Over the weekend we went to Cádiz, though that's actually false advertising as we spent less than 12 hours in Cádiz, a short visit after a 4-5 hour bus ride, only to drive back the next day. Thankfully we made stops on the way there and back, but it still made for 2 very long travel days.
On the way there, we stopped at El Torcal Nature Reserve in Antequera. When we arrived I seriously thought we had landed on the moon. I had closed my eyes for a bit back when the landscape was similar to the country sides of California. When I opened my eyes we were surrounded by humongous pieces of limestone. It was quite shocking. We headed down a normal path, quite similar to other nature reserves and state parks. About 3 minutes into the hike, Javier, the director of IES Granada, turned around and said "Anyone who wants to go a bit more difficult route follow me!"
I followed.
And it was awesome. We left the trail and just climbed all over these humongous rocks from when this area was covered in water years and years ago. We spent a couple hours climbing and exploring, and then reluctantly returned to the buses to eat our picnic lunches :( When we go on trips like this, since our families give us breakfast and lunch, we get bagged lunches. This would be fine, except for we all get humongous sandwiches (bocadillos) of jamon y queso which after sitting in our backpacks from 3 in the afternoon, are not too appetizing. I won't be missing the bocadillos.
As I said, we did not have a lot of time in Cádiz. When we got there we walked around a bit but other than that we had quiet night. Before we left for Cádiz I had looked into restaurants and there was a restaurant that was known for a tomato soup, not gazpacho, but another type of tomato soup, salmorejo. I was really excited to try it, thinking it would be more like our comforting tomato soup (best served with a grilled cheese sandwich) than gazpacho is. I unfortunately was wrong. It was COLD and not my tomato soup that I was craving.
The next morning we went to La Yeguada de la Cartuja, a horse stable. They have about 300 horses, all Cartusian horses, a sub-breed of the Andalusian horse. It was really cool to see the stables, and the young horses... there was a horse show at the end that got my camera really dusty and was a little boring, but for the most part it was a fun stop.
Our last stop was in Jerez de la Frontera, the Tío Pepe winery. Supposedly, this sherry, as it would be called, is famous and shipped around the world. I've never heard of it, though I suppose that's not surprising, I'm not very well learned in my sherries. It was interesting to get the tour and see how they make the sherry, but the tasting part of the visit was disappointing. We only got to try 2 types of sherry, I was expecting to be able to try more types to see if there was something that I liked. Of the 2, I didn't really like any of them, so there will be no Tío Pepe coming home for the holidays. Its possible that people of a better knowledge of wines and sherries would like the wines, well, more than possible as it is indeed famous, but I myself could not appreciate it. After the wine tasting we went back to Granada.
Check back later this week for photos... I don't have time to put them in right now. I'm not even sure they're on my computer yet.
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