Tarifa

Tarifa, the next stop on my journey through Spain, is the Southern most point of land in Europe. Now many of you might have thought that it's Gibralter, but it's not, it's Tarifa. Tarifa apparently means tarif in English, my Spanish speaking friend pointed out to me one day before I actually visited the place. In situations like this I do what I call 'intellectual vamping', other people call it making shit up. I prefer my term because usually the made up bits are based on actual facts. So after learning about the meaning of Tarifa, which is really rather obvious, I went on vamping about how it makes complete sense, because Tarifa is the closest point between Europe and Africa and therefore a HUGE trading port with lots of goods moving back and forth. These goods where probably taxed. Hence, Tarifa, the place where shit gets taxed. The better part about this is that I'm actually pretty close to correct. Since I'm not stating any actual facts, I'm as good as golden. The port is still very active and does still host business interactions between Europe and Africa.

Enough, intellectual vamping. PICTURES!

This is me (duh) in Tarifa (double duh). That mass of dark blue and green behind me is the Mediterranean. The light blue and white mass is the sky.
I hit Tarifa on 6 April, which was the monday after Palm sunday and the monday before Easter sunday. Smack dab at the beginning of Semana Santa. So of course they have a procession. When I just caught sight of them it actually freaked me out because they were dressed in the same thing the KKK wear, except in purple and green. It took me a minute to realize they were Catholics not racists, but I was scared there for a minute, because I think racists are scarier than Catholics. I caught more of the precession a little farther down the road. In the above picture you can see the people of Tarifa carrying their giant statue of Jesus and a donkey (I think) through the street. They were also playing instruments, some were carrying a giant cross and others were carrying palm fronds (now weren't they lucky, palm fronds don't weight nearly as much as that statue).

This is another shot of the Mediterranean. Off in the distance, through all the clouds, you can see Africa. No, seriously, you can see Africa. It's like right there. If I was a major league baseball player I could have thrown stones at it. Well, maybe not that close. It's about a 35 minute ferry ride from Tarifa to Tanger. Just like the picture of the boat below says. Also just off the bow of the boat, that brownish mountain looking thing, that's Africa. I'm really proud of this shot. It packs in a lot of information. The only thing that would make it better is something making it very obvious that the photographer is standing in Tarifa. I guess if you look closely the car plates have the EU stars on them.


And another shot of the Mediterranean from Tarifa with Africa in the background.
And a shot looking about 90 degrees to the right.

The actual most southern point of Europe is out on that piece of land in the upper right of the photo. However, as typical of governments, that small bit is a military base and closed to the public. But I did walk out along the wee strip of land as far as public people are permitted to pass.

The thing about Tarifa, aside from being really close to Africa, is that it's also on the Atlantic Ocean. That's right, two oceans for the price of one.

This is the beach that is washed with the waves of the Atlantic ocean. On the water are two sail boats and three kite surfers. Although it was sunny in Tarifa the day I was there, it wasn't really warm enough to sit out on the beach due to the wind. There is sooooo much wind. But this makes it a kite surfers paradise. At another popular beach, farther up the Atlantic coast (so to the right of this photo) is where more of the kite surfing is done.

I took a hot bus from Seville to Tarifa and as she finally came out of the low mountains that sweep along the coast the ocean stretched out in front of us and the air was filled with kites of all colors. Flitting and dashing and fighting for space above the waves. The sun was low in the sky, reflecting off the water and illuminating the undersides of the kites so they glowed in rainbow strips of nylon. There must have been five hunderd kites in a stretch of beach a mile long. I can't even imagine anyone trying to navigate through those kite strings. But it was beautiful, like a hundred million butterflies skimming along tree tops. And then the image was gone as we rounded a corner behind another hill.