'It was waiting to happen,' say drivers now making long detours after Ronda road rockslide

Workers who commute daily to towns on the Costa del Sol from the picturesque places in the mountains around Ronda are outraged and distressed by the situation they now face: having to get up even earlier, drive more kilometres, take detours and, on top of that, have to spend more money on fuel and vehicle maintenance.

“It’s just car, work, sleep... Some people might as well just go on the dole,” said Cristóbal Román, who has been working on the coast as an electrician for 26 years, commuting daily from Ronda. This Monday he had to take the road from Gaucín to Sabinillas. “It took me between two and two and a half hours. Through Coín I think it’s worse, because there is more heavy goods vehicle traffic and more traffic in general.

The big problem will come in April when tourism comes to the coast, everywhere will be packed,” said this Ronda resident, who thinks that the situation is even more serious for workers commuting from towns like Setenil de las Bodegas, Villamartín and Grazalema in Cadiz, or from Montecorto: “Their nearest route was via San Pedro and now they have a huge detour, it’s a four-hour journey, one way and another four hours back... More than one of them will consider becoming unemployed, they’d earn more money, it’s eight, nine hours by car a day... It’s like going from Ronda to Barcelona, it’s crazy, half a day driving and half a day working.”

For this Ronda resident the collapse of the Ronda-San Pedro road “is a big job”. It also demonstrates, in his opinion (one that is shared by his fellow commuters), the lack of decent road communications in the Serranía de Ronda. “If we had good communication links things would change; we’re here in the 21st century and we don’t have good connectivity, it’s sad,” he concluded.

Óscar Morales, who works as a plumber in La Zagaleta, agrees. “This morning [last Monday] we took the road to Gaucín with an huge amount of traffic. Normally it takes us 45 minutes to get there and we’ve spent two and a quarter hours! The roads we have, in general, are terrible. Let’s see if they can finally do a good repair job to the road between Ronda and San Pedro, the only thing they do is cover it with asphalt as they did last time.”

Sandra De Figueroa from Ronda works as an orderly and driver at the health centre in San Pedro. She has somewhere to stay in that town, so she has travelled there. “I came last night (Sunday) knowing about the road to San Pedro. I do 12-hour shifts and for me it’s incompatible to drive two hours, work 12 hours and come back. It wouldn’t even give me time to sleep... Let’s see what the future holds, the Coín road is crazy with the traffic, and the Gaucín road is terrible, it can’t take that much traffic,” she said. She then pointed out that this Monday “many people arrived late for work and there are many colleagues who don’t know what they are going to do.” She added that renting on the coast “is very expensive and you can’t spend your salary on it or go a week without seeing your family.”

For her the landslide on the Ronda-San Pedro road “was waiting to happen, they have done nothing to this road, just remove potholes and touch it up from time to time, being a mountain road, with the rains and so many rocks.”

Mayors’ meeting .

Ronda’s mayor María de la Paz Fernández has expressed concern about the situation and the consequences for Ronda’s economy. She summoned the mayors of the area to a meeting on Tuesday, where they called on more to be done sooner.

Parauta’s mayor Katrin Ortega is particularly affected by this situation as she lives between that mountain village and San Pedro. “It used to take me 40 minutes from San Pedro to Parauta and now I have to travel two hours, there are times when I have to go back and forth during the day because my children go to school in San Pedro, but I have my house in Parauta and my parents in San Pedro, who don’t work and help me,” she commented.Marb