Playing Catchup 

So I have been really bad about updating my blog but I'm dedicated to writing about all my big trips and experiences! In this post I intend to recap three smaller trips I've done: Carnival in Cadiz and two day trips- one in Gibraltar and the other in Ronda. I've been traveling so much that the weeks have been flying by! I feel like I don't get to experience Sevilla as much as I did in the beginning of the trip but I have just under two months left here so I intend to optimize my time. 

cadiz 

Carnival in Cadiz was unlike anything I could have anticipated. Wild, crazy, drunk people everywhere! I signed up with a Seville based program that bussed us to Cadiz for the night and picked us up at some crazy hour in the morning... maybe it was 6am? I honestly don't even remember! But overall I'm glad I went but I'll never do it again! 

 Meet Lorena- she lives in the same building as me but not actually in my apartment. We met a few weeks after the program started but she is hella chill and always knows how to have a good time! And of course, she has mastered the crazy eye (inside joke).

 hahaha Lorena! The costumes we saw were all really intense! Most people came in large groups all dressed as the same thing so it was easy to recognize your own group. People were very critical of costumes and were dressed up really well! I didn't expect people to be so dedicated!

People started getting crazy the later the night got!

After a few hours, our group was tuckered out and we headed for food... more specifically chocolate y churros! It was really cool watching the guys make them and the proportions were huge!

And how could I not include this photo! This man was hammered out of his mind and he wanted coffee but we had no intention of giving him anything so we kept saying no but he didn't understand. He must have stood next to our table, swaying and confused, for five minuets before he moved on to his next victims! Sarah Terry was hilarious and kept yelling at him in Spanish but he was firm and continued to look at us in an almost sassy way hahaha I almost died laughing!

gibraltar 

aka somewhere people spoke English! SCORE

Gibraltar was a day trip offered to us through the CEA program. We drove up and had a van tour of the place and I was frantically snapping photos out of the windows of our van. It was a rainy day but that didn't ruin any plans and in fact it was refreshing to have some overcast skies and a crispness in the air.

 When I asked my roommates what was in Gibraltar, they said only monkeys and a rock. To some degree thats true, but I found lots of interesting aspects of this place! 

 Gibraltar is basically a huge rock in Southern Spain and the rock of Gibraltar is the most famous rock in the world!.

Can you say NATURE! I was in such need of something other than city sites and Gibraltar satisfied that for sure. 

Can you imagine praying here? It was directly next to the ocean and so beautiful! 

This Mosque is located at Europa Point, also called Great Europa Point, which is the southernmost point of Gibraltar. At the end of the Rock of Girbaltar, the area is flat and occupied by such features as a playing field and a few other buildings. 

There are three notable buildings, the Ibrahim-al-Ibrahim Mosque (pictured way above), the Roman Catholic Shrine of Our Lady of Europe, and a Europe Point Lighthouse (pictured left).

The skies were really intense as we drove up the mountain and the higher and higher we climbed the more we could see in the distance. In the above photo you can see the Rif Mountains of Morocco and Africa's cost!

Located more than 300 meters above sea level, St. Michael's Cave was an amazing and dramatic natural grotto. The cave was longed believed to be bottomless and has been a kind of tourist attraction since the Romans. It's bottomless legend probably gave birth to the story that the Rock of Gibraltar was linked to the Continent of Africa by a subterranean passage over 15 miles long under the Straight of Gibraltar. 

 THE MONKEYS! Outside of the cave was the Apes Den. The Barbary Apes, Macaca Sylvanus, are actually tail-less monkeys and they are the only free-roaming monkeys in Europe. Natives of North Africa, their presence in Gibraltar probably dates from the early days of the British garrison when it is presumed that they were imported as pets or even game, inevitably finding the rough limestone cliffs and scrub vegetation a congenial habitat.

They have really become one with Gibraltar and many legends have grown up around them. One is that they travelled from their native Morocco via the pre-metioned subterranean tunnel! The fact is that they are firmly established at the rock and the British people claim that should the apes ever disappear, they too will leave Gibraltar.

 Although Gibraltar is located in Southern Spain, the region actually belongs to the United Kingdom! So we heard lots of British accent, had a great English Breakfast and images of the Queen were everywhere! 

What made Gibraltar so cool for me personally was it's connections to history and the ancient world. The stretch of water that separates Gibraltar from north Africa has played a strategic role in battles fought and won to control the western Mediterranean seaways. 

In ancient times, Gibraltar was on e of the Pillars of Hercules. It was known to the Greeks as Mons Calpe, the other pillar being Mons Abyla on the Moroccan side of the Straight. In a way Gibraltar marks the limit to the known world. To pass beyond it was to sail to certain destruction over the bottomless waterfall at the edge of the world! Thus the many findings of offerings made tot he Gods by these and other civilizations such as the Phoenicians and the Carthaginians in the many caves on the shorelines. 

 ronda

So, Ronda was beautiful. Plain and simple. Stupendous views, nice people, and for us, perfect weather! Lots of amazing views of countryside landscapes and of course, the Puerta Nueva. Looking at this bridge I felt like I was in a scene of Lord of the Rings! It was massive and demanded such attention!

 We hiked down from the top of the bridge to the bottom, had great views all the way, and found some interesting detours! There was an abandoned house Arielle and I checked out and picture below you can see a skull we saw near a cave that none of us were brave enough to venture far into!

We did find this kind of Oasis spot which was at the base of the bridge. Really beautiful!

Where we stopped f or lunch. not too shabby!

 Overall, happy I did a day trip to Ronda. It was beautiful and filled the nature quota! I enjoyed traveling with some new faces and it was cheep! Round trip bus ride was only 20 euros! Not too shabby!