Adios Tarifa and Hola Zahara de los Atunes

Other than two day cycles in Malaga, today was our first day on the bikes. The ponies were pawing the ground in impatience to get on with it - actually that was Jim - but all four of us were ready to go.

As we were packing up just before going down to breakfast, it poured - for about 5 minutes. I think due to the wind, the odd rain cloud gets blown in and just as quickly blown away - people have told us that rain is usually of short duration. We hope so!

I seem to have already lost my good pair of warm cycling gloves - grrr! But hopefully I won’t be needing those now we are leaving sunny but chilly Tarifa.

We are going north west along the coast from Tarifa to a town called Zahara de los Atunes.

We headed out on the bike path along the beach and then onto the N340 for about 10 km. Fairly busy road but a good shoulder. Then we made a izquierdo turn (left) onto a quiet country road, the CA8202 with a rougher surface and began to climb. Whew! I don’t as yet have “good legs” (as they say in professional cycling) - or good lungs, and it was a slog. I had to get off and push when the grade got too steep. OK, I AM regretting ALL my extra clothes.

But it really was worth the huffing and puffing as we climbed from sea level into the hills. It was good to leave the car traffic behind. The Atlantic looked so blue against the golden sand beaches and we began to see some amazing rock formations.

Up we went for a number of km on the winding road until we finally were on a crest - and what to my wandering eyes should appear but a tiny alimentation (store) and cafe. Such moments are priceless. We parked the ponies and joined 3 men in biking gear on the porch. We had a good chit chat with one man who spoke English (after realizing we could not understand his Spanish or German, we of the sad uni-tongue). They were on electric bikes and were satisfying impressed that we were not.

Turned out he lives near the town we are headed for. His town has a full-time population of 1000, that balloons to 40,000 in the summer, at which time he decamps back to Germany. He says that now, in the winter in Spain, it is paradise. He gave us some other local cycling tips and told us there is only one restaurant in Zahara open for dinner at this time of year. In Tarifa, we noticed signs on hotels and restaurants, saying either closed for renovations or for vacaciones. I guess they have gotten through the summer, fall and Xmas/New Years business and now if the time to do those things before the next onslaught of tourists.

After coffee, we carried on, dodging about a dozen horses wandering freely on the road and a few cattle. We noticed cattle grids at either end of the road we were on so I guess their freedom to roam is limited. The cattle here are all reddish in colour with big horns. Along with the red tuna, this region is famous for the red-skinned Retinto cow. They seem very placid as we pass, even with those fearsome horns, and appear to be just enjoying the spectacular views as we are.

More climbing and bike pushing and then we descended into the small village of Bolonia, situated on a beautiful curved golden sand beach. Bolonia is where the most complete Roman town in Spain, Baelo Claudia is located. The site is noticeable due to a very large modern building located on the hill above the beach.

“On the shore of the Strait of Gibraltar, the town was originally a fishing village and trade link when it was settled approximately 2,000 years ago. Although prosperous at the time of Emperor Claudius, it went into a decline partially fueled by earthquakes and was abandoned by the 6th century.” Wikipedia The village had a population of 117 people in 2005.

We would like to have gone there as we really enjoyed the Roman sites we have seen elsewhere in Spain but we had miles to go. You could certainly see why they would have chosen this site - the bay, the hills behind, the fishing, the weather. We had stripped down to shorts by this time, having left the cold wind of Tarifa behind.

The two older cyclists that we met in the cafe whizzed past us and up the hill. Sigh….They told us they like to bike further on on some military property where you are not supposed to go “but everyone does”.

However, what goes up also goes down. We could look back and see the high bluff we had come around on its lower slopes, and we had a beautiful descent towards the sea - and then up again on the quiet country road into the Parque Natural del Estrecho, and finally onto a walking/cycling path. We are happy that we are seeing lots of signage, not always the case.

Again, beautiful rock formations on our right and the sea our left - and we were descending again to the Cabo (Cape) de Gracia, a point of land with a tower known as el Faro de Camarinal or the Camarinal lighthouse. It was built in the 16th C on the order of Philip II, as one of the coastal watchtowers to protect the Cádiz coast (we are now in the province of Cádiz, not Malaga) from the pillaging of Barbary pirates. In 1990, it was restored and converted into a lighthouse. It really is beautiful and there is a staircase down to the beach.

When we went to retrieve our bikes after looking at the lighthouse, we again had a nice chat with a local man who was put for a walk. This is really a gorgeous area. Below, on the far side of the point, we could see our destination, Zahara de Los Arcos Atunes (Sahara of the Tuna). It lies on an oceanfront plain fronted by gorgeous beaches and surrounded by hills.

Our descent into Zahara tooks us through a hillside community of very beautiful expensive homes, the Uplands of Zahara. Lot of dinero here for sure.

I found this Guardian article about Zahara but we are seeing a very different off-season Zahara - very quiet and with most of the many restaurants and bars closed. But there is so much accommodation here and more being built. Lots of big high end condo developments.

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/aug/02/zahara-de-los-atunes-spain-holiday-guide

And we had no difficulty, just a couple of days ago, booking a really nice place to stay. Apartamentos Zhr was easy to find on Calle Maria Luisa, just off the main beachfront street. It was one of the Bookings.com “no contact” checkins where we were sent the codes for the front door and apartment. Very efficient but depersonalized. However, we were thrilled with our accommodation - and the price. For €69, a new, bright and large studio apartment in a 4 story building of other apartments, with an elevator, spotlessly clean; new modern, furnishings (all IKEA I think), good lighting, a functioning heat pump and with a huge balcony, perfect for the bikes. When we told them on booking, we had bikes, they told us to bring them into the apartment. After our tiny, old room at Vagamundos in Tarifa (€63 incl. breakfast) where we were tripping over our panniers, this was happy town for us!

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After settling in, we headed out for a walk and found a promenade along the river that we followed down to the beach. Back towards town right on the beach we found Chiringuito La Luna, the one beachside restaurant that is still open off-season according to our cycling friends. Chiringuitos are the beach bars that go from late lunch to near dawn with lots of music. Apparently many well-known Spanish musicians come to play at these bars in the summer and La Luna has its own record label. It is definitely a much more sedate Zahara we are seeing now but I had no complaints with a lovely glass of vino tinto Rioja in front of me and my feet practically in the sand to toast our first day on the road.

Our day - 34 km and a fairly strenuous 489m of elevation cycled. Beauty immeasurable,

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