Photos from Spain
Spain has character of it's own, I was there for only 5 days (during which I was either drunk or hung over), and would have loved to explore some more of the country. I was in Andalusia which has lots of Arab influence in both culture and architecture.
I stayed in Marbella for duration of the trip, Marbella concentrates on offering a multitude of attractions such as beautiful beaches, golf courses, pleasure harbours like Puerto Banus, luxury hotels, restaurants, commercial centres and its unbeatable natural surroundings and intense nightlife to its thousands of visitors.
Old Marbella is a very interesting place to visit and walk around, lots of restaurants, bars, and clubs to spend the nights, and high end shops to spend the day and the money.
We visited Mijas, a typical Andaluz village, perched high above Fuengirola and Mijas like so many sugar cubes with spectacular views of the coast and surrounding heavily wooded mountains. There are no main thoroughfares here, instead a web of narrow cobbled streets complete with terraces overflowing with geraniums, red tile roofs, archways and, of course, the occasional chirruping canary.
Since this village was first discovered in the sixties, close to sixty nationalities have made the pueblo their home and the impact can be agreeably appreciated via the international cuisine, cosmopolitan clubs and associations and, in general, the influence of foreign culture and the arts.
The fallen Toreros plaques at the Plaza de toros de Mijas honours a sport that has historically prevailed in Spain.
Speaking of Bull fighting, my visit to the Plaza De Toros De Fuengirola was very interesting. Watching the bull fight I felt that it was an artistic dance that included lots of traditional steps I did not understand. Our tour guide, the next morning explained the proceedings and rituals to me, but to be honest I don't recall all of them anymore.
The Torero going for the kill with the sword, the bull died within a minute of this photo.
Here is a rough layman's description of the proceedings of a bull fight:
1) The bull is locked in a small completely dark room for 24 hours before the fight. This aggravates the bull and makes him madder when he is finally released into the arena in daylight full of people and noise, and the constant harassment of the assistant toreros.
2) Two men on horses enter the arena (the horses are armoured on the side and blindfolded so as not to be afraid of the bull running at it. They further harass the bull until it charges one of them. The one who is charged proceeds by stabbing the bull between the two shoulder bones with a harpoon to further aggravate it and make a wound ready for the torero to insert the harpoons.
3) The two horses exit the arena, and the torero proceeds to dance with the bull, placing harpoons into the wound all along to start tiring the bull (can be seen in the top two bull fighting photos).
4) After a certain number of harpoons are inserted into the bull, the torero is ready to kill it by inserting a sword into it's heart (Seen in the lower photo)
5) It takes about a minute after the kill stab for the bull to collapse. At that point, the assistant toreros will then stab the bull with a smaller knife in the back of the neck to kill the bull quickly and stop it from being able to move any further.
6) The judge (sitting near the music band) will then give the torero a score based on how skilful the fight was. The torero will either get a tail, an ear, or nothing based on his performance, and the judge will decide that score.
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