10 Minutes!!!

 10 Minutes. That’s all I need to describe the craziness of today. I woke up at 7, excited to see Ronda and the Puente (bridge). The place was quite far from Cadiz, so I knew that we should leave early (like 8 or before), but the others didn’t want to leave till 9. After getting 4 hours of sleep the night before, I was tired, but pumped to do my first independently organized trip. After a breakfast of delicious cereal and milk (my absolute favorite breakfast meal), we headed out for the bus station and, unknown to us, a very big pickle. We get to the station at 9:10 only to find that the bus for Ronda had left at 9... only 10 minutes before we got there! And the next bus to Ronda was not leaving until 1:45. That combined with a 3 hour ride to Ronda and the fact that the last bus from there was leaving at 6, meant that we would only have 1 hour in Ronda. I knew we should have left at 8 like I had said before, but there was nothing that we could do now. We spend the next hour rushing between the bus station and train station (which were like 1 minute away from each other, and 5 minutes from the ship), trying to figure out an alternate way. We called a taxi only to find that it would cost 166+ Euros and could only take 4 people, and we were 5. Since I was the only one who knew how to speak Spanish, I had to do all the talking. Finally, I asked the bus station attendant, who told me that we could take the next bus to Ronda from the bus station of Puerto de Santa Maria, where we were thinking of maybe going to by train to spend our 4 hours of free time till the next bus. And that’s what we did. We got on the train at 10:30 for Ferrez de la Companera (which would pass Santa Maria), and got there by 11:10. The train ride was really nice and relaxing and quite cheap, and the train was very efficient. As soon as we got out, I went to the station attendant and asked him where the bus station was. And he said “No hay estacion de autobus aqui.” Translation: “There is no bus station here.” I was so pissed at the guy from the Cadiz station. I tried to think of other ways to get to Ronda, and settled on taking the train back from Cadiz and getting the next bus from there (1:45). The others were not up for this, and decided to just hang out in Santa Maria. And I REALLY wanted to go to Ronda, so I peaced them out and got on the next train back (11:50), deciding to go to Ronda solo. On the train ride, though, is when it hit me. It just was not practical (I will talk more about this later). So when I got to Cadiz, I said to myself, “screw it, let me go back to the ship and see if there is anyone doing anything.” When I got back, I found Coop, who had missed his White Town Trip, which was also going to visit Ronda. So apparently Ronda did not want to be visited today. Coop was with a few others who were just going to walk around parts of Cadiz we hadn’t seen yet, so I joined them. The stroll was quite pleasant, and I definitely saw the more residential and “ghetto” (meaning graffiti and what not, but still not quite bad) part of the city, which was new to me, especially after yesterday’s great walk. We spent the next 2-3 hours just walking around unknown areas, and somehow found ourselves in the Plaza de La Cathedral. I don’t know how, but we always seem to end up in that Plaza, yesterday and today. We then just chilled there for an hour or so. I got some more ice cream (which was my lunch again), and then we all just talked to many SAS people who were there (since it had free wi-fi there) and other interesting locals. Coop was trying to get some locals to say three adjectives of what they think about the USA for his video journalism class. Of course I had to walk to random people and ask them, because I was the only one who knew Spanish. Some people just completely freaked out. “No, no we don’t want to say anything about America.” Two others, however did not mind and gave him an “interview,” and the interesting part was that both of them talked about how they respected President Obama, and thought that he was actually doing some good (or at least trying him best to do so). One of these two was a very, very, very drunk homeless woman, who just started talking to all the SAS students there. She was quite “interesting,” to say the least. We then decided to start heading back to the ship, and a few students from the plaza joined us. We stopped at a small bar on the way so that the others could get some tapas (snacks), and had a really deep conversation about human society and why we need to have a monetary system. When we got back to the ship, I decided that after all of the events of the day, I needed to blow off some steam. I went onto the deck and drew the view of the city for 2 hours, which really helped me feel better. I ate dinner with my RA and another friend of mine, and then ran into my group from the morning. We decided to go to the beach for the sunset, which was a stunning view, and very pleasant. Walking back at night was also great, especially at night with the group. But I did see one thing: walking these alleys at night by yourself would be really creepy and freaky, hence the point to stick in a group. When we got to the port, I connected to wi-fi in the area and got on the internet for the first time in almost 2 weeks. Skyping with my parents was difficult, but did happen eventually. It was really great hearing their voices and seeing them again. The session was short but sweet. It was getting late and I needed to pack for my overnight trip to Seville and Cordoba the next day. I’m looking forward to that, especially after recent events, particularly the event of not getting to see Ronda, and then finding out that the rest of my group (who didn’t have trip commitments like) are going to go to Ronda on Tuesday when I will be in Cordoba (this upset me a little because, like I said, I really want to see Ronda). But this is the way things are, and I still get to visit Seville and Cordoba, so that made me feel a little better.
Today was quite the ride for me. I’ve never really been on my own like this, so something like this hasn’t really happened to me before. On the train ride back from Santa Maria, the epiphany I had was of a little something that Yash told me before I left: “Be open and have fun no matter what, because $h!+ will go down and you will not be able to see everything you want to.” Apparently, this was the world teaching me a thing or two about traveling. I tried so much in those few hours to figure out alternate routes, and got bad information from people, and it was not happening. Furthermore, the fact of traveling by myself to a place three hours away from Cadiz, with only one hour to visit the city, and on top of that doing it alone, was probably not the best idea. I remembered the pre-port presentation before getting to Spain, when they specifically told us, “Don’t travel alone, you will be much more vulnerable, and the risks are just not worth it.” As much as I wanted to see Ronda, I knew that I had to let go. When we were in North India during the summer, Yash had to let go of seeing the Valley of Flowers; and now it was my turn to let go of visiting somewhere I wanted to go. And both of us had this experience because we did not have much time in those parts. This is what happens when you only have 5 days in a country to do everything you want to do. Like Yash said, there is no way you are going to be able to see it all, for various reasons: time, problems you may encounter, and just random things that happen. Tomorrow I am going to Seville and Cordoba, which is at least to me enough consolidation for missing Ronda. So trying to keep an optimistic outlook on things. But today was definitely eye opening. As sad as I am for missing Ronda, another part of me is telling me that some good came out of it: I did learn a lot. And plus, as much as I hate Spanish, it actually felt really good putting my little Spanish to good use to help others in my group. All of this happened, because of 10 minutes!
-Nimish
September 5, 2010