shday10: zahara de los no swimming.

Yeah, so...I don't know if anyone remembers what the entire point of this cross-country drive was, but I'll remind you: to purify ourselves in the waters of Zahara de los Atunes, the best undiscovered beach in Spain. Nine days and 2500km of driving later, we find ourselves here, primed for purification. There is one problem: no one's allowed in the water. "Dangerous winds". Red flags on the beach.

I mean, there are a couple of people in the water. But there are no perfectly dangerous waves like last year, because the wind is blowing at the ocean with a force that makes the waves actually go sideways and opening your eyes on the beach unwise and your legs feel like you're literally being sandblasted, because I guess literally you are. We did drive 20km away to Los Caños and we got in the water, because otherwise things would've been black. And it was very pleasant and refreshing, but it was not quite the Zahara of last year.

There should have been a red flag inside the restaurant as well. Chairs were blowing over, menus flying, everyone who had a table with an ocean view sported a look on their face like "we are really trying to have a good time despite not being able to open our eyes or mouth for more than a second at a time." Details about the food later. Like I said, instead of going into the water at Zahara we threw things at the bad ocean and then we drove a ways and stopped in a national park with an ocean view, then got in the water at Los Caños. But we're staying an extra afternoon in Zahara in hopes that the red flag goes away.

 Pictures: Nelson's standard breakfast tostada at El Huesi; hating wind before having lunch; two kinds of tuna at El Refugio, maybe the best tuna of the trip: malígimo (cold tuna with sweetened lard and red pepper marmalade) and güenígimo (hot tuna with sweetened lard and onion marmelade); El Refugio's choco con tomate, squid with a spicy (like cinnamon and nutmeg) tomato sauce, really interesting; me throwing my shoes at the ocean and the ocean totally not caring; walking to the car; national park ocean view; protective eyewear.