My Way Is The Highway

Alhambra–Washington Irwin’s “Oriental Pile”

My mistake.

I should not have read the 8th volume of Washington Irwin’s Works before sitting down to jot the memories of my visit to Alhambra. The tome is dedicated to Alhambra and Irwin’s poetic prose, slightly dated but so detailed that reading it is akin to being there. While Irwin lived in Alhambra for many years, I was there just for a day. That handicap is reversed and equaled by the fact that he had a pen while I was equipped with a state of the art DSLR. He chose his words, I, angles and light.

So instead of failing to one up Irwin on his battleground, why don’t I use his very words and spruce it up with my pictures? All the text in the following paragraphs placed in quotes is being selectively picked from the 1880 edition printed by P. F. Collier & Sons from New York.

And such he starts …

25,000 year old cave paintings at Pileta Caves, Banorojan, near Ronda

The oldest known cave paintings in existence are about 32,000 years old!

Cave art can be found in South Africa, southeast Asia, India, and the Americas. But the density of cave art is most in Europe, specifically in France and Spain. During my pre-trip research I discovered that one such cave, with paintings predating the ice age, existed a few kilometers from Ronda, I immediately stuck a “must go” pin on the map.

On our way to Zahara from Ronda, we turned into the village of Benoajan on the Gaucin-Ronda road. The office of the caves was still locked as I had read it would be. We climbed the steep stairs and waited outside the circular opening of the cave under a little thatched shed, as were told we should.

Ronda: The most spectacular hill town in Andalusia

After spending a couple of days in Granada amidst the hauntingly beautiful Alhambra and the nearby historic district, I thought I had seen the best of Andalusia. And then I came to Ronda.

This historic town of Ronda is precariously perched on top of a hill. Running through the middle of the the hill – and the town - is a 120 meter deep gorge, El Tajo – the slash, cut over millions of years by rio Guadalevin, a seemingly unbelievable feat if you go by how gentle a trickle of water it is today.  The astonishing achievement of nature has then been one upped by an engineering masterpiece, a triple arched bridge that spans the gap, the two main columns descending all the way down on the floor of the gorge.  The 18th century bridge is simply called Puente Nuevo or the new bridge, hinting at the fact that despite it being 200 years old, there is an elder structure in the vicinity.  That older bridge, Puente Arabe, lies further east on the gorge and is 400 years older, dating back to the 15th century.