Sat 29th to Tue 1st Feb: At the Gates of Africa

We have joined up with the two sets of friends who are travelling with us to Morocco, Paul & Trish, and Derick and Helen. The meet-up campsitesite is at Conil, 40miles from Tarifa from where our ferry will depart tomorrow for Tangiers. We went to the port yesterday to book the crossing and have a day out.

Apart from being our port of departure, Tarifa is an historic and interesting place where the main architectural influence is Moorish, as this entrance gate to the old town shows. Some of the streets are so narrow that you could shake hands with the neighbours opposite from the balcony.

The buildings are mainly white and cube shaped, very much like old Moroccan towns, and the faded, peeling paint in this square adds to the impression of being in North Africa. Notice the balcony on the left is held up by two yellow jacks. Do we need to go to all the way to Morocco?

The square was so full of character, our group decided to have lunch at the café in the far corner. We’d got the ferry tickets at a much better price than expected, had a fascinating walk around Tarifa, and it was sunny and warm. So we were in excellent spirits. And this is a good example of where the camera does lie. Just look at the expressions on our party’s faces- we could have all just had our wallets pinched!

Here’s the top of the old town walls- but what do you see: a forest of TV aerials, about a dozen in that one apartment block. A fair guess would be one for each dwelling in poorer areas or even whole countries.

So, here's a thought. To carry out a quick and cheap population census:
1.establish the average family size
2.total population = average family size times number of TV aerials (or sat. dishes).

A final piece of folklore information. The town of Tarifa gave us the word tariff because it was the first town in history to charge a levy on goods landed through its port.