Cadiz

The sunrise today saw caught this blogger standing on the rocks in front of one of the olde forts (in this case Castle San Sebastian) with the gopro pointed at the olde' world stonework (recently repointed in order to draw the tourist hordes in) hoping to catch some sort of magical moment as the fresh rays of the new bourne light struck the stones in a majestic example of how the universe revolves and in  that specific moment of time that it all gets revealed to us. Nup. Just like up at Ronda the sky here this morning had a smoky haze that dulled the whole event to a "there's an old wall slowly getting brighter over the course of an hour".

Still got the video though. Took a 20 minute treck through the old town in the late nightime darkness (streets still very well lit) as the few dedicated locals moved around heading off to work, sorting out their shop fronts etc. Being on the well maintained causeway that early was interesting as the were a few keen fishermen (of retirement age) out there already and later on few kids turned up to jump of the rocks. Didn't realise until later that their presence was due to the tide being in.

Bonus for the Blogger. Whilst there, a blow hole kept blowing up through the platform of rocks upon which he was positioned. Time trickled by. That's what happens when you're out capturing events so others don't need to do so (video available on request only). Knowing that prearranged activities were pending, the new knees and associated tired soft tissues were called into action to get back to home base before the days activities truly began.

A rushed breaky at a joint around the corner (we'll come back to) and the off to join the walking tour where got spend a couple of hours restressing those soft tissues all for the sake of learning something new. And that we did. It was pretty funny watching our guide struggling to be overheard above the whippersnipers but we still got the gist of it. Akin to everyone else in the region they had been taken over by the Ventians, then the Roman's, then the Moores (aka Muslims), then the Christians (in multiple flavors) and then they found their own way called democracy. Isn't that nice. Good luck guys, 

An interesting fact is that Napoleon failed to conquer both Cadiz and Ronda as they had really good battlements (possibly attitude as well, that was implied but not mentioned).

This town is recognized as the longest living one in Europe. Being the port place that it is it still has remanents of when it was the trading hub between the Americas and Europe when it was all done via sailing boats.and trading was done by semaphore before the boats and their cargo were allowed entrance. The claim from the tour guide is this methodolgy is nowadays being used on trading floors around the world. Go Cadiz...you guys rock. ( apart from their football team, but we weren't allowed to go there).

After a taking the guides advice on the available beaches and the (quite rightly justified) expression of interest from non-blogger she also procured a Taxi as if from nowhere and we headed to the best beach along the strip which goes for km's and is basically full of locals. The initial impression thst place is full of foreigners is incorrect. This is all locals (country wise), maybe others from out of town but they all speak versions of the same dialect. Being a fly on the wall is fascinating as one can still disseminate what's going on via displayed emotions accentuating their verbiage.

So we went to the beach. Taxi there and local bus home. The bus worked really well, getting use to this place.

The beach was great. Known as the best beach in Europe the locals certainly know how to make the most of it. The searing heat meant without shade it would be impossible, dangerous even, so we  (well ..she) headed to a bunch of brollies, found a spare couple of lounges underneath one and claimed it. Good work. Inevitably a dude in a yellow shirt and a portable payment machine rolled up later. Did I mention it was hot? Woo hoo. Sand stinging the feet on the way to water. The water is the Atlantic Ocean. Oceans are meant to have a certain amount of grunt in them. Not here. It was almost Sea like.And the locals are lapping it up.

Huge expanse of a clean, wide, shallow sand with thousands of them on a Thursday afternoon all consuming the situation. Looking bothways along the waterline they merge into a vague mixture of coloured pixels into the distance obscuring what should be a clean swipe of single colour of the sand. So many people. So many umbrellas, so much humanity all framed on one side by the inevitable oceaan and on the other by the ugly monstrosities they revert back in to when day dissappears.

We partook and thoroughly enjoyed it. Manged to navigate the way home on the local bus with the driver who didn't have the time capacity to put up with us. He got his money and we got home. All good. After the mandatory washing we went in search of a couple of web posted ideas. Roof top bar for a couple of ridiculously constructed cocktails (pork flavoured? Go figure) and then suffered the indignity of choosing dinner in the midst of a touristy non-ambiance multitude of umbrellas in a big plaza setting all for the sake of getting a real paella. This is afterall Spain - can't be that hard.

Just as drinks arrived, so did a parade. There's an old song "I love a parade" ..well after the Ronda experience, here's another one. With no warning, no preparation, it just happened, right in front of the table we'd randomly picked 5 mins earlier.

Obviously people had traveled the world to get here to do this. It was vert generous of them, arranging thier tours, flights  accommodation, countless hours practicing routines etc. Without even knowing if we were going to there. Lucky for them we were. It was all pretty exhausting (for us - the paraders looked like they were going to party all night). So we paid our hosts,  slid out of our chairs and slunk around  a few well recognized corners to get home and constuct this tome.