I missed the first bus. I thought this was some sort of fluke. I went to the window where I had bought the ticket from. "Closed for Siesta" was what the sign read. I checked the schedule and found when the next bus was leaving. I checked the posted schedule of buses to make sure that it was indeed one of the buses that stopped here. It was there, plain as day. Just another hour and a half to the next one. I sat and read and tried feebly to protect myself from the wind. Waited and waited...
When the time approached I stood up and waited patiently with all the other passengers. Their busses came and went. Mine never did.
When the ticket office finally opened two and a half hours after I had missed my first bus I was second in line behind a man trying desperately to communicate with minimal Spanish. I saw the foreshadowing of my immediate future. When it was my turn I failed at conveying the idea that I had waited and waited and my bus never materialized. The man in the office offered no help. The man who was in front of me in line understood my pleas as he walked away. He doubled back and said in a thick Dutch accent, "You must damn near stand in the bloody street to stop the f**king thing!" This is a direct quote, I remember it so clearly. He explained that I could also walk all the way across town back to where I had woken up that morning and wait for it at the main station where it commences. This appealed to me more much more than flagging down a bus on a large boulevard. Backpack on and hike!
Giulia's Beach
Wondering how I could possibly miss two buses in a row
Spanish comfort food, chorizo sandwich #20+
I caught this bus no problem and watched the sunset from my seat, arriving in the wind swept little town of Tarifa after dark. On the bus there was a very strange lady wearing huge dark sunglasses and a painter's mask, dressed nicely, had a bright red roller suitcase and a fairly recent haircut, yet muttering incessantly to herself. Before the bus left the station she walked up and down the aisle begging for money. She got some, a euro from me, more from others, and promptly took it to the driver to buy a ticket. Midway through the ride she did this again, this time she asked me for eight euros, four, two? Others were more sympathetic than me and again she took it up to the driver to extend her trip and get closer to her destination.
My kind couchsurfing host Luz picked me up in her car at the bus station, cooked me dinner, took me to a bar for a drink with her friends and made me feel so comfortably at home that I started to regret spending so little time in Tarifa. I fell asleep on the couch next to Bruno her dog, hoping I could wake up for the sunrise!
