Dwti Draig

I think I’ve left a little bit of my heart in Andalucia! To be more specific, I fell completely amd utterly in love with the area around Tarifa, which is on the southernmost tip of Spain. The journey down from Seville was bone shakingluy awful on terrible roads, but we eventually made it to our chosen campsite in Valdevaqueros; a village about 6 miles outside Tarifa. 

Getting into the campsite was no easy feat, as the pitches were very narrow with a lot of overhanging trees. Lyn parked up and went to choose his preferred spot. He went to tell the reception desk and then went back to the pitch to find a French motorhome reversing into it! Lyn stood firm and insisted it was our spot, only to be met with shouts and screams off the French man. My man stood his ground and would not move, so the French man had no choice but to move unhappily into the next pitch! Looks like we have friendly neighbours, lol.

We ended up staying on this campsite for 5 nights. It was absolute heaven just to be able to chill. The camp site had a pool which was great, but I was only able to us it once as it seemed to have bizarre opening hours that nobody could seem to explain, and it was always locked up when I went there, which was a real shame! 

We did make good use of the beach though. It was just a few minutes walk from the campsite through an underpass under the busy road to get to the most gorgeous beach. The beaches along this stretch are what I imagined when I read about this area, and they didn’t disappoint. They are huge stretches of mostly empty beaches, which are almost wild. There are no rows of sunbeds and parasols. No high rise hotel complexes or hordes of restaurants. Just empty beaches with maybe a rustic beach bar with bean bags and chill music. My idea of heaven. That’s not to say the beaches are empty of people. There are people. But most of them seem to be attached to a hydro foil or kite surf, zipping along the ocean or doing tricks in the sea. The sky was full of brightly coloured kites. There was never a dull moment as people watching took on a whole new genre. 

The weather was also mostly perfect here. The area is famous for it’s kiting because of the wind, so this made it perfect for me as it cooled the temperature to a magical 23/24 degrees. We did have 2 days of heavy rain, which was a first on this holiday. It was the tail end of some storm or other, but we used that time to regroup and catch up on some cooking and washing. The truck is so comfortable to stay in inside it is no hardship to spend time indoors, so I was able to while away the hours reading. I’ve discovered the author Frieda McFadden, who writes excellent thrillers, so I’ve been devouring those at a rate of one book a day!

It was while we were here we realised our friend Darren was in nearby Tarifa, so we reached out to him, and he drove down by motorbike to have a drink with us in the little beach bar. We met Darren in the Allrad show in Germany this year when he picked his new truck up, and we had kept in touch. It was great to catch up, and a few days later we travelled a few miles down the road to park up next to him and his lovely daughter Amber in a free park up overlooking the beach. 

We got ourselves into a little routine of beach walks, sunbathing and dipping. The sea was cold, but so clear. We weren’t able to do much running as the sand on the beach was so soft, and the road was so busy, but Lyn did get out once. We also quickly got into the habit of evening beach walks to watch the most amazing sunset every night, followed by a drink in the beach bar. I don’t think I’ve ever seen such regularly beautiful sunsets. The sun just became a ball of fire setting into the ocean. If God could charge for watching a sunset he’d make a fortune from me!

 

It was so strange to look at Morocco in the distance and know we’d be heading there soon, where life would be very different. That’s assuming Lyn could drag me away from here, of course….