paella then drive Mirador La Hoya

after dinner I wanted to go back to the west side of ronda for the sunset. I would have preferred to walk but I now have yet another blister on my foot so we decided to drive. we got onto the same road we had walked down yesterday ctra las molinos but it was so busy due to the fair ronda romantics that we decided after we had stopped at the Mirador La Hoya Del Tajo (Lookout Point) did some birding and took our sunset pic that we would return going around the north side. it was a very very narrow road. lots of farms in this depression in front of the huge sandstone that ronda sits on. you have to go up and through a cleft in the rock to get back onto the road that we had taken earlier in the day to get to the cave pileta (road a374) it was a bit nerve racking but we made it. Google had us follow something that took you above a374 luckily we didnt follow Google. itbis very much like a sloping mesa as you go through the cleft on the north west side. we saw eurasian goldfinch, stone chat and lots of swallows in the meadow at the lookout point. the stone chat is a black headed bird with a red breast and white shoulder neck area. he sits on the tall stalks perching then hovers over his prey, catapillers and dragonfly the returns to his perch. there were quit a lot of them. rough guide says there are eurasian crag Martin's also here and I suspect what I thought were swallows may have been these ones too.Read more