With the latest round of anti-American protests in the Middle East right now, the Semester at Sea ship decided not to visit Morocco. Instead, we were going to have two extra days to spend in Spain, and two days in the Canary Islands as well. Score!
Cadiz, our first top, is a small city on the coast of southern Spain. The beaches are beautiful, and it’s a really easy city to navigate because of its size. There are also painted walking trails all over the city that lead to some of the town’s best sights–you just follow the lines that are painted on the ground.
We spent the first day in Cadiz at the beach. The water is lovely and warm, and there’s some great surf as well. The waves were pummeling the beach and I wanted to run and grab a board but I couldn’t find any rental shops. So, we sizzled in the sun until it was time to return to the ship for dinner.
On Sundays in Spain, everything stops. Shops and restaurants are closed for the most part, and the ones that are open, aren’t open for long. We ventured out at night to see what there was to see, but all we found was a crazy old lady yelling at us to give her money.
The next day we followed the orange line on the ground and saw most of Cadiz– the old, and the new. The walk took us through gorgeous parks, old castles, and along the coast and took us about two hours, walking pretty slowly.
The third day I went off to nearby Conil for a day of surfing and yoga. Which was awesome, until a huge wave ripped off my friend’s GoPro camera that was on my head. It sank quickly, and I spent much of the afternoon walking along the coast hoping it would wash up, though it never did. It put a damper on my afternoon, but my friend took the news in good form. I ended up emailing GoPro to see if they could replace it, and they generously gave me 50 percent off on a new one. So it could’ve been much worse!
We were set on renting a car to explore the rest of Spain for the last three days, but the price jumped from $58 to 234 Euros, and we passed. Instead, we jumped on a bus to Ronda… but you’ll have to wait until my next post to hear more about that. Don’t you love cliffhangers?
