Tuesday 11.09.2010


Costa del Sol

It isn’t pretty this morning, cold and rain predicted all day, and we have come to a change in our itinerary. Our plan was to move a couple hours down to the coast to Tarifa, where tomorrow we would take a ferry on a day trip over to Tangier, Morocco. Mary has never been keen on the idea and after getting many comments from our fellow travelers in Lisbon, we have decided to can Morocco. Luis said it best: “You will only see theater with the Moroccans playing the part of the annoying pests pulling on your sleeves and you playing the part of the annoyed tourist, too intrigued to walk away.” So it is three days with Ronda as our base instead.

The little British lady we met yesterday caught us to tell us excitedly that there were four more Minnesotans at breakfast this morning and she tried to find us. We told her that it was ok since we see Minnesotans at home all the time.

So, what should we do on a rainy day in Ronda? Let’s drive to Tarifa. We did decide to poke our way through these hills, maybe as far as the coast anyway, so let’s see if we can find some better weather. The total drive is only about 70 miles, but it will take us two hours as we wind up, down and around these beautiful hills. Every twenty minutes we see another little white town in the distance trickling, like a pearl necklace on a beautiful woman, down between the mountains. (Very steamy, right?) Eventually we start to ride a gradual downhill grade toward the water.

We hit the coast at La Linea, the gateway to Gibraltar. Apparently there is a bit of a tiff going on between the Spanish Government that thinks the “Rock” should be part of Spain, and the British who have controlled Gibraltar since the 1700’s. It has historically been petty, for example there are no signs on the Spanish roads that point to Gibraltar, but lately it is getting more serious with the opposing law enforcement agencies glaring at each other over disputed territorial waters. We’re happy because we get some English radio programming.


It is windy and rainy when we get to Tarifa and we recognize the symptoms from Nazare where the high winds would change the weather every few minutes. In spite of the misty air we can make out the distant shore of Africa and the white buildings of Tangier. We park by the docks where ferries steam back and forth across the Strait of Gibraltar departing every couple hours. It is an uphill walk through the town walls and into the city which is quiet in November. In addition to the Africa tourist connection this is a big-time wind surfing community with the gales blowing in off the North Atlantic and being squeezed between the two continents. It must be too blustery because we only see vacant, uninviting beaches.

We find the “Central Café” that is protected enough that we elect to eat lunch at an outside table. The temperature since we left the mountains has risen from the mid-forties to the high sixties and that makes the trip seem worthwhile. John has a Sandwich Especiale (everything in the kitchen between three slices of bread) with fries and a cinnamon coffee and Mary digs into a tuna salad and cappuccino. There are only a few other brave souls around today so the square is peaceful.


We try to talk Monique into a different route home which she finds disturbing, so we temporarily fire her and go back to manual navigation (Mary with a map). We follow the shoreline east through Algeciras and Estepona to San Pedro, the latter two being east of Gibraltar and therefore on the Mediterranean coast. This area and beyond is the “Costa del Sol” which is beaches, condos, golf courses, hotels and tons of new construction. The Brits love this part of the world and make up a huge percentage of the population.

For us it is one photo op after another. The mountains here stretch almost to the water’s edge, the water itself is magically colored and the sun and rain are continuing their dance resulting in a rainbow around every bend in the road. It is the type of picturesque setting that might cause a high number of traffic accidents if it were only Minnesota tourists driving here. We’ll have to watch out for the other four.

It is mostly dark by the time we get back to Ronda. Mary spends some time on the computer in the breakfast room (where the reception is reliable) and John finds Judy from Alexandria, MN, one of the elusive four, on the house computer. They are soon joined by “Chickie” (really) and eventually, Mary. Their husbands are knocking back a couple cocktails up in the rooms. They are here for two weeks of Spain, don’t care much for the food and are leaving in the morning. Well, okay then.


We hold out until 8:00 and have a list of four tapas bars for tonight. We make it through three of them before giving up and going home. We have gourmet tapas (really good!), and cheap tapas (0.75 euro each). The last one was a fried quail egg on a little square of toast with a slice of great ham on top that you popped into your mouth all at once for a little explosion of breakfast. Too bad for Judy from Alexandria.

We debate stopping for a local Sherry, but good sense wins out and we make it home to bed by 11:00, early for us Spaniards.


Today’s Picture: A slightly misty Gibraltar from just outside Algeciras, Spain.