Tarifa & {a little} Gibraltar

The day after we went to Ronda, Brian and I decided that since the beach near our hotel was not that nice, we were going to try for a better beach and head to Tarifa, the southernmost part of Spain & for that matter,  Europe.  It was about an hour drive from where we were staying in Estepona, and on the way, we passed Gibraltar.  What an interesting place - huge rock, jutting out into the sea, and still a British territory.  Everyone speaks English, the currency is Great Britian Pounds, and they even have the red telephone booths all over the peninsula.  Spain is pretty ticked that they don't have the land, and there's a constant infighting and little annoyances that each country creates for the other in order to bother the other's residents.  But, every so often, Gibraltar gives it's people the option to vote if they want to belong to Spain and not Britian, but historically the vote has been 99% want to stay with the Brits.  We decided not to actually go to Gibralter - being surrounded by the Brits at our hotel was enough for us.  But, we saw it from afar.

After seeing Gibrlater, quite quickly, as we were speeding down the highway, we headed to Tarifa.  It's a tiny little beach town, windswept and laid back.  There is a cool little old town, but most of the city is there for the windsurfers, beach bums, and people going back and forth to Morocco.  You can see Morrocco incredibly well, as the straight of Gibraltar only separates the two continents by 7.7 nautical miles.

Brian had really hoped to do some windsurfing, but it was hard to find a place that was open to rent them - we were still pretty early for surfing season.  Still, we were able to walk out on a pier and onto the beach and see some awesome kiteboarders & windsurfers.  My pictures don't do them justice.  Some of the kiteborders could jump about 10 feet in the air as they sailed off waves!

After walking down near the point and the water for a while, we decided to spend the day on the beach, ahem, european style.  It was incredibly windy, so we took refuge behind some dunes (which also provided a measure of privacy)  It was nice to just hang out by the water and do very little for a while.  A very relaxing day!

The next morning we had to get up early to head to Cordoba, one of the three major cities in the southern part of Spain that was once occupied by the Moors.  Look forward to pictures of the Mezquita soon!