Tarifa has beautiful beaches, but it is a strange place. Surfing is popular, as is kite surfing. I assume kite surfing is like normal surfing but with a kite somehow attached to something, giving a little bit of extra oomph. Anyway, the sand round there is golden, the sea is blue and the beach is full of beautiful people wearing not very much. In the town there are many leathery skinned old surf dudes, bejewelled with leathery beaded necklaces and leathery bracelets. The cobbles under foot echo with the light tap of flip-flops and people have that far away look of the perpetual dreamer in their eyes. Truly this is the last refuge of a generation of people who read Paolo Coelho's “The Alchemist” and thought that they too could find enlightenment by going to Tarifa, meeting an old guy and catching the ferry to Morocco and back. The problem being, of course, that “The Alchemist” wasn't really based on a true story and now they're stuck in Tarifa with nothing to do but look dazed, give surfing lessons and hand out flyers for bizarre nightclubs located down tiny alleys with even tinier doorways.
At around one in the morning a group of the beloved's colleagues and I rolled out of a restaurant and started to negotiate the buzzing backstreets of the port in an attempt to start heading back round the coast for home. In a small square, not too far from the ferry terminal, there was a tiny shop with a tempting window display. In between all of the shops selling surfing paraphernalia and tourist tat there was a perfect little patisserie in the French style. A small, smart, non-leathery lady was selling cakes and tarts in the early hours, portioned out with great care into little containers and handed over to late night revellers with dainty serviettes. The chocolate gateaux was divine.
