Ronda and the elevator

This past Saturday I went on a day trip with some friends to the town of Ronda. Ronda is a cliff town about an hour and a half from Sevilla. We took a short, cheap bus ride from Sevilla at 9:45am and had a full day to spend in Ronda.
Ronda is known not only because it is a beautiful cliff down but also because it has a large gorge running right through the middle of the town. This gorge separates the new town from the old town. The gorge is huge, it drops some 20 stories and is filled with greenish (fake looking!) water.
We travelled to Ronda with a big group of people from our program. It was not an organized trip but a bunch of us decided to go because the weather was going to be beautiful and most of the activity in Ronda is outdoors. When we first got to Ronda, Caroline and I decided that we were going to go on our own to adventure. We had done some previous research and knew exactly what we wanted to accomplish while we were there. And it’s a little difficult to explore with some 20 people…We ended up with a nice little group of 5 explorers (Myself, Caroline, Cameron, Kaleigh and Elizabeth)
Our first stop was to get a map! After that we made our way to the new bridge. This is one of the main sites in Ronda. It connects the new and old town and straddles the gorge. We got some great pictures here and then moved onto La Casa del Rey Moro. This is a little site down a side street with gardens right on the edge of the gorge and an old mine with steps that take you to the bottom of the gorge. It was not crowded and touristy at all. We walked around in the gardens for a few minutes and then found the mine entrance.
I was a little scared at first. This was a skinny winding stairwell that was barely lit at all. We used our camera flashes the first part of the way to get some light. As we made our way down the stairs there were a bunch of little points to look out over the gorge. The best was yet to come! Finally we made it to the bottom and were able to stand on a little platform right out over the water. It was so neat! We looked straight up the walls of the gorge and around the bends. We sat down there for a little while snapping some pictures and reading our handy “Rick Steves” guide book that told us what to do next. Of course we now had to make it back on the flights of stairs that we came down…
When we made it back up top it was time for lunch. Caroline and I crave Italian food all the time so we convinced the group to go to a little Italian place that we had read about in our Rick Steves. Homemade pasta yumm!!
After lunch the plan was to descend the other side of the bridge and gorge. We found a great little path that took us the entire way down. On the way down we discovered a little trail that we were probably not supposed to go down but offered a great view. Of course we took it! This trail led us right to the edge of a cliff and a patch of beautiful yellow flowers. We found a great spot to hang out for a little while and take some pictures. Off in the distance we had a great view of the bridge, waterfall and the entire town of Ronda.
Later in the day we made our way down the path a little further. We decided not to go the entire way down because that meant that we were going to have to talk the entire way back up. In Ronda there is a saying that goes, “What goes down must come up.”
After a long day of adventuring through Ronda we made our way back to the bus station to head home. Wow was it a curvy ride home! We wound our way through the mountains….not enjoyable.
Of course the day gets more adventurous when we got home that night. We had big plans—siesta, dinner, out for drinks with friends and then dancing! We accomplished it all and made our way home later that night around 3am. I am not a “crazy partier” as it may seem ;) The Spanish have a wild schedule where we eat dinner around 10pm and then meet up with friends around 11pm. Unfortunately that puts us back home around 3am. I prefer the American times but its okay! Even when we go home around 3am it is “early” to them.
Anyways….we made our way home at 3am. Caroline and I hopped right into our little elevator and were ready to get to bed. Of course it wasn’t going to be that easy…the elevator slowly came to a stop…not at our floor. Panicked for a second we thought may be someone had called it on another floor. After we realized that was not the case, we pressed buttons to see if it would move. Nope. We were stuck! We felt bad pressing the bell button due to the hour but did it anyways. No one came. Caroline managed to pull open the elevator door and we saw that we were stuck right in between the second and third floor! This is when we knew it was going to be a longer night...
The elevator in our building is a 2 person elevator, about the size of a refrigerator or a little more. There is a door that you open like a normal door and then the elevator door slides open. When the elevator is not on a floor the door on that floor is locked for safety. Of course being stuck in between two floors means that both the doors are going to be locked. There was about ¾ of the second floor door at the bottom and then 3 feet of wall and then a few feet of the 3rd floor door. We pushed and pushed and nothing budged. We tried to call the little phone in the elevator and no one answered. After a few tried someone finally answered but our Spanish skills along with a beeping noise made it difficult to hear what he was saying. Caroline gave him my phone number (I had luckily managed to charge my phone battery and recharge my minutes right before tonight!) and he gave us a call on my phone. We told him the building we were in and he hung up. Great…he thinks we are joking. Next step, call Pacqui. It was about 4am at this point and Pacqui came down to try and help (if you know the little fashionista that Pacqui is that would really help to picture her in her robe trying to open the door). She called the elevator company as well as her ex husband to try and get us out! Her ex husband came and couldn’t get the door as well. Next stop, firefighters. Finally around 4:45am Caroline and I were free from the elevator! They opened the third floor door. I was not tall enough to make it out on my own so one of the men had to pull me out, oh lord. Caroline’s skills got her out on her own. Oh what a night it was! It took us a few days to warm back up to the elevator but we REALLY don’t like walking up eight stories to our apartment so it was bound to happen. At least we know to always bring a phone now.
This week has been busy, busy, busy with school! We have had several tests and papers this week. This week has been gorgeous weather as well! Caroline and I learned that we can go up on top of our building and catch some sun :) We are getting ready to head off to the canary islands in two weeks!