Spanish Pirates, We Can See Africa, Transit Time

Trip Start Sep 29, 2007
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Trip End Ongoing


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Where I stayed
Hostal Dora
(Tarifa hotels)

Flag of Spain and Canary Islands  , Andalusia,
Tuesday, September 2, 2008

This was a time of transit for us. To get to Morocco we took a train from Lagos to Faro then to the Spanish border town of Vila Real de Santo. This town had a fantastic birds nest built on top of one of its buildings on the waterfront. Faro had the best coffee in Portugal. The Algarve train journey was supposed to be the best journey in Portugal as quoted by the Liars Planet but we found it incredibly boring because it did not run right on the coast line as we had thought. It was really just a whole lot of white buildings with terracotta roofs. The best thing about the ride was that we caught the 6:00 am train and saw the sun come up from our seats. Next we found out there was no bus to cross the border on but instead, a passenger and car ferry that took us on to the Puerto de Ayamonte in Spain which we could see from the Portugal side. We bought our first oh-so-European-traveller breadstick because we missed Wicksy.

We met an Indian guy named Acter with whom we chatted and i snacked on tinned shellfish whilst we waited for the bus to Seville. Tinned shellfish is a good stand-by backpackers mealm and there are many varieties in Spain ferry time
ferry time
 . There is a definite pirate culture evident in Spain as proven by a wrecked ship in the water on the way into Spain and the spotting of a pirate child in the street. Next we tried our first tapas and then caught another bus to Tarifa. 

The bus got into Tarifa  at midnight and we trekked around town looking for a good value room. The room we settled on was at Hostal Dora where the night shift guy was a complete Homer Simpson package with TV dinner and all. He only mumbled so we had no idea what he was saying to us in response to our questions about the Moroccan ferry the following day. Tarifa had a pirate store open 24 hours, more pirate evidence. Tarifa is an absolute mecca for kitesurfers and windsurfers from all over the world where they have 10km of  primo conditions coastline to play with. There is also fabulous pastelaria pastry shops and tapas and paella restaurants everywhere and of course i had chocolate eclairs and creme caramels for breakfast. We ate sandwichs we had made from supermarket produce whilst sitting against the wall of the best restaurant in town. The restaurant had some decent graffiti work and it was here that we spotted some more Spanish pirates who were up to mischief and asked us to take their picture.We drank coffee in a cafe and posted some postcards to the kids then enjoyed wandering around the towns little alleyways and moorish ruins before buying tickets on the fast Tarifa to Tangier ferry.

The best part of Tarifa was the rapunzel-let-down-your-golden-hair looking castle on the beach and, as the Portugese living statue had correctly informed us, we could see the coast of Africa from the beach here. We were very excited when we first glimpsed this land and knew we would be hitting its shores after a 35minute ferry ride.  Our passports were stamped by Moroccan police onboard the ferry, easy. Nadine celebrated the entering of Morocco by purchasing some Duty Free Quality Street chocolates for me that we immediately started eating whilst crossing the Strait Of Gibralter that would take us from Spain into the port in Tangier, Morocco.
 
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