping two kilometer walk into Ronda from the campsite which was a definite bonus. It is always a nice treat for us to be able to leave the campervan in the campsite and catch transit or walk into town. The sun was directly overhead and the heat felt wonderful as we walked on a small road past olive groves on either side. There were also quite a few trees with what looked like cherry blossoms and the bees were very busy buzzing about – I checked my watch again and yup, it was still January 30^th. We entered Ronda through one of the gates of its fortified walls. The town had originally been built by the Moors but when the Moors were evicted in the 1500s, the Christians occupied it. Ronda is split into the “old town” and the “new town”, separated by a magnificent bridge, built in the 1700s, that spans a 300-foot high gorge. The whitewashed buildings of the town perch above this gorge along a cliff and when the evening sun strikes Ronda, it really is picture perfect. Our walking tour today was self-directed and involved hitting up all the viewpoints indicated on our map while staying in direct sunlight as much as possible. You must be wondering why I’m going on about the sun and warmth and I have to be honest that I never noticed it much in Vancouver and that’s probably because I’m indoors for the majority of the day. When you’re in a campervan and trying to tour, it’s a completely different story and my Vitamin D levels were really depleted after the past few weeks.

Each of the viewpoints along the cliff’s edge that we visited offered us wonderful views of the rolling countryside, covered with olive groves, or looking back on Ronda itself. We spent nearly three or four hours simply wandering around the small streets of the old town, walking along the cliff and crossing the bridge for a view from the other side. We sat down at one of our viewpoints for a quick bite as we gazed out over the valley. After we had been to a number of viewpoints and taken pictures of Ronda from every conceivable angle, we were on the lookout for a supermarket to buy some Magnums – yes, it was warm enough for strolling with an ice cream in hand. We found the supermarket indicated in our guidebook but unfortunately it was closed for inventory. We seem to lately have been having pretty bad luck with things being closed – the chocolate factory in Biarritz, the flamenco theatre in Sevilla and now our Magnums were out of reach. So we continued on wandering through the pedestrian-only streets of town, which definitely puts a town high in our books. Most shops were closed – either for the “winter” (one sign on a gelateria actually said “Now that the cold weather is here, we are off. See you later on”) or for the afternoon siesta. The siesta in Spain is still quite hard for me to understand because shops are not closed for an hour or two but usually for three. I can understand it during the peak of summer but in winter, I guess there aren’t enough tourists around to warrant shops staying open all day. We wandered back to the Puento Nueve, that connects the old and new towns and browsed the postcard racks till we found some suitable postcards. The sun was beginning to set by this time and we began making our way back towards the campsite. I went down to one final viewpoint that managed to get far enough back from town and the cliff walls so as to provide some really stunning views. With the warm golden light of the evening sun softly bathing the town, it was a photographer’s delight.

On our way back out of town and towards the campsite, we came across a supermarket that was open. We went inside and came out all smiles – if you guessed Magnums, you guessed correctly! A six pack of mini-Magnums were polished off quite easily as we walked uphill back to camp. We walked past several olive groves on the way and we could see the farmers among the trees, pruning away and gathering branches into burn piles. When we arrived at camp, the receptionist, Carmen, chatted with us for quite some time asking us how our day had been and if we were staying past tomorrow. She had been very cheerful and helpful at checkout and she was just as friendly today and Megs and I both commented later how this made you feel really welcome at campsites and made you want to stay here again on a future visit. We checked our laundry as soon as we were back at the camper and to our pleasant surprise, everything had dried in just a few hours! Clean, dry laundry – it’s amazing how the small things make all the difference when camping. It had a been a wonderful day wandering through Ronda and we were looking forward to exploring the area further tomorrow.

We had a leisurely start this morning as we were only planning on going for a scenic drive. We packed up camp and headed off towards Grazalema. It was another white hill town that offered some really nice views over the valley. It was a really sleepy town and the only place we really saw any activity was the main square, with a few locals and road cyclists drinking a café. We stopped briefly, wandered for a few minutes through town and didn’t find it particularly interesting so we continued on. The rest of the drive was a loop that took us close to Benamahoma, then down towards Ubrique and then back towards Grazalema and eventually Ronda. It was mountainous terrain and the roads were quite steep and narrow in many places. We saw lots of sheep and particularly enjoyed seeing the newborn lambs frolicking about in the fields. We passed lots of olive and pine trees primarily, although we did see some cork trees on occasion. The roads weren’t very busy and we had unlimited visibility which made it ideal for a drive. The terrain reminded us of what we’d seen near the Mt. Ventoux area in France.

 The entire drive took us a couple of hours and we both thought that this would be a good area for some road cycling (for those who enjoy hills), with stops for a café in the little towns along the way. We got back to camp mid-afternoon and had a late lunch, sitting out at our picnic table. We sat, basking in the sun and soaking up its warmth. Post lunch, I headed off on a bike ride south-west of the campsite and was gone for nearly three hours. It was scenery very similar to what we had driven through this morning, I just got to see it in a lot more detail since I was on the bike for about 45 km. Megs opted to relax in camp and work on the scrapbook. I got back just before sunset and I was pretty tired, clearly not in the shape I was when I was doing the bike climbs with Rod and Tan in France. It had been a warm, relaxing day with lots of scenic views and we were really thankful for the wonderful weather.