Ronda

Ronda is a little city placed on a mountain top with a very impressive gorge running through it. They were the first ones to figure out if you mad a bullfighting ring circular the bull couldn't back into a corner and defend itself, making an unfair fight even more unfair. Good job Ronda.


We had a tour of the bullfighting facilities which were extensive. Lots of places for the bulls as well as horses who are involved in the fights. I was still dealing with the willies from watching our bullfight, but wondering what in the world we do with all of our bulls in the United States if we aren't slaughtering them publicly for entertainment purposes. Seriously. There are lots of great uses for cows-- milk & meat products. But what do we do with the bulls? Are they just slaughtered out of the public eye, or what? Just one of those questions I have never asked myself before.


When we were done standing in the bullfighting ring everyone walked away, and then I realized Cora wasn't following me. She was just hanging out in the middle of the ring playing in the dirt. I thought it made a cool picture-- her just chilling innocently in the middle of a place that sees so much violence. She looks so tiny and happy.

Afterwards we hiked down into the lower part of the city and saw some extremely well preserved arabic baths. They had been covered over for many centuries, and so when they were discovered they were in excellent condition. The big difference between an Arabic bath and Turkish or Roman bath was the way they did the lighting. The arabs put holes in the ceiling that corresponded to the movement of the sun, thus letting in more light than previous Roman and Turkish baths which typically had windows on the sides of the bath to let light in.