The last time we ventured into the mountains that surround our location was in March last year, I remember it well, as we had taken some family visitor’s staying with us, up to the beautiful hilltop town of Ronda which is located 739 metres up, in the Serrania de Ronda mountain range. Upon our return, that same evening, I started to suffer difficulties with the sight in my right eye and, by the following morning, I had lost my sight completely in my right eye. Shazza rushed me to the Costa del Hospital, some forty minutes drive away, where it was discovered that I had actually suffered a detached retina. Now obviously the visit to Ronda and my detached retina were possibly just coincidental, although we later discovered, from the eye Consultant, that actually high altitudes can be associated to such eye conditions. However, it is worth pointing out that I have, since that incident, flown in an aircraft at a much higher altitude and without any issues, hence my belief that it was a purely coincidental occurrence.
I only mention that because our next ‘Shazza Adventure’ would take us up the same mountain range although, on this occasion, a little further up beyond Ronda and so it did bring memories back of that unfortunate incident, I guess it was something that had been in the back of both our minds but neither of us mentioned it out aloud. We had decided to visit the small town of ‘Setinel de las Bodegas’ across the border into our neighboring Province of Cadiz. The town has a population of around 3,000 people, although that number substantially increases with the hoards of visiting tourists during the Summer months.
Now for those, unlike me, that are actually interested in the ‘History’ of places such as this, then the Internet of course provides a wealth of information and, although Shazza and myself are self-confessed ‘History Heathens’, occasionally I do enlist some help, to add ‘stuff’ to my ramble content, more usually acquired from my two friends ‘Mr Google’ and ‘Mr Wikapedia’, however, on this occasion I discovered a very informative ‘Plaque’ in the town itself that gave a very brief resume, in much fewer words than I ever could, so I am sure you my reader’s will be applauding that.
Shazza had discovered this place several weeks ago whilst perusing one of her many Spanish sightseeing and walking books, but it wasn’t for the hiking that she wanted to visit. We have often driven past other towns and villages that have ‘Cave Houses’, but they have been merely fleeting glimpses as we sped by en route to somewhere else. But this particular small Whitewashed village was a little unique in that, as well as cave houses it also had shops built directly under overhanging cliff tops and, from the photographs it looked like it would make a decent day trip out. The only unknown factor with these sort of high altitude locations is the weather, during the Summer months the temperatures in these mountain villages and towns can be a lot hotter than those at sea level, but in the Autumn/Winter months, well they are certainly a lot cooler but, if it is a grey and cloudy day, visibility can be down to just a few feet. Fortunately the ‘Works of Fiction’ forecasted a bright and sunny day, but, would they get it right, that was the question in our minds as we know only too well the inaccuracy of their weather predictions.
We had a choice of three routes, all would provide excellent scenic views as we drove up the mountain, and we had driven all three on previous road trips but this time we elected to take the shortest, as it was only 60 miles and would take us 90 minutes to get there, the much easier route, driving wise, would have taken us on a much better dual carriageway road for a large bulk of the journey, but it would entail driving an additional 30 miles, and add on an extra thirty-minutes driving time. Now I was more than happy to do all the driving and was actually quite looking forward to both the outward and return route driving, up and down all the steep twisty switchback roads, however, Shazza can sometimes feel car sick on such mountainous routes when she is a passenger, so I suggested that we share the driving and that she could do either the outward or return part of the journey. However, this is where you my reader’s will see the relevance of the first part of the storyline in this ramble, because Shazza had other ideas, only then did she reveal to me that she was concerned about last years eye incident and ‘suggested’ that she would prefer to do all the driving, with the proviso that if I felt any kind of discomfort, or blurred vision, during the ascent, that I should tell her immediately and we would not then continue with the mountain trip. Now I of course argued my case by reminding her that we had actually flown at over 9,000 metres in an aircraft since then, but you know what these women can be like, once they get a bee in their bonnet about something then that is it, so, although I really enjoy doing the driving, it really was no ‘biggy’ for me, I had no problems with being chauffeur driven all day, and you lucky people, my readers, have also got the advantage of now having a passenger who has a very enthusiastic ‘Clicker Finger’ 🤗
We departed at 09:15am, it was 16 degrees(c), so even slightly cooler for us than we have been used to at this time of the morning, but we also knew that it would be a lot cooler up in the mountains, so we dressed appropriately, no tee-shirts, shorts or flip-flops today, it was jeans, long sleeved shirts and trainers, and we both had thicker woollen zipped tops to put on once we arrived, however, as we looked up at the mountains as we got into the car, all the surrounding mountains peaks were totally clear of any low lingering cloud and their was a nice clean looking blue sheet of sky above them. There would be no need for a picnic lunch either, as we had not intended to do any hiking, so a ‘Tapas’ lunch, or even a ‘Menu del Dia’, would be the order of the day, in one of the numerous local hostelries and, as I had now been ‘officially’ relegated to being ‘a passenger’, well sometimes their is a silver lining in every cloud, I would be able to partake of an Anti-Covid Vaccine, or perhaps two. Hmmmm, I might just get used to this being chauffeured around M’larky, a thought that I obviously did not share with my driver 😁
I had forgotten at just how stunningly beautiful the differing mountain landscapes were at much closer quarters than we normally view them, with totally awesome and stunning views for miles around, first we wound our way up through the lower foothills, through larger populated villages with some very expensive looking residences, some with their own individual private gated entrances, how the other half live we commented but then smiled as we realised that we too have a private gated security entrance, just one we have to share with a lot more people. The surrounding landscape was primarily lush green pine forested slopes, with the odd broad leaf tree’s set amongst them showing off their own Autumnal attire of Golden Brown leaves, glowing in the sunshine and just adding to the magnificent portrait scenery. These sort of drives were definitely not all about just getting to the destination, it was the visual feast for the eyes during the whole of the journey, it really did make me appreciate having sight in both of my eyes so that I can continue to enjoy such views, I really do owe the Spanish eye surgeon, and the other medical staffs at the Costa del Sol hospital, both pre and post-op, a massive debt of gratitude for their prompt intervention which enabled me to keep my eyesight, any delay in having the surgery could have meant losing my sight permanently.
The traffic on the well surfaced and maintained mountain roads was fairly light, but as we drove further up the mountain, a group of around eight motorcyclists came racing past us, on the wrong side of the road and on very tight sharp right hand bends, which they most certainly could not have seen around, so just took the risk of their being nothing else coming in the opposite direction 😲 Being in a right-hand drive car and, driving on the right hand side of the road, even Lewis Hamilton (aka Shazza) was happy to just stick to the speed limit, or below, on this occasion, but having a car that had Automatic Transmission certainly proved beneficial on these roads, it was really hard work doing such drives previously, when we had ‘Wuxly’ (Shazza’s little car) with it’s manual gears and underpowered little engine, although it had always got us to where we were going, even if at times we could have walked faster up the hills 😂
As we drove ever upwards, one minute we would be in full sunshine, the next in the shade, as we went from being on the sunny side of the mountain one minute and then the ‘dark side’ the next. We watched as the temperature gauge dropped to 8 degrees(c), we turned on the car heater as we could most certainly feel the drop in the temperature. As we climbed higher we left the more densely forested area and out into the more rural areas, where the views became even better, at one point we could see right out to sea with Gibraltar and Africa so clear, but the ever twisting roads prevented me from getting a decent photo, hopefully I would be better prepared and get one on the downward ascent.
It was 10:45am when we reached the outskirts of the town of ‘Sentenil de las Bodegas’, and quite fortunately, as we both needed somewhere to go and powder our noses, and have a coffee, we came across a Cafe come Restaurant with a large car park, so we pulled in. My goodness, did we feel the chill as we opened the car doors and so we quickly put on our warmer woollen tops. The heat from the open log fire greeted us as we entered, several tables were already occupied and the people sat around them stopped talking as we entered, they said ‘Buena’s Dias’, as is normal here in Spain, and then they just continued with their conversations. We sat at a table and then a young woman came across and I ordered ‘Dos Cafe Con Leche’, as she left, Shazza looked at me and asked inquisitively “No Tostada ?” 🤷♂️ So I went up to the bar counter, where the girl was preparing our coffee’s, she turned around, “Lo Siento, tambien Una Tostada con Tomate y Una Tostada con Mermelede por favor” I said, “Vale, no hay problema” she responded. Now we are more normally used to Tostado’s being small baguette type rolls, cut in half and toasted, or sometimes they are large round bread rolls, but here, and you are going to think that I am exaggerating this, but I am not, what came out was a massive slice of bread, as if it had been cut from the centre of an almighty giant loaf, it was ‘at least’ an inch thick, what in some areas of the UK are referred to as ‘Dorrsteps’, and it was well toasted, just how we like it. Then came a large round plate which contained a ‘tub’ of margarine, the sort you would have in your fridge at home, with small individual tubs of different processed meats of some description, a tub of liquidised tomato, bottle of olive oil, individual packets of Salt and of course individual tubs of strawberry jam, we only wanted the tomato and jam 🤷♂️ So of course, the question in my mind was wether we would be charged for ‘all’ of this plateful of different foodstuffs ? We finished our coffee and toast and I went to the bar counter and asked for “La Cuenta” (The Bill) and the young girl said, “Seis” (Six), she had no way of knowing what we had or hadn’t eaten off the plate, but it was exactly the same price as we we pay at our local Spanish Cafe, although down there we do not get a selection of all the extra’s that we did here. I thanked her and said “Adios” and we made our way back out, as we did so the other people in the Cafe, who were the same people that were in when we had arrived, looked up and said “Luego”, (see you again), so we responded accordingly. We were total stranger’s in this place but felt so welcome by people we did not know, and would probably never see again.
We drove into the town and through it’s twisting roads looking for a suitable parking spot, we followed the ‘P’ signs up a hill that climbed away from the main part of the town, but fortunately, half way up we saw several marked parking bays at the side of the road and were lucky enough to find an empty one. It was a beautifully sunny and virtually cloudless day, the odd cotton wool ball one floating by, but there was certainly a chill in the air and certainly needed our zip up woollen tops.
Now I have to confess that at this stage of our visit, whilst it was nice to see the geology of the place and how they had turned, what used to be old historical residential dwellings, which in the day were most commonly used to house both humans ‘and’ their animals under the same roof, into what is now more modern residences and retail outlets, but to be completely honest this part of the town was predominantly targeted at prizing money from tourists wallets and purses, it certainly was not somewhere that the locals would come to do their daily or weekly shopping, they would use the small supermarket which we saw signposted in the back streets of the ‘normal’ residential habitations or, alternatively, and very much more likely, the more permanent residents would drive, or catch the local bus, the half an hour or so journey to the much larger town of Ronda where all the main everyday essential facilities were located.
So it was just another one of those places that sold the same old type of ‘Tourist Tat’, at the same inflated prices, that you could purchase anywhere, but with this towns name and pictures, printed on to the fridge magnets, tee-shirts, spanish fans, tablecloths and tea-towels, ceramic mugs and plates, well you get the idea by now. We were also quite pleased that we had eaten earlier and were still quite full from our ‘doorstep’ proportioned Tostado, rather than having to pay the extortionate prices they were asking at most of the tourist Bar/Cafes and Restaurants in this part of the town. But yes, scenically it was very nice, but the question is, was it worth the drive here, ninety-minutes up the mountain ? Well you may be surprised but actually, yes it was, but only due to what we were about to discover…………………
So, after doing the touristy bit and, as is our way, we decided to just wander aimlessly and explore in and out the numerous narrow alleyways just following our noses, now sometimes that can lead us to nothing of any real interest and be a bit of a waste of shoe leather, or in today’s case, rubber soled trainers, but sometimes our fortitude is rewarded, as proved to be very much the case as we discovered some lovely paths and walkways, and as a consequence we were able to see the ‘real’, more interesting side, of this unique town. As to be expected though in these mountain towns and villages, there were lots of steps to climb and descend, but it was all well worth the effort.
We couldn’t actually gain access to any of the cave houses, many were inhabited, or in the process of being renovated, and quite a few had ‘En Aquilar’ (To Rent) signs attached to them. I guess they would have made nice quirky accommodations for Summer holiday escapes, especially if you enjoy hiking in the mountains more than lazing on crowded beaches.
It was beginning to be one of those places where you just could not afford to miss out exploring every nook and cranny, to wander down alleyways and through arches, to climb or descend different steps, there was always something that made the effort so worthwhile. At the top of the florally decorated steps was a narrow cobbled road which led to yet another square and Mirador, with more amazing views and some more of the Olive Groves in the surrounding countryside. However, also within this were two separate Churches.
Shazza is not much into Castles, but I am, but she will always come in and explore them with me, conversely, I feel the same about Churches, so will always go inside with her to have a look around. I generally find that Churches, throughout the ages, were overly self-indulgent, adorned with ‘Gold’ antiquities when, the vast majority of their congregations were living in poverty. However, I was to be very pleasantly contradicted on entering this particular religious interior.
We found ourselves back into the nice upper level square, the one with the nice Cafe/Bar’s and other eateries and we stopped for a much deserved cold beer. Our original plan, when we had first set out that morning, was to do our sightseeing and then stop for lunch in the town prior to returning back down the mountain. We had certainly not anticipated the size of the Tostado that we had devoured for our late breakfast upon our arrival, so we both agreed that as we did not feel hungry we decided that we would probably just make our way back home and, if we happened to see somewhere on our way back down the mountain, then we could always stop, we were in no rush.
However, when we got back to the car, instead of making our way back ‘down’ the mountain we elected, for reasons that will become clear, to drive further up it 🤷♂️ I guess that you could say that these are the sort of adventures that we consider as being just ‘The Up’s And Down’s Of Living In Spain’ 😂
To be continued………………………….
Hasta Pronto mi Amigos 😉
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