Last Days in Santa Maria

We cruised around Santa Maria as we had the energy and as the weather permitted - there were intermittent heavy bouts of rain - during our 4 recovery nights there. It has a very long beachfront Paseo Maritimo, that began near our hotel on the river and then at the river mouth, it continues north along the huge beach. We walked it in the sun one day and we could still see that damn bridge in Cádiz that we had not been able to cross. We also saw where the ferries come in from Cádiz. No sign that they were running.

We had lunch at a restaurant called “Hippie!” I had a very good crispy lasagne bolognese in a mustard cheese sauce. We are struggling a bit as we did last year to find enough meals with vegetables. The ensaladas unfortunately often have pescado in them, usually tuna which does not work for my fish allergy. And so many fries with everything. We will have to cook our own veggie stir-fry one night. So much fresh fish and seafood but thin on vegetables here.

Here are more random shots - and thoughts of Santa Maria. It’s a bit of a funny place. I imagine it too gets over-run with tourists in the summer, but it did not seem a particularly well-maintained town in comparison to others we have been in. Lots of dilapidated buildings and even those that weren’t, needed a cleanup and did not look like they had seen paint for many years. The park areas were also grubby and poorly maintained with lots of trash thrown about. One of the few things that really bothers me in Spain is the amount of public litter. On country routes, in beautiful places, we have seen big piles of construction debris. Along road sides, like in Mexico, there is all kinds of trash, obviously tossed from cars. Really unsightly. Though I have rarely witnessed anyone actually littering, and some towns are very clean, in Santa Maria, there was just a lot of litter in the streets and parks. It somehow had the air of kind of a depressed or at least uncared for place.

There were various small boats moored in the river but they too mostly looked uncared for - and unseaworthy! There was a very hunky statue dedicated to sailors down by the river.

However, it is considered a town of great historical significance. From the sixteenth century onwards, this city on the Guadalete River, served as a thriving trading hub between America and Europe. It became known as the ‘City of the hundred palaces’, owned by the traders who became rich through the buying and selling of goods between these continents. However, even Wikipedia reflects some of my impressions of Santa Maria, in stating “… the passage of time and slopiness have caused many of these magnificent buildings to be practically in ruins”. One wonders about the municipal government whose large building and square appeared to be the best kept in town. And as well as tourism, there is certainly an economy from the wine/sherry industry whose producers have several large buildings in town.

However, we never saw any obviously homeless, drug-addled, mentally ill or even drunk people on the streets, and that has been our experience everywhere we have been in Spain last year and this year. Maybe it is different in the really huge cities of Barcelona and Madrid. Occasionally, there will be a woman quietly waiting for a handout outside a grocery store. It makes for a very safe, stress-free feeling walking around anywhere in an urban area. I know drug smuggling into Spain on the Costa del Sol is a huge issue but you don’t experience the local population being impacted by that or homelessness they way you do in our urban environments. I don’t know how it is managed but it clearly is - makes me further question our decriminalization of serious drugs and our tolerance for open use and general public disorder. I would be embarrassed for Spanish people to see our city streets.

We walked around outside another old monastery, the early 16th C Monasterio de la Victoria, that is not restored and in use like our hotel. Its cloisters were occupied for much of the twentieth century by the town prison, made famous by the escape of a legendary criminal nicknamed El Lute, who was the most wanted man in Spain between 1970 and 1973. A poor, illiterate peasant, he was originally sentenced to prison for stealing 2 chickens. There were some subsequent crimes, one in which a security guard was killed. Maintaining his innocence, he fought his convictions. Known as El Lute, during several escapes from prison, he was listed by the police as Spain's "most wanted" criminal. In prison, he taught himself to read and became self-educated. He earned a law degree, wrote five books, and published two memoirs while imprisoned. He continued his fight to clear his name and he was a symbol of resistance to the oppression of the poor under Franco. After the change in government, he was pardoned and released in 1981. His former prison has ancient, twisted olive trees in the over-run grounds and now only storks squatting in their big nests on the upper parks of the facade.

We were beginning to feel like “long-stay guests” in the monastery hotel, those who resided in hotels permanently in the 19th or early 20th C., as we tottered down to the huge breakfast buffet room in the morning, sitting at the same table, eating the same things from a massive selection of items we really did not want to eat, and jockeying for space at the coffee machine. I really had no appetite but made myself eat - very unusual state for me! And I felt really sorry for anyone in the room next to us as I coughed a good part of the night. However, I was definitely improving and once I got cough lozenges from the Farmacia, I finally had a good sleep.

We explored the various floors of the monastery, going right up onto the roof for quite a view of the salt marshes and a nearby stork nest.

But it was definitely time to get out of Dodge, so Jim planned our route to the next port, Sanlucar de Barrameda, on the big Guadalquivir River. We have after investigation and some online advice from other bikers who are Portugal residents, decided to park our plan to cycle the Algarve. It looks like we would inevitably have to do some road time on the N431, which we are told is very busy and that Portuguese drivers are notoriously inconsiderate, unlike Spanish drivers, when it comes to cyclists. We were also told that the coast is still very busy and heavily developed - we have some idea of beach resort development now - and that it is better to cycle further inland, but accommodation may not be as easy to find. Just a few too many uncertainties for us right now, so we have revived our original plan and will head for Sevilla on a different route than last year, and then go north on the Ruta del Plata. We actually have a cycling route book on that. And we won’t have to strain our brains trying to learn some Portuguese! Weather will be a factor on how far north we can go however. But the rainy period has ended, we are both on the mend and ready to hit the cycle path again!