Kite Life

Tarifa, south of spain, this was my first time, as a kite surfer rider i have heard many times about tarifa, because of is all year wind conditions, and is true, i and my friends arrive tarifa by car, normal condition road and easy to find spots, its hard to miss tarifa because when you approach the view is something unreal, there are giant wind mill everywhere, i took great photos of them just imagine all horizon full of them, it was about 10 am when we arrived and of course the first thing we wanted do to, was to see the famous beach “vale vaqueiros”, the view was again beautiful now just the beach, but the sea full of kitesurfers and windsurfers, imagine all the coolers mixed with the blue sky and green water, water temperature was not hot, but not to cool also, of course windy. Has we mounted our kites we realize that was people from every part of the globe there, maybe because there was a international kite championship happening, but every week there is a championship there so…. 

For those that don’t ride kites or windsurf, there is another thing to do at this beautiful beach other than taking sun bath, there is the mud bath, yes on the end of this beach, near the beautiful dunes, there is a stone mud were people look like aliens, and its really good, we tried and our skin is softer now:). Another thing you should be prepared to see on the beach on tarifa is topless, about 90% of women’s, and on some zones nude also, like a selvage beach. 

A must to see and get some shooting session is on the dunes, just go on the top and see the scenary, its like a desert with dead trees, unreal….. 

5 PM time to go to the city and get the key for our small house, a choice made after hours of shearching on the web, but we had lucky with our choice, why? well in spain good accomodation is hard to find… 

We arrived at the main avenue, “calle de la batalha del salado”, here was located the shop to get the key and we found thousands kite shops, all brands are represented here, from slingshot to custom tarifa made, you rip your material no problem they fix, need to learn kite… no worry almost every shop there is a instructor! 

Has all spain tarifa also make the siesta (big lunch break for rest) so dont get surprised if you don’t see anyone or shops open, tarifa time is 9 to 12 and 17 to 22, at night all streets get crowed, but contrary with the rest of spain after 22 is hard to find a open restaurant, except pizza, yes is easy to find a pizza restaurant on the centre, i can recommend PIZZA N1 ITALIA, the pizza is a bit too thin but they are tasty. 

After we got the key, we when to our little house, it was about 500 meters from the beach of “Los Lances”, nice one and the locals say that when the wind is not poente is the best one to practice sports, we found very nice also but preferred the vale vaqueiros , the nice thing we found at that beach was a beach bar named Aqua , not cheap but nice decoration, beds in place of chairs and good music, all that with a view of the beach. 

About 6pm we reach the house, easy to find, and for our surprise, very good garden space, for material and party, big walls, the house was small but clean and enough for us (3 persons), all equipped with machine wash, tv, etc. 

I don’t recommend for people who want to practice kite or windsurf to stay on the city, why?, because on the city beaches you can t practice sports, so you have from “los lances” to vale vaqueiros about 7km of beach for sports. You can imagine all days have to go from the city to the first spot…. Waste of fuel and time, because you have many accommodation by the beach, from hotels to camping parks, I counted at least 4 camping parks, all with bungalows and tent zone, I can recommend CAMPING PALOMA or CAMP SITE RIO JARA all in vale vaqueiros beach. 

For sun lovers that don’t won’t to get sand all over the body because of the wind I recommend the dunes and the back of the dunes at vale vaqueiros, because for some reason the wind changes direction and don’t get there. 

My experience at tarifa has been good, especially for kite surf, one thing i forget to say is that the rescue team is well organized, this is very importand….if you dont whant to lose your wing. 

You don’t have to be a sports lover, because you have some monuments to visit, horse ridding, wale and bird watch , but it helps, because there is always wind 

This entry was posted on Monday, January 15th, 2007 at 5:44 pm and is filed under Kite Surfing Spain. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.