We had a lovely quiet night in Zahara and enjoyed being able to have our own breakfast and coffee before packing up. Zahara, unlike Tarifa feels like a town that is hibernating for the winter, a bit like the Gulf Islands. Tarifa, though obviously also much quieter in the winter, has a vibrancy to it that we did not feel in Zahara. The wind sports in Tarifa obviously bring a lot of young people it and there are lots of restaurants, cafes and bars open. To me, Tarifa had a casual, very outdoorsy, boho kind of vibe. It does have, on the outskirts of the town, some big developments (though not towers, just 3-4 levels) that would seem to be designed for tourists and looked unoccupied, but the old town has life as does the upper newer town where most people likely live.
Zahara on the other hand, probably because it has been hugely built-out for the summer beach tourism crowd who would come for the beautiful beaches and because it is not a mecca for wind sports and sufing, seemed deserted with all but a few eateries open. Yet you can see from the infrastructure that it must be crazy in the on-seasons.
I don’t think there was anyone else staying in our building. On our apartment door were the rental rates for the different seasons. We were actually paying less than the posted low rate for very nice accommodation that could be as much as €215/night. Needless to say, we were happy to be here at this time of year - and the beaches are still stunning - in fact more so than when they are covered in beach chairs and bodies. But it is interesting to see a place, that has given itself so completely over to seasonal tourism. There is no other economy. One of many places like this in our world.
However, much of this part of the coast is protected from rampant development by big swathes of protected land - like the Parc Natural de Estrecho or the Natural Park of the Strait which encompasses land from Algeciras to Tarifa. It was declared park in 2003 and encompasses 18,910 ha, part of the Mediterranean Intercontinental Biosphere Reserve. Further along is La Breña and Marismas del Barbate, the Natural Park and Marshes of the Barbate River.
According to the English translation from Spanish Wikipedia: “It is one of the stretches with the greatest free length of the urban pressure of the Andalusian coasts, due to the occupation of part of the coastal strip by the environmental protections and the incidence of the strong east winds, which finally, have been limiting factors to the developing.”
So we had a short ride of 10km ahead of us to Barbate, the next coastal town. Jim had gradually been coming down with some kind of chesty cough but although he says he feels fine, we aren’t pushing things - and fortunately we don’t need to with almost 8 weeks still ahead of us.
We had a short ride on quiet road heading north from Zahara and were thrilled when we soon found ourselves on a very new looking paved bike path.
We are currently following a route callled the TransAndalusia, a 2,000-kilometer bike route loop through Andalusia. It’s the work of a group of Andalusian mountain bike enthusiasts who documented the route and is geared to bikers who transport their own luggage and so avoids extremely rugged and technical sections. 35% of the route passes through protected natural areas such as the Sierra de Baza, Sierra de Cazorla, Sierra de Aracena, De Donana, etc. They say all the most beautiful parts of Andalusia are connected by the route and stages are designed in such a way that you always arrive in a place at the end of the day with sufficient facilities (at least for overnight stays). They would not have installed a lot of signage if any, but there is a website available in English with detailed maps & GPS routes - https://www.transandalus.org/#!/.
It appears that the site has not been updated however, so after a short ride across the bridge over the Rio Cachon leaving Zahara, we were more than thrilled to see the bike path. I think of these as “green magic carpets”, moving you safely and easily from one location to another. It is heartening to see money continue to be invested in bike paths at home and elsewhere. Being on busy roads anywhere is scary and 90 cyclists were killed in Spain last year. However, they do have quite strict rules about the distance from bikes a car must observe when passing and new rules are in place for 2025, including a five-metre safety distance from a cyclist when on the carriageway and anyone overtaking a cyclist must do so at a maximum of 20 km/h below the speed limit applicable to the stretch of road on which they are travelling and the overtaking vehicle must leave a minimum lateral separation of 1.5 meters. When on the road, we have found drivers in Spain give us lots of room.
Anyway, there was happily no need to be on any road all the way to our next port, Barbate. The path was perfect except in one place early on when we had to do a short detour around some muck. I thought we might encounter more but our magic carpet whisked us into Barbate, the ocean on our left and some more interesting rock formations and then more open land on our right. We could see the white town from quite a distance away on the flat route, as well as the huge Cape of Trafalgar projecting out into the sea beyond it. Just off the Cape is where the naval Battle of Trafalgar took place on October 21, 1805 in which the Royal Navy commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson decisively defeated Napoleon's combined Spanish and French fleet, establishing British supremacy for 100 years. A fleet of 33 ships (18 French and 15 Spanish) under Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve fought a British fleet of 27 ships under Admiral Horatio Nelson. Villeneuve himself was captured, and his fleet lost 19 or 20 ships. Nelson was mortally wounded by a sniper, but when he died at 4:30 PM, he knew he had been victorious. About 1,500 British seamen were killed or wounded, but no British ships were lost. Trafalgar shattered forever Napoleon’s plans to invade England.
At the end of the Cabo or Cape, there is a 34 m lighthouse, the Faro de Cabo Trafalgar, which was first illuminated on 15 July 1862.
Barbate is a small town of some 20,000 at the mouth of the Rio Barbate just south of the Cape of Trafalgar. It has a history from Roman Times as a fishing village that endures today. The river mouth is quite tidal and there were skeletons of large abandoned fishing boat hulls and other smaller boats languishing in the mud as we rode in over the bridge and along the river.
today. 
We were happy to be greeted with another Eurolvo 8 sign and map and then another lovely big oceanfront promenade lined with restaurants. In front was another big golden sand beach. It was Saturday so there were lots of locals with kids on bikes and roller skates socializing on the promenade. We picked a cafe with tables in the sun for a coffee.
We found our hotel, 6Grifos (€69/night) near the river and saw that it was above a very busy restaurant by the same name. Uhoh! Lesson learned now. But the location was very pretty with a lovely small square behind the hotel so we were not on a busy street and a narrow pedestrian-only street filled with pots of flowers leading off the square.
We found someone in the restaurant who showed us to our room on the 1st floor. We were able to leave our bikes just below, inside the locked front gate. That was good. First warning though - he had trouble getting the key to work and when we went our briefly after unpacking, we could not get into the room. Down to the restaurant, found the guy, he had more trouble than before, said we should move to another room. Kind of a hassle but we realized it was probably a better room, with a sofa and not right over the restaurant terrace.
Anyway, we had an exploratory walk through the town, went into the fish market with its sea-themed decorated ceiling, and went in search of a restaurant recommend to us by Eva’s son, Nacho for the best tuna. They called us when we were in Zhara to kindly give us some suggestions. It was closed for vacation so we went back down to the beach for a late lunch/early dinner. There were lots more people around now and the restaurants were busy. We had a fabulous meal at an Italian influenced seafood restaurant, the best one we have had so far, sharing an insalata caprese and mixed seafood dish - mussels, squid, prawns, several kinds of clam in a spicy, tomatoey sauce on a big piece of flatbread that soaked up all the juices perfectly. The Mediterranean diet - heavenly.
Later on we walked around the fishing port - full of boats with all sorts of gear, piles of nets, rows of huge rusty anchors - and cats. There was a very sad monument to the sinking of a fish boat in where 39 lives were lost. By this time the sun was setting and the churros stand was in full swing. We resisted these fried goodies that are rolled in sugar or dipped in chocolate or coffee. But the night was going to be a long one.
We decided to go to bed early as we were still getting used to life on the cycle path, short as our day was today. Jim warned me that we would have a climb tomorrow first thing, over the Cape of Trafalgar. But it was not to be a restful night. It began with a very loud motor noise reverberating from somewhere in the building and I finally went into the the restaurant (in my pyjamas I might add!) to ask “What the H?”. Our guy who checked us in got someone else to turn something off. Good.
Some time later, though it seemed no one else was staying on the one floor of rooms, there was a party going on - and on - in the corridor outside our room. I finally flung open the door and glared at a group of people who then left via the stairs. This was well after 11. I then started to worry about the security of the bikes below, as more partying continued in the square, including what sounded like someone kicking a tin can around on the cobbles for several hours. Then the music started about midnight - which it really when things get going in Spain - and I could see from our window that it was coming from a bar on the river just a couple of streets over. Arghhh! It had a Middle Eastern sound to it so at least it wasn’t rap. I took an Ativan - thank god for pharmaceuticals - and read til I was out. Jim was drugged on Tylenol so slept too but it was a short night. Such is travel - poco control. I will try to be more careful with bookings in the future and ask if there is a restaurant or bar or club nearby. Silence at night - golden!
This featured blog entry was written by Jenniferklm from the blog De Nuevo a España.
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