TARIFA, SPAIN

The main reason for going to Tarifa is it is supposedly the best of the three nearby port cities that have ferries to Morocco. Nearby Algeciras has more ferries, but is evidently a charmless little town and the British territory of Gibralter just beyond that is the most expensive option. Tarifa is also the closest to Morocco so the ferry to Tangier supposedly takes only 35 minutes. When we pulled into Tarifa off the highway and headed to the bus terminal I was shocked to see most of the businesses were not only surfer shops, but the signs were in English. I saw all the same signs I see in The O.C. and all the same brands. I looked in my book again and it pointed out Tarifa is a major windsurfing capitol and people from all over Europe make safaris there during the season. I think this was out of season, but I did notice many surfer types with dreadlocks and so forth hanging around town.

I checked into my €20 hotel room in a small hotel attached to the outside of the old city walls and started to tour the small town. By this time it was almost 2 p.m. so the few businesses that were not yet closed were in the process of closing. If I live to be one million I will never get over how ridiculous and inefficient this is. This is a small town so not only do the churches and the other tourist attractions actually close, but the Internet cafes close for at least 3 hours too. Have you ever been to an Internet café in Europe? It must be the least stressful job in the world. The single employee is always surfing the Internet themselves and every ten minutes when someone new walks in they look up and then make a hand signal that says “Use any open terminal,” then they go back to surfing themselves. THESE people need a 3-hour lunch? What makes it even more outrageous is that a place like a Net café requires a block of time. If I want to use a computer for one hour and they are open from 9 to 1, then 4:30 to 7 p.m., it means I have to arrive before noon or between 4:30 and 6 p.m. to do it. These places literally kick people out and lock all the doors for 3.5 hours, only to reopen for 2 and a half hours later before closing again!

The place that sells the ferry tickets doesn’t close though so I went there, got the schedule and bought my roundtrip ticket for €45. There are 4 boats per day and the first was at 9 a.m., which seemed ideal.

Later in the evening I went looking around the old city for something interesting to eat. By the way, when I say old city I mean that just like most older towns in Europe there were Roman (or in this case Moorish) walls that often still exist and close off the center of town so almost every building inside is several hundred years old, or an original building on that location was. The new parts of these towns look pretty much like anytown anywhere else so it’s a big difference between new and old.

I thought I would try some tapas there to get the local feel and several places were recommended in my book. One in particular was supposed to give a free glass of wine if you show the Rick Steves book, but the place holds about 8 people inside and there was always at least that many inside, all locals. I went into a couple of other places, but these local joints can often be very intimidating for the outsider. They rarely have menus, but rather they have some salads and other hard to identify things under glass behind the bar. The locals obviously know exactly what they want and what it will cost, but for a tourist who doesn’t speak Spanish it is virtually impossible to pull off. I actually did walk into 2 or 3 different places, but walked out a minute later after I realized I had no idea what they had or what it might cost. Very few people in Spain seem to speak English, especially in a small town like this. I ended up going to a pizza place and ordering a delicious thin crust pizza instead. The town was dead by then so I just went back to my comfortable and cheap hotel room and went to sleep.

I was up early the next morning for the most exotic part of my trip so far, a journey to Africa. I should mention that Tarifa, Spain and Tangier, Morocco are only about 15 miles apart so you can actually see not only the mountains of Morocco from Tarifa, but you can also see clusters of buildings in Tangier. My hotel room actually had a view of Africa, which seemed like an interesting novelty at the time. I checked out of the room and got some coffee at the café downstairs, then made the 5-minute walk to the port. I showed my voucher to a boarding guy who gave me a boarding pass, then got in the immigration line, which was just starting to move. It’s so casual crossing there that on the way out you just walk by a guy with your passport open to the photo page and he just waives you through.