9. The road to Cordoba

Our road trip to Cordoba was typical of how things roll for us here. Earlier, en route to Casares, we had tried to take a ring road to divert us from the centre of the tourist town of Ronda. But no, despite our efforts we ended up in Ronda's clogged main streets, and saw a historic bridge apparently above a canyon. We didn't stop for lack of car parks and the imminent timing of an All Black test. Now we were returning back past Ronda en route to Cordoba, so we thought we'd go through town (again) but, this time stop and take a look at the bridge and canyon. Ah yeah, despite our best efforts we ended up on the diversionary ring road, and decided Ronda would keep for another trip to Spain one day.

Fiona randomly chose a town beside a lake for our lunch stop. Serendipitously, the lake (lagoon) was Spain's biggest breeding ground for flamingos and had a good visitor's centre with lookout points and screens with images from a fixed camera out on the lagoon. We had visited the edge of Donana National Park near Sanlucar, and had heard of this breeding area as the birds fly a 350 km return trip each day to get food from Donana to bring to their young at Fuente de Piedra Lagoon.

Fuente de Piedra Lagoon was also important for nailing a trifecta! Kim's Lycian Way blog records our observations of tortoises and turtles in Turkey. At Fuente de Piedra Lagoon we spotted several terrapin, the third member of the Testudines family of reptiles. These fellows were swimming in a pond and didn't pose well for photo shots but we were excited.

Historic area of Esptepa which we
 visited en route to Cordoba.

Our terrapin for the Testudines reptile trifecta.

Then, prior to the final leg up to Cordoba, Fiona's choice of a 'town with a castle or tower' to visit turned out to be one of the few towns with a historic area which you could drive right up to and - lo and behold - had parking in the shade freely available. So we were feeling good about Cordoba before we even arrived, and it didn't stop. Our Airbnb host had arranged a staff member to meet us near a motorway off-ramp, and then guide us - including through the 'narrowest street yet' - to our lodging and underground car park in historic Cordoba.

View of Cordoba - we are lodged beyond
the tower in the background.