Day 15 - Taking to the Road

Mine and Nico's for the morning was to walk to the car rental place across town and then navigate ourselves back through the streets of Seville to the hostel to pick up our bags and of course Kelly.

It was Nico's first time driving a left hand drive vehicle let alone driving on the right hand side of the road so it was ll a bit nerve wracking to begin with. It began with a laugh though when we first hopped into the car and Nico reached for the gearstick with his left hand to find himself grabbing thin air. A few laps around the carpark though and he was ready to hit the streets and I must say, we actually did pretty well managing to find our way back to the hostel, especially with there being no shortage of one way streets for us to navigate around. There was only one moment when I let out a squeal, when we were turning into the oncoming traffic at an intersection, well at least it felt that way but of course Nico had it all under control, turning into the correct lane and my natural instinct just getting the better of me.

Thankfully getting out of the city was a breeze thanks to there being directions almost immediately from the hostel pointing us in the direction of destination, Cadiz. Cadiz is situated on a peninsular with beaches stretching along most of one side and a port along the other. Like most of Spain's coastal towns it is known for its seafood and the Lonely Planet listed a fish and chip style eatery so we thought we had better give it a go. It definitely wasn't the sort of fish and chips we are used to but it was tasty nonetheless. Our brief stop off there was definitely worth the trip when we drove the perimeter of the peninsula and were able to admire the beautiful gardens and packs beaches that lined the city.

Nico had picked out our destination for the night so we kept moving but before reaching our final stop we managed to fit in a few amazing, possibly once in a lifetime sightings along the way. the first being that as we drove through the countryside we suddenly came across a huge windmill farm with literally hundreds of the beautiful huge white structures scattered all around us. We all kept just repeating WOW as more and more of them appeared as we continued along the road. Kelly and I couldn't stop snapping our cameras away trying to capture how amazing it looked but the photos didn't do the sheer scale of them justice at all unfortunately. The image of it will however be forever imprinted in my memory at least.

Our next wow factor came when we pulled off at a long stretching beach a few bays before our final stop, Tarifa, as we had spotted countless wind surfers out on the water so thought we'd get a bit closer to check it out. When we got down on the beach we weren't really prepared for just how many of them there were though. They were scattered absolutely everywhere along at least a km stretch of the beach and then even more of them were out on the water. It was like a whole other world down there, a world full of floating fluro half moons and tanned people. At one point we saw one girl on the sand get lifted up and dragged along the sand by her kite, swiping a few people as she got dragged along, this all making us even more of the people who would attempt such a sport. Once again the photos just didn't do it justice so instead we had to imprint it in our memories before eventually dragging ourselves away from the spectacular scene.

From Tarifa you can get views out across to Morocco on a clear day and were were lucky enough for it to be one of those days so I am now able to say I have seen Africa! The town itself is a fairly small place and is full of beach lovers giving it a lovely relaxed feel, making for a very enjoyable evening for the three of us as we devoured the usual tapas and drinks before a scrummy meal out. We were certainly all in agreeance that Nico had chosen our first nights destination well.