ISLS Travel Stories

 

One of the things that I have been wanting to do for a long time is take the train ride from Ronda in the mountains of Andalusia down to the coastal town of Algeciras. Through many trips to the south of Spain, I have read as well as heard from other travelers about this fantastic experience. Unfortunately, I was not able to make it until this past weekend.

 

Originally we were going to do the trip with Kurt and Luis, but we stayed out to the wee hours of the morning the night before and decided to scrap it when we got up too late to start. From the Costa del Sol, it is a fairly easy day trip and many tour companies offer different versions of it. Now that we are getting toward the end of our time here, we decided to list the things that we really wanted to do before we left. Since we also decided not to go to Africa, this was at the top of mine.

 

Saturday was a beautiful, clear autumn day with the high in the low 70’s. We decided to do the trip on our own and not do it through an organized tour. I find it a lot more fun to figure things out and plan the trip than to follow someone. We had already been to Ronda a few years ago, so didn’t need a guide to tell us about the place. Of course, if we had gone with a tour we would not have had the stress of almost missing our first bus.

 

Because Estepona is a little off the beaten track, we had to take an indirect bus to the nearby beach community of San Pedro. There we caught a bus that took us directly to Ronda up in the hills. The drive was beautiful with both the Spanish and African coasts splayed out below us. There are hundreds of villas up in the hills, along with numerous golf courses and planned communities. The sky was so blue that it reminded both of us of the skies in New Mexico, a blue so bright that it almost overwhelms your optical nerves.

 

It was a very windy trip up to the mountains and we were glad that we had called the earlier trip off. There was no way that Kurt would have made it up the hill. As it turns out, Siena gets car sick. We were about ¾ of the way up when all of a sudden she got really quite and started drooling. Next thing you know there was a mini Exorcist going on in seat 17B. Pour baby had no idea what was going on, but god love her, she didn’t even cry.

 

Shortly after this, the bus reached the top of the mountains and the rest of the trip was a lot smoother with fewer curves. Marjo unfortunately wore the brunt of the experience on her pants. Luckily, we had brought a change of cloths for Siena, so when we arrived at the bus station in Ronda we changed her.

 

As I said, we had been to Ronda before and it is a great town. It is like the king of the Pueblos Blancos, white towns of Andalusia. It is also the birthplace of modern bull fighting. As with all of the white towns, they are of course painted white and they sit on high crags and mountains sides. They are located in inaccessible places that are easy to defend and hard to attack. The tradition of painting all of the buildings white goes back to the Moorish days and has been kept for over 1000 years.

 

Fortunately for us, the main bus terminal and the train station are only about 4 blocks from each other in the newer part of the city. It was easy for us to go over and get our tickets for the train before we wandered down for a short stroll through the older part of town. The two parts of town are divided by a deep chasm that separates the old from the new. In fact the old town of Ronda is surrounded on three sides by valleys that fall away down deep cliffs and is only approachable from across the gorge. Very few armies every breached its defenses.

 

I could go on and on about Ronda, but that is for a different blog. We only had an hour to wander around before we headed back to the station. We got back where the train arrived on time, and we along with about 20 or 30 passengers loaded on. It was in the late afternoon, so there were not a lot of tourists, most were locals commuting down to the coast. After a slight delay to wait for a train coming in the opposite direction, we were on our way.

 

Because of Ronda’s location, the train started out to the north. We slowly wound our way down the valley to the west before heading south along the Rio Guadalevin. The valley is littered with fruit and olive orchards surrounded by pastureland filled with herds of sheep. In the late afternoon, the valley was covered with soft sunlight and many of the trees had leaves of burnt orange and yellow.

 

Further south, we left the valley behind and entered a tight river canyon that winds its way between a number of small towns. We stopped at some of these and people would get off and on. At the village of Benaojan-Montejaque, we picked up a large group of trekkers who then got off at the next town.  The whole area is filled with hiking trails and this town in particular is close to the prehistoric cave paintings at Cueva de la Pileta.

 

All along the route the scenery is fantastic. We saw the ruins of castles, a number of small white towns, valleys and canyons while all the time slowly dropping down to the Mediterranean. There were a number of children in our car, and Siena had a grand time playing with them. The people of Andalusia are genuinely warm, and they love children. No matter where we are or what we are doing, people come up to Siena and want to talk to her and touch her, which, of course, causes Marjo no end of frustration. We go through a lot of wet wipes.

 

After about 2 hours, the ride ended at the port city of Algeciras. The sun had set, and we had very little time to catch our bus back to Estepona. Happily, the bus and train stations are across the street from each other. By the time we arrived back home, Siena was fast asleep after a long, but eventful day in the south of Spain. In the end, the trip exceeded both Marjo’s and my expectations, and we would highly recommend it to anyone.

 

 

Now for the Nuts and Bolts

 

From the Costa del Sol, you can do the train trip in either direction. We did it from Ronda because the buses worked out better that way. The main bus company on the coast is Portillo. There are three to four buses a day up to Ronda and you can catch all of them in Marbella and San Pedro. Other towns along the coast have service, but not all buses stop every time. For those folks, like us, who are not in a town where the bus stops, the best option is San Pedro. This is the last stop before it goes up the hill to Ronda. There are many more buses to Algeciras, so check the timetables on line for what will work best. The cost of an adult ticket from San Pedro is 4.15 Euros and the ride takes about an hour. The bus ride back from Algeciras to Estepona was 4.65 Euros and took 35 minutes.

 

Renfe is Spain’s national train company. They operate nearly all of the trains in the country and this line in particular.  There are four Regional Express trains a day from Ronda to Algeciras departing at 7:10am, 9:58am, 4:36pm and 7:35pm. The ride costs 6.70 Euros per adult and takes about two hours. As always, check the timetables for any changes. There are also two Altaria trains each day. These are much nicer trains and cost quite a bit more, 17.40 Euros. It takes about the same amount of time, so since the ride is about the scenery, why pay more? Also, it is possible to take the train all the way from Malaga, via Ronda to Algeciras. I have not made this trip, but I understand that the ride up from Malaga is a great one, too.