#63 A city divided by a deep gorge - and our toilet is leaking

January 29-31, 2022: Ronda, Cueva del Hundidero

In Ronda, there is a 120-meter deep gorge that separates the old town from the new town. This gorge is crossed by three bridges: the "old bridge", the "Arab bridge", and the "new bridge". These bridges represent the three major epochs of the city. The old bridge dates back to Roman times, the Arab bridge was built during the Moorish control of the city, and the new bridge was constructed by Christians in the 18th century. The new bridge is the highest of the three bridges and is an impressive sight, standing at the highest point of the gorge.

The old town of Ronda has a lot of history to tell, and many of the old buildings are still intact. We wandered through the narrow and winding streets and admired the sights from the outside. The city is unique and beautiful.

For lunch, we wanted to go to a small unpaved parking area that we saw from the new bridge, so we could enjoy a spectacular view of the deep gorge and the gigantic bridge. However, the road there was quite adventurous, as it had a steep incline and was made narrower by parked cars along the roadside. At the narrowest point, I accidentally grazed a parked car with the side mirror, but judging by the scratches and dents on the cars here, almost every Spaniard does that once a month.

After lunch, we met two young people from the USA who are also touring Europe. We had a very interesting conversation with them, talking about various topics and our travel plans. Trey and Hannah are not traveling with a camper like us, but they fly from city to city and then rent a car to explore the area. They regularly post their experiences on YouTube. They filmed the Caminito del Rey (#62) with a drone - it's really worth watching. They also captured aerial footage of the Ronda gorge with the drone. Let's see when they will upload that video.

The next day, we visited the national park near Ronda. More specifically, we went to the Cueva del Hundidero. This cave entrance is the beginning of a 9 km long underground river system that resurfaces at the Cueva del Gato. The entrance of Hundidero is breathtakingly high, almost 60 meters, and as you go a few meters into the cave, it becomes very dark.

Not only is the cave spectacular, but the surrounding landscape is also beautiful. Sheep herds graze on the slopes of the mountains, and their bell sounds add to the ambiance. However, the true kings of the sky here are the Griffon vultures, with a wingspan of up to 2.8 meters. At times, we could see up to 20 of them soaring in the sky. It was simply wonderful and calming to watch these majestic birds circling silently in the air.

We had plenty of time to observe the vultures because we had to take a forced break. Our toilet was leaking! Early in the morning, I noticed that our pee container was leaking, and I managed to prevent any major damage. Only a small amount of pee-water mixture had entered the toilet tank. Nevertheless, the toilet tank needed to be thoroughly cleaned and dried. Thanks to the 10 hours of sun and a peak temperature of 33.9°C in the sun, it dried relatively quickly. Now, the task was to make the container watertight again. My first attempt with the tools from the toolbox didn't hold up for long, so we had to make a trip to a hardware store. We drove back to Ronda, where there was supposedly a hardware store. This hardware store was something else. It was a huge mess, with parts lying in the wrong shelves and everything being overcrowded. It looked like a small store that had gradually expanded over time. If you were to ask the boss where something was, he would know exactly. Well, we found some thread sealant for pipe connections and also a new fuse for our water pump, which had actually blown the day before. By the way, we had a hard time finding the fuses because they were well hidden behind the very long checkout counter. The nearly 10 meter long counter was also quite cluttered, filled with old invoices, large quantities of parts, and various small bowls containing a lot of unsorted odds and ends that apparently were still for sale. (At the checkout, Jenny discovered a sign offering avocados for sale. So, we bought 1kg of very cheap avocados from the hardware store.)

Thanks to the high temperatures and long hours of sunshine, we were finally able to test our outdoor shower. We placed the black shower bag on the windshield, waited for three hours, and voila, we had warm shower water. The shower cabin consists of three shower curtains that are attached to our two rear doors. It's simply marvelous...

Day 108 - Total tour: 6,862 km

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