Coworkers Birthday Party

Saturday was my coworker's birthday. Elena turned 30 and she invited the workers from school and her friends to celebrate at a bar in Sevilla. I had such a great time. We met around 1:30 pm and had drinks and food. It was a nice day so we started outside but when the sun went down we moved indoors for more drinks and food. We had a couple of really good dishes and she opened up some gifts from friends.

Elena, Obdulia, David, Zack, Lucre

 I couldn't believe how long we were out! We didn't leave the first bar until about 9:00 pm at night. We then took a taxi to another bar closer to the center and hung out there for a while.

Blowing out the candles

Before I knew it it was past midnight. I can honestly say this was the longest I have ever spent in bars in a span of 24 hours in my life! We left to another bar and had a few more drinks there. At around 2:00 am everyone decided to call it a night. I was pretty close to my house so I just walked home. 12 hours of celebrating in bars wore me out and I slept like a baby that night.

presents 

Archeological Museum and The Castle of San Jorge

NO8DO

Last week I went to a few museums in Sevilla with a few friends. Are first stop was the Archeological Museum. This large building is adjacent to Parque Maria Luisa in the Plaza de America. The museum is considered the top archaeological museum of souther Spain. It contains artifacts from prehistoric and early historic Spain, including a good quantity of roman artifacts that were discovered in and around Sevilla. A good portion of the artifacts comes from the old roman city of Italica, which is just north of Sevilla. You can see pictures from Italica from an early trip I took by clicking here.

Entrance to the Museum

Skull from archeological site

Statues from Italica

The museum was very large with 2 levels. The top floor mainly consisited of show rooms with old statues and mosaic tiles from Italica. The bottom floor contained artifacts found from earlier civilizations dating as far back as 12th century BC. They also have fossils of plants and animals from more than a millions years ago.

Mosaic Tiles from Italica

Cabezas Desconocidos (head statues of unknown people)

We spent an hour or so walking around the museum. You could spend that amount of time in one section alone. The museum is something I plan on visiting a few more times and recommend everyone to atleast walk through it, if only to see the artifacts from Italica.

More ruins from Italica

We walked around town for a bit and made our way across the Guadalquivir River to the Triana side of Sevilla. Here we stumbled apon the museum for "The Castle of San Jorge." From 1481 to 1785 the Castle was the headquarters of the Holy Inquisition in Spain. If you have read my blog before then you might recall that the Holy Inquisition was the persecution of all religions that were not catholic. Over the time scores of men and women were imprisioned, tortured and killed. Most of the claims were false and many innocent people were brutally murdered. Men and women were burned at the stake, tortured using simulated drowning techniques. Many innocent people confessed to their accusations during these trails. 

Model of what the Castle looked like in its day

The museum was very unique. It was built over the ruins and contained the basic layout inside. The first part of the museum was called the "Interactive Room." This sensory room contains three spaces. The first examines value judgements, the second the abuse of power, and the third the victims. The goal of these three spaces is to produce sensations in which the visitor experiences the feelings of being the subject of value judgements, of situations which they can't control, of the abuse of power, of their defenselessness in the face of power and the solitude of the victim. It was a very strange exhibit, each space containing a video being projected on a few walls and strange music/noises. I wasn't sure how to feel after words, but we made our way through the rest of the museum to take a look at what this castle was like in its day.

Artist drawing of Seville during the late 1400's

Old Sevilla drawing, the large bridge on the left connects to the castle 

View of the river from inside the castle

Ruins

As you walked through the museum they had bits of information about what certain sections were used for. Some areas were jails, some places to prosecute the accused, others were market areas and places to hold animals, like in the drawing/picture above. The museum was very interesting. I recommend checking it out as well if you are in Sevilla. It is free to enter too. 

Hiking Trip - Parque Natural Sierra de Grazalema

Saturday morning I went on another hiking trip with the club from Sevilla. 4 American friends came along too. The group this week was a little smaller because the weather was a little colder. We headed to the the "Parque Natural Sierra de Grazalema," it was about 10 miles west of the town Ronda. 

We started off in the valley along side a river and a forest of cork trees. The remove the thick dry layer off the trees as high as they can reach and take it to near by towns to produce cork products. We followed the river for a while until we opened up onto a large stretch of flat land on our way to the first destination. 

heading into the forest to start the trip

Alex, I, and Sam baseball posin' it up

making our way through the forest

Cork Tree,  bark removed up to about 7 feet

We walked a bit through some flat pasture land on our way to a cave we were going to. We crossed the river and walked through the valley where we found some sheep bones along the way.

the guy was telling us he has full sets of many different animals at his house that he has collected from hikes.

We first made our way to a large dam that was built many years ago. One guy told us it was the first dam to have used the arched shape. It was no longer in use and a few of the Spaniards made it seem that is was a complete waste and never really served a purpose.

 After checking out the dam we headed to a large cave. The name of the cave was "Cueva Del Hundidero" which more or less means the sinking/falling cave.You could go a few miles into the cave, but needed a permit and a kayak among other things to make all the way through. We went in to the river in the cave. The entrance to the Cave was massive. By the time we made it to the river we had to pull out flashlights and head lamps to see.

Entrance to the cave

Inside the cave entrance

 We explored through the cave a bit and everyone sat down to eat. We rested for about 45 minutes before taking off to another point.

Cherelle and I making our way in the dark

As we left the cave, most of the group started to walk to a trail they planned on doing. There was 3 guys who were going to climb up a small mountain to the peak. The rest of the group called us crazy for going, but we tried it out. So 3 Spaniards, 3 American friends and I headed towards a peak called "Tavizna"  It wasn't that hight, a little under 3000 feet, but the path was a very steep incline with a couple parts that were almost verticle" We didn't have any rope or climbing equipment, but these guys had done it before and said it was fine. One guy was literally mid 60's and so I figured if he could do it I could.

The Mountain behind me is the one we climbed

We started from the bottom of the mountain on the backside near the cave. We first had to cut through some really thorny and sharp bushes for about 30 feet. This was really difficult because they poked and stuck to everything. We made it through that part and started up the first incline. It wasn't too steep and the rocks made it easy to get around. 

Heading up the mountain

Rest of group making there way up

 We finally got up to the level where a road cut through the valley. The next part was ridicoulus. we were on flat ground but the first 40 - 50 feet up the mountain were intense! One section of about 10 feet was almost straight up. Cherelle made it up the first part and then decided it was too steep to go any farther. She decided to wait at that spot for us. So the 6 of us, 3 Americans and 3 Spaniards headed up the mountain.

First vertical part

 We made it up the first vertical and then came the second difficult part. They said it was a lot easier after this second climb. The 60+ year old man started off first, Umbrella in one hand, walking stick in other, climbing up a near vertical portion with a 60 foot drop to his back. We asked him repeatedly to let us hold on to the umbrella or to set it down, but he politely declined and kept on his way.

Old guy making his way up to find the easiest route for us

After we got up the second hard part it was pretty easy from there. The incline wasn't as steep and the rocks were really good for hiking; lots of cracks and places to put your hands. We made it to the top and hung out for a bit taking in the views. Over one mountain range you could see the town of Ronda. and off the other side the small town of Montejaque. 

View from top

Montejaque in the background

Video from top

View from top

The river we followed to the cave

About half the way up I asked if we had to go down the same way we came up. The guy said it was the only way he knew up. I started to freak out a bit because I didn't think it was going to be possible to safely make it back down the same way we came up. Luckily we took our time and had no problems. We walked to the small town near the mountain and met up with everyone to head back to Sevilla. We stopped and ate again at a restaurant on the way home. The trip was a lot of fun and something I plan on doing as much as possible.

a sigh of relief after climbing back down the mountain

Oranges of Sevilla

If you have ever visited Sevilla, one thing you are bound to remember is the vast amount of orange trees throughout the city. The line nearly every street and fill almost all the plazas. Many people wonder if they are edible , but I recommend not trying one because they are very bitter.

Instead they are collected by the city and shipped to England, where they are used for marmalade. Queen Elizabeth II of England is so fond of the marmalade they produce that she has all the oranges from the patio within the walls of the Alcazar sent to England to be produced into this breakfast treat.

Collecting the Oranges

from one tree

I happen to be walking through one of the plazas when workers were collecting the fruit in large bags to be taken away. We have had a nice warm weather spurt and many of the trees are begining to lose their fruit, which makes for a squishy and messy roadway. Luckily Spainairds are fanatics about keeping their streets clean, except for animal shit.

2 hours later there were 4 bags

Hiking Trip

Saturday morning I went for a hiking trip with a local club from Sevilla. Two of my American friends found this club on the web. They depart from the Sevilla Train Station every Saturday morning at 8:45 to a location to go hiking. The spot changes every week. This was the first time I had a chance to go. I met everyone at the Train station; there was a total of 33 people including me that were going on the hike. I would say the average age of the group was around 40. You could tell they were all close friends have known each other for while. We all got into cars and headed to about 10 miles south of Ronda, Spain.

Arriving at location

Our destination was a peak called. "El Conio" which was in Parque Natural Sierra de Las Nieves. We hopped some Fences and started up the rocky treeless mountains. It was a perfect day for a hike, nice and sunny with a little breeze. On the way they told us that we could see the Rif Mountains of Africa, which were about 60 miles southwest of where we were.

Getting ready to start the hike

First part of trail

 They trail consisted of steep inclines at times through very rocky terrain. The mountain had only small shrubs and grasses with no trees. We made our way up the first incline and then flattened out as we walked deeper into the park.

Headed down first incline

Once we got up into the first couple of hills everything because even more rocky. The boulders were bigger and stacked higher than before. We were making our way through a very difficult place to navigate. It also was hard to see other people in the distance due to the different levels of rock and the grey color.

Cutting across the hills

looking south towards Africa

Making our way to the resting point

Our end point was marked by a large rock formation with a small old pile of rusted metal and some wood connected together. It may have been an old hut to protect from the wind, but now it was nothing more that a mark to show you where we needed to go.

Hut is on the highest rock

Very cool rock formations

The Rif Mountain's of Africa are the tip above to clouds in the background

Pueblos in the Valley

At top

View from top, MUTE SOUND, very windy

We all ate at the top and hung out for about 45 minutes. Everyone was spread out drinking coffee from thermoses, passing foods around and drinking some wine. We all enjoyed the weather and views as we ate.

Hanging out at top

Reegis, Arley and I with someones legs, ha

We headed back down around 5 o'clock. The group all started off on the same path but somewhere down the mountain we were split up. People in both groups had GPS and a knowledge of where to go so there was no worry.

Lonely cows in the distance

As we made our way back down to the cars we got a great view of the mountains and saw a beautiful sunset. By the time we made it the the vehicals it was dark. Part of the group made it back about 20 minutes earlier.
We made sure everyone was accounted for and started back off towards Sevilla.

  

We all stopped in a small town on the way home to eat dinner. You could tell the group does this all the time and they loved it. It was really cool how nice everyone was as well. We ended up back in Sevilla around 11 PM. It was a very long day but worth it. I made my way home and got in bed to watch the playoff games before going to bed. 

Purple line it the route we took