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Charlie’s second week in Conil de La Frontera
Charlie had already been in Conil for a whole week and it had been a quiet week. She had been surfing, skating and working from the surf hostel in Conil de la Frontera and enjoyed the sun and the beach in Conil and El Palmar. The true spirit of a digital nomad! There had been a few people at the hostel but not too many. Due to the Coronavirus pandemic, the whole year was low season. This was about to change.
Some other solo travelers had arrived during Charlie’s second week. She had already met Tamara and Oriol on their way to El Palmar a few days before; two other guys, Edu and Alberto, had just arrived. They were all traveling solo and as it happens often in surf houses, those people connect quickly. They shared a passion for backpacking and globetrotting – you could almost say that they spoke the same language!
¿Hablas español?
Well, in Charlie’s case that wasn’t entirely true as her Spanish had gotten a bit rusty over the years and she suddenly found herself in a bar on a Wednesday night with a Spanish-speaking group in the centre of Conil. She understood everything they said but it was difficult for her to speak. It was a lovely evening, and they laughed a lot. Charlie even understood their jokes, but without getting involved in the conversation, she felt more like an observer than a part of the group. It was time to get her Spanish back on track!
The next morning, when Charlie was already sitting in the common area at the Hostel, working, Alberto and Tamara headed to the beach to do some Yoga at sunrise. Charlie had to finish something and would join them. In the end, she only had 20 minutes, before her first work call that morning, but Charlie enjoyed it to the fullest!
That is the downside of digital nomading: You sometimes have to work, and some days you have to work a bit more. Charlie regretted that she could not join them in the evening either, but a deadline is a deadline and she finished sending everything off before midnight. She would have loved to go out with the rest of the surf family that night and she heard that it had been an amazing night out.
The Friday was a bit lighter when it came to work, but Charlie still couldn’t join the guys to El Palmar that day to enjoy some surf lifestyle. She noticed that Edu, Oriol, and Alberto were moving out of the hostel for the weekend because it had been fully booked, but she wasn’t sure how long they each would stay in town. She was still struggling a bit to speak in Spanish.
That Friday night, Charlie was ready to go out after the previous night of work, but she didn’t know what the plan was. She only saw Tamara rushing out in the early evening to join the guys at another hostel. Later that evening, Charlie met two lovely girls at the hostel who had just arrived that day and were staying for the weekend. The following Monday was a bank holiday in Spain and more Spanish guests had arrived to make use of the special surf camp offer by Take Hostel.
Alessandra was Italian but had just started her Erasmus semester at the university in Granada and Alicia had come from Extremadura for the weekend. She was a primary school teacher. Charlie felt a lot more comfortable talking to the girls that night in Spanish as Alessandra wasn’t a native speaker either and Alicia gave Charlie the time she needed to think about her sentences. She also had lived in Australia and spoke English very well. There was a loophole when Charlie was missing some vocabulary…
Relaxing Saturdays
As usual, Charlie was the first to be up that Saturday morning and she was surprised how quiet it was. The hostel had been fully booked that weekend and she was expecting a very chaotic morning in the communal area, but most people were sleeping in or went out for breakfast. Charlie was meant to join the people from the surf camp for the transfer to the beach in the surf van. She was planning to spend a quiet day in El Palmar. She wanted to go around with the surf skate and catch up on some sleep in one of the bean bags.
Before they left for El Palmar, Alberto and Oriol showed up at the hostel and joined Charlie for a coffee. She now felt a lot more comfortable speaking in Spanish and they just started chatting. It suddenly seemed so easy. They told her that they were going to the beach with Tamara in her car and were under the assumption that Charlie would go with them instead of the transfer in the surf van. Charlie had no idea where that suddenly came from, but she accepted the invitation. She somehow had become part of the group – the most obvious sign of that in those times was that none of them felt like wearing their face masks anymore when they were in the same room. (Remember there was still a virus going around the world at that time.)
They drove down to El Palmar and were listening to Spanish music – some of the Bachata songs Charlie even knew! Tamara and Oriol had another surf lesson even though the waves were very small that day. It was not worth even putting the wetsuit on. Borga, one of the guys from the Bar “Canibal Royal” right by the surf school agreed with Charlie. Good decision! She put her plan into action to go around with the surf skate. This time, she knew where she would go. She remembered the road she had discovered the weekend before and also knew by now which side tracks Dom, a friend of Frankie’s, had been talking about! It was a lovely tour on the surf skate and Charlie was ready to chill in the sun.
Everybody was in the water for their surf lesson, Frankie, Irene and Santi who were working at the surf shop were still busy preparing for the rest of the day and there was only Alberto in front of the surf school. He was practicing his balance on one of the balance boards and challenged Charlie to try it out. She did and she wasn’t even making a complete fool out of herself… until she fell! It was time to take her place in the bean bag and just chill. She kept on chatting to Alberto for the next hour and again was surprised how easy it suddenly was to speak in Spanish.
Caños de Meca
When Tamara and Oriol returned from the water, they invited Charlie to join them for a trip to Caños de Meca for lunch and to see the beach there. Charlie didn’t even think twice, of course, she would join them! It was just a pity that she had not taken the camera with her that day because she wasn’t meant to go anywhere. She also found out soon that Oriol wasn’t going to join because he had to return to Sevilla later in the afternoon to take his flight back to Andorra the next morning. They dropped him off in Conil before Tamara, Alberto, and Charlie were off to Caños de Meca.
Caños is another village by the sea just a few kilometres east of El Palmar. They parked the car at the entrance to the village and walked further along the road to a bar called “La Lonja”. Charlie was familiar with most of the items on the menu, but she had never heard of “Salmorejo” before. Alberto explained what it is: Similar to Gazpacho, it is a thick, cold tomato soup that is traditionally from Córdoba. Pieces of egg and ham are added on top. Charlie decided to try that, and a tortilla. Yummy!
After lunch, they went to the beach in Caños de Meca which was beautiful, and a bit sheltered by the cliffs and pine trees. It also was surprisingly empty seeing that it was a bank holiday weekend and everywhere was crowded.
Tamara knew of a place by the rocks where people used to queue in the past to make use of the natural clay face masks. There was no queue that day and Alberto, Tamara, and Charlie would soon have their faces covered in a green paste. It just had to dry a bit and they washed it off with a lovely swim in the sea. The water was a bit chilly in October, but very inviting for a little swim.
They spent the rest of the afternoon on the beach and were listening to some Spanish music. Alberto loved Flamenco and Charlie was simply enjoying the musical inspiration that afternoon. Her favourite was the version of Hotel California by the Gipsy Kings. (She wouldn’t remember any of the titles or singers of the other songs anyway…)
Sunset at the lighthouse
They left the beach at around 7 p.m. and had timed it perfectly to catch the sunset at the Faro Trafalgar – a lighthouse to remember the battle of Trafalgar. There was a little restaurant where they parked the car and an artisan market along the beach. The path led them through the dunes towards the lighthouse. There were quite a few people waiting for the sun to set but they found a quiet spot to watch a great day coming to an end.
