Tarifa or Where the Med meets the Atlantic

On All Saint's Day, Rach and Jor and I rolled out to Tarifa, a four hour bus ride waaaay south. The original idea was to head over to Morroco, but there's only so much you can do in a day (or a weekend) and we figured seeing Tarifa was good enough on this round. Plus, Henry's advice was that Tangier was unpleasant and a good place to get robbed or ripped off. The better Moroccan towns were further inland. So. Tarifa it was. These are the walls of the old fort.

Tarifa's coast is pretty well known among surfers for being a little wild, a lot windy, and relatively unspoiled. There's quite a bit of bird watching too, so my cousin Megan might enjoy a visit.

Local fishermen still use the Almadraba method of fishing using a circle of boats and nets, a practice which has not changed since 13th Century.

As a historian, I would be remiss if I didn't say something on the seedy underbelly of Tarifa's history. Namely, their abysmal immigration problem. Just like many coastal towns which offer a relatively easy crossing place, Tarifa struggles with the influx of immigrants from Morocco. Often these immigrants accept passage in boats across the Strait of Gibralter. And much like our twentieth century U.S.-Cuba immigration issues, many of these people drowned. Tarifa is working on ways to combat the deaths by including the Red Cross in their coastal sweeps.