TARIFA – Spain (Mon 05 Oct)

Our mission today was to get the car window fixed and the car secure again. After several phone calls we drove down the road to the window repair shop. At first this seemed all good, but then he told us that he didn’t have the part. He gave us directions to the local Peugeot agent. Well we spent an hour driving around looking for this, and when we did the very nice service man informed us that he didn’t have the part either. However he did ring through and find that they had the part in Malaga, which is on the way to Tarifa, which was our next destination.

During the two hour drive to Malaga, the wind whistling through the window did it’s best to blow out Justine’s air drums. By the time we had arrived in Malaga, they had just closed for siesta. So we returned to the Peugeot dealer two hours later to be met by the most pleasant service man that you could wish for. Very helpful, and very accommodating, despite the language chasm between us. Two hours later we received the car, repaired and ready to continue our journey to Tarifa.

On the way to Tarifa we had intended to stop at Gibraltar, but it was dark by the time that we passed that way so we pressed on.

Finding our accommodation in the dark was quite interesting. Down an old military road just out of Tarifa, and then a side road off that, almost to the end and on the left. You can’t get much more backblocks than that. It is real country stuff, with barren land ruled by horses, donkeys, snakes, and not much else. The fences and gates are made of bits of teatree (look-alikes) and rusty old bedframes. The owner is from the UK but has been living here for the last ten years. We were greeted with the house rules, “We are on solar power so conserve the lights, hairdryers are forbidden, and all toilet paper must go into the rubbish bin next to the toilet.” The bedroom was a unit including kitchen and the bed was a four-poster with a big comfortable mattress and pillows. Just what we needed after the last couple of days.

Tarifa is the bottom-most point of Spain and just a few kms across the water to Africa. As we were driving down here in the dark, we could see the lights from the cities and towns of Africa shining across the water. Our host told us about the weather here and about the winds that blow from across the Sahara and Mediterranean into Spain, bringing sand and dust with it. Call us ignorant, but it came as a surprise to us, and another realization of just how close we are to another continent. It seems kinda weird, but kinda cool.