Hola!
Plans, even the flimsiest ones, are bound to change. I arrived at Jerez airport to be met by my old Australian friend Ingrid and her Spanish partner.
These guys currently live in a diy revamped bright red old van with wooden floor boards, gas kichen, fold out bed, shower cubicle, and Ingrid´s handmade jewellery on the fold out dining table. They have been living on the beach in Tarifa and selling lunch sandwich packs to tourists to get by. Unfortunatley the Levante (mighty wind) took hold there, making the daily sandy breeze into a painful sand storm and driving everyone off the beach. So we all needed somewhere else to stay.
While we formulated a plan we drove to Cadiz – a port town in the south-west and the oldest city in Europe. As we strolled along the boardwalk we were followed by a warm night breeze. We went to their favourite tapas bar Balandro and got gaspingly good seafood tapas (salmon steak drizzled in several cheeses – like nothing else, baby prawn hot cakes, avocado salad).
The next day we went into the town of Chipiona to stay with an artist friend until the wind died down. Every day we went for a paddle on the colour-umbrella-and-extended-family-packed beach, then had a traditional big lunch with fresh bowl sized mugs of gazpacho and thick slices of tortilla, followed by a hearty siesta, then a night in the town.
After Chipiona we went to Los Canos for a night on the beach. We sat in the middle of the beachs´arc with flickering lights of the tourist economy embracing either side of the night horizon. The next day at 8am we were awoken by painfully monotonous techno music and a bunch of spanish teenagers with manicured faces and novelty size glasses, self-consciously bopping around their car stereo. So we started the day and left in the van to a small traditional ´white village´ Vajer on top of a hill with a grand old palace and winding cobbled streets lined with limestone white terraces hiding interior slate-floored gardens.
Then we hopped back in the van to Tarifa where apparently the wind had subsided. We parked the van so the rear doors opened onto the ocean view. It has a beautifully calm beach where you can laze and literally see Africa clearly on the horizon (if you squint you can see the dark shadows in the background of this photo – that’s Africa!)
We tuned the radio to a Moroccan station and just chilled out for a few days. The new town is infested with ´beach activity and gear´shops and offensively overpriced moroccan important shops. But at the end of the main street is a stone archway that marks the entrance to the old town with the familiar lurching alleyways winding down to a market square. I finally found a vegetarian place to eat – small and cosy, run by two guys in an open kitchen who sing in tune to the flipping of soya burgers.
I met a woman who lives on a Sufi community in Granada and has invited me to stay. I can say one thing about the Spanish, their friendliness and generosity is overwelming.
Tags: Spain
Jyai