Los dos mares – The two seas

Tonight we are in Tarifa, a simple port town who’s main point of existence seems to be the several ferries to Morocco, one of which we will be taking tomorrow. To the west of Tarifa is the Atlantic. To the east is the Mediterranean. From now until we leave Turkey, we will be riding along the Mediterranean.

So that we could ride at a more relaxed pace today, we took the 8:40am train out of Cádiz to the next station down, a 10-minute train ride that saved us an hour of riding on dirt roads, and got us going early.

Because of the recent rain, we chose not to follow the more scenic route our WarmShowers host recommended and instead found a mostly-highway route, though we did choose to make a detour through some cute seaside towns and 1km of hiking trails along the coast in order to see some ancient Roman ruins on the beach.

We stopped for lunch at a touristy but comfortable restaurant on the coast and ordered the paella. We know it’s not an authentic paella, but it was very tasty and much better than the average one from the states. Steve made me eat all the shrimp that had eyes; to be honest they were too much work to shell.

When we started out on the hiking trails, we came around a corner and found a lighthouse overlooking Africa. I have to admit that I took out my phone to figure out what were those mountains across the sea, and I confirmed to my astonishment that it was, in fact, Africa. It was surprising to me that you could see it 40km away! The first time in our lives we’ve laid eyes on that continent.

Since we blew our budget on paella for lunch, we are making dinner at home from grocery store sale items. Lucky for us, we are in Spain, and the jamón curado, ibérico sausage, and manchego cheese were all on sale. A homemade bocadillo that’s 10x better than what you’d get in the US. Yum!!

And tomorrow, to Africa! We are a little nervous about our time in Tangier, Morocco; we chose to do our own self-guided tour, so we’ve learned a few words in Arabic and I’m brushing up on my French. Any suggestions on what to see? Leave a comment or message us! (It’s Tuesday, so some things are closed…)