Our gear is dry again and no rain is forecast for today, so we hit the road again! Before we leave, the cats from the campsite come to say hello to us, we pay at the reception and head for the sea. Another three stages we will continue to follow the coast, so today we stay near the ocean again. Pretty soon we are walking along the beach towards a large lighthouse. The water is low and the legs are fit, so we make good progress. Some stretches of sand are quite soft, in which case it's instant plodding. On other stretches, the sand gives way to rocks. There are lots of beautiful shells on the beach that we haven't seen before, so we do quite a few squats with our backpacks on, to pick them up. After passing the lighthouse, we walk along a stretch of paved road. Here it's easy to see how quickly nature can reclaim civilisation. The road of still fairly new asphalt has become more dune than road, so after a while we head back to the beach, for an easier hike. We approach the tourist village of Los Caños de Meca, with it's hotels and surf schools along the coast. We walk through the village after which we climb quite a bit through forests, on a sandy path held in place by tree roots. Yeay, finally some altimeters again!
When we start climbing, the highest parts are still in the clouds, but once we get there, the weather is cleared up a bit and we get a nice view of the ocean. Time for a break. We find a spot, sheltered from the wind and enjoy our sandwich and coffee. The weather keeps getting better and after the break we get a good view of the bay with the town of Barbate we are heading to. And wait a minute... in the distance, between and above the clouds over the ocean, we see mountains. We check Google Maps and our suspicion turns out to be correct: it's Africa!!! We look at the mountains of Morocco, visible between the clouds. Surely something we have been looking forward to, for a long time. We hope it'll be clear in the coming days, but there is something magical about this cloudy sight as well!
We walk along an old path towards town and again enjoy the many flowers along the path. At the built-up area, we navigate to a post office to send some stuff home. The shortest route through town, then to the shop and then to the campsite. This route takes us through parts of the city you wouldn't normally come across, as a tourist. White flats with no balconies and few windows. It's pretty different from the harbour towns we normally pass. It's starting to get crowded among the high-rise buildings. The number of cans of beer at 1pm is reminiscent of a summer festival. People are friendly, but the atmosphere is grim. There is quite a bit of Guardia Civil on the streets. A passing car is stopped and holding up traffic. As we walk past, the driver turns down his window and tells us not to walk here, and certainly not to turn left. It is 'solo peligroso', dangerous... Fortunately we have to turn right anyway. We pass many more Civil Guard buses while walking further. When we've left the district, we find a news report that there was a large-scale raid in the district, just 3 hours earlier. In this poor neighbourhood, in this 4th poorest city in Spain, with an average annual income of just €8,000, people are trying to get money in other ways. Three gangs smuggling drugs have been rounded up in these white flats. 20 people were arrested and lots of drugs, weapons and money were seized. Well that explains a lot... In the rest of the city, there's no sign of this event and life seems to go on undisturbed. Once at the campsite, we hear from the manager that there have been a lot of police here for years, so people got used to it. Fortunately, the campsite is a bit outside the city, near a nice beach. We pitch the tent and, when it gets dry again, we continue to search for some beautiful shells for a while...🙂
