Windy Tarifa: The Most Southern Town Europe!!

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And welcome to the lovely little seaside town of Tarifa, the most southern town in mainland Europe… and from what I was tell, also the windiest!

From the minute you step out of the bus you soon realise that it’s time to hang onto your hat and step up the walking pace a little. Tarifa is a great little seaside town and weather is also pretty nice if you don’t mind a bit of wind. Coming from wet and windy Gippsland back home myself, I’ve had my fair share of windy days before so it didn’t really bother me. In fact wind with sun is kind of a nice change after you’ve spent 5 months in hot humid Asia with no wind.

Tarifa also happens to be one of the kite boarding capitals of the world (ha, who would have thought hey!). On any given day you’ll find hundreds of kite surfers out on the water carving up the waves. By chance 4 or the 5 days I spent there had no wind (which I’m told is unheard of) so I really only got to see some kite surfing action on the day I arrived and the day I left. What it did allow for though, was some more beach time and some nice long walks.

The hostel I was staying in was called ‘The Melting Pot’ and it was great. It kinda felt like a like beach shack/holiday house. You know the kind of place you could settle into for the summer. It was located just outside of the old part of town between the beach and town itself and was very laid back.

Most of the people staying there were kite boarders themselves who had come from all over the world to catch some waves on this famous little windy stretch of water. As you can imagine there a sorry bunch when there’s no wind around so we kept ourselves busy with lots of beach time and some good old fashion drinking (bit of a reoccurring theme lately hey!).

I also made some great friends there and we spent days just hanging out and being silly. You see them in some of the pics I’ve included. The nightlife in Tarifa is also really good, which is a surprise for such a small little town. In fact, the more I have been travelling lately the more I have started to realise that you’ll often find better nightlife when you get out of the big cities and tourist traps.

It’s much easier to find the ‘parties’ so to speak and if you plan on going out a few nights in a row you’ll actually see some of the same people again and have another chat with them which is nice. You see, when your travelling solo it’s nice to see a familiar face, even if it is only for a few days.

The other reason why people go to Tarifa is that it’s also the closest port or call to Africa! In fact, on a clear day I am told you can see Africa.. it’s only about 10km away etc. So as you can imagine there’s a constant flow of ferry’s going back and forth every hour on the hour as people ‘go to’ Africa and get that magic stamp in their passport.!

In fact a lot of the people from the hostel did just that as a day trip, so they can say they have been to Africa. Having been there twice myself on previous trips overseas and spent literally months on Safari in the ‘real’ Africa, a day trip to a seaside port for a few hours wasn’t really my kind of fun.. so I left the others to it.

Oh and one last thing.. I came ‘this close’ to staying there for a while. I was literally sitting at the bus station in town, ticket in hand and thought to myself.. ‘why am I leaving, this place is really nice’… it was a very indecisive five minutes let me tell you. If that bus hadn’t of shown up when it did and forced me to make a decision there and then…who knows.. I may never have got on it… but at the end of the day, there’s a lot more adventures to be had for this little Travel Dog and many more countries to see yet.

Cheers, Nate.

PS. Oh a quick tip if your ever in Tarifa and heading down the beach on a windy day… your literally gonna get sand blasted… so take a long sleeve top and pants… it’s going to be a bit hotter but trust me, your going to need it. And don’t forget the sunnies or you’ll be wahing sand out of your eyes for days!

PPS. The sun glasses are also good for checking out all the beautiful woman on the beach (especially when its not so windy). You’ve really gotta admire Spanish woman and their no top policy! God bless em! Haha.

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