Expediccionado: Update from Úbeda 2

The week has been pretty good. I'm still adjusting to the rhythm of life here and meanwhile have to put up with being called old (by people older than me) for not being able to last until 4:00 AM on a given outing. Grammar class is kicking my ass but it will be well worth it. Slowly but surely my speaking skills are coming back but it's still a bit of a chore to have a conversation with the locals.

There's a fair going on this week in Úbeda. So far we have only seen some flamenco, but tonight we're going to street theatre and then some free live music. It's still up in the air whether we're going to see a bullfight tomorrow. None of us want to pay for something we may not be able to sit through. Tomorrow night we're going to see Los Panchos, a musical group from somewhere in South America that's supposed to be a lot of fun.

We went on a big excursion yesterday to four villages nearby. Here's a photo documentary of our adventure:

See that bump on top of the hill out there? That's Iznatoraf, population about 1200.

The view from the edge of the village. You can see forever up here.

This is a typical street in Iznatoraf, loaded with plants. It was astonishingly beautiful but we were told that this is nothing. In May and June everything is blooming.

Because the houses are made of porous stone, any time they knock down a wall to do construction they seal it with this yellow spray-on styrofoam stuff so that water doesn't leak into the adjoining houses.

This village was built back when the average height was about five feet. Just my size!

See that smidge of white amidst the rocks way out in the distance? That's Chiclana de Segura.

The gigantic rocks posed no problem for building houses here. They merely built their houses inside the rocks.

After you climb up several flights of stairs *pant, wheeze* you reach the top of Chiclana de Segura - it's well worth the ascent!

Resident of Chiclana de Segura feeding his pidgeon friend.

This man kindly gave us a tour of his living room which is carved into the mountain side and opens onto one of the balconies in a previous picture. Notice the array of things he decorates his walls with (the majority of the room contained old family pictures.

In this house if you want to get to your bedroom on the second story you have to go up the "stairs" on the left and enter through the tiny door. Chiclana de Segura.

Right after I took this picture two fighter jets flew by... BELOW us!

After Chiclana we stopped in Venta de los Santos for lunch. We were greeted by this adorable puppy. Gotta love the puppy.

As you can imagine, the restaurant didn't exactly serve much vegetarian fare. but I got by with salad, french fries, poached eggs, fried sole, and cheesecake. The siesta meal is a serious affair.

Final stop: Santisteban. The city below is overlooked by two old castles. One is on the hill to the left in this picture and the other, mostly a ruin, is directly behind me.

Iglesia Santa María de Collado, the oldest church in Andalucía, was built at the end of the 6th century when Christianity was still illegal in this region.