Andalucia Day 11 Jaen - Tarifa

Back on the road for the last stretch down to Tarifa. The drive towards Granada in particular is pleasant. It's Sunday morning and there are hardly any cars, we go through more olive plantations and then the Sierra. Sierra in Spanish has two meanings: the first is saw, as in cutting instrument and refers, I think, to the jagged teeth. The same word is used to describe that type of mountain range - quite jagged and up and down.

We stop for lunch in Casares, a pueblo blanco conveniently situated three-quarters along our route, and find an also conveniently situated and mercifully wasp-free bench in the shade. Fortunately because it's 30 degrees with a burning sun in a clear sky. After bread, our trusty tomatoes and cheese, we explore the village. Casares is clustered around a hill with a castle on the top and the cemetery next to it. Everything is painted in pristine white, even the rocks up to head level, the walls, the cemetery.

When we stop to look at a fig tree, the owner comes out and inexplicably decides to show us the restaurant he built and set up himself, and indeed ran until the recession and his daughter getting pregnant forced him to give it up. All three of us are aware we have no intention of buying the business but we manage to chat a little in Spanish and he also offers us some much bigger figs from his garden and water to clean our hands after.

The last stretch by car is short but somehow tiring, we pass Algeciras and Tarifa and finally arrive in Camping Torre de la Peña where we find a very pleasant shady sea view pitch. Putting up the big tent is more demanding than usual especially for Andrea who has to plant pegs in rock-hard ground.

We go down to the campsite beach bar for caña y tapa and then walk along the beach, just a few people, ordinary people and not so ordinary, a couple with four or five dogs, a girl doing yoga, another shaving the legs of the man lying next to her, a man balancing on his head in the sand. Also here the sea has created a mini-sierra.

We succumb to the menu del día back at the chiringuito and eat fideuá with fish and then fried fish and, yes, chips, after 10 potato-less days. In the meantime the sun dips quickly into the sea and then takes its time in painting the sky a kaleidoscope from deep apricot to almost purple as the first stars show up one at a time.
Kilometres by car: 380
Kilometres on foot: 10