Day 71: Cuenca/Elche, Spain

Having gotten a good feel for Cuenca in our short time and wanting to see a sight nearby, we got up, ate breakfast, checked out, and hit the road. Our first stop was the "Ciudad Encantada" (Enchanted City), which is a geological site where erosion has created interesting rock formations. Although somebody went through and named all the formations (ie. "Fight between an elephant and a crocodile") it is still an interesting sight to see.


(Ilana holding up a rock that was just about the fall over. The staff came and helped out and we saved the rock formation)


(Can you make it out?, this is "Fight between an elephant and a crocodile")





We grabbed some sandwiches and a couple of bottles of water and hit the road for Elche. We stopped at a mirador (scenic overlook) and got a picture of this across the valley. We think it is an old aquaduct.




We got to Elche without getting too lost and decided all that driving deserved a rest, so we relaxed by the pool before treating ourselves to a good dinner. The hotel is more of a summer resort with a cool pool, where the rooms are spread out bungalow style. The town itself isn't all that special but has a palm tree garden which we plan on visiting first thing in the morning before we move on to Granada.




FJ

PS: Here I will begin my rant about the lack of the metric system in the US, so you can skip the rest if you don't want to hear my ramble. Simply put, the metric system makes logical sense!! For example, a meter is made up of 100 centimeters, or 1,000 millimeters. A kilometer is 1,000 meters. Easy to figure out, all works with a base of 10. How many inches in a foot? 12. How many feet in a yard? 3. How many yards in a mile?? Good luck, need Google right? Most people don't even know how many feet in a mile, because it doesn't make any intuitive sense!!! (It's 5,280 feet in a mile if you are wondering, and 1,760 yards in a mile)

It works the same for liters, milliliters, centiliters, etc. Easy no? No more worries about ounces, pints, quarts, gallons. How many ounces in a gallon? You have to think about that one too. Should I go on?

And what about switching to celcius?? 0 degrees water freezes, 100 it boils, simple too!! Everybody can remember that water freezes at 32 degrees fahrenheit (because 32 makes intuitive sense to us all right?), but what about boiling? Need Google again because it doesn't make intuitive sense. (It's 212 degrees F).

When I get back I am starting the coalition to change the US to the metric system. The US is too lazy to adopt the logical system that the rest of the world uses. Let me know if you have any questions.