#algamitas

[blasteffect]

The Rock of Algámitas, Seville, Andalusia, Spain,

Jordy Coy Photography

[loliya21]

Guardianes de las cumbres .. #ortoptero #ensifero,#terril ,#algamitas,#techodesevilla,#esunachica,#oviscapto,#ovopositor #sillademontar#aptero (en Algámitas, Spain) https://www.instagram.com/p/Bo10I7yAlYkRYiq5JBTvPxrg5SHyx1cdiX9T200/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ros6ninn2t0k

[videntes-blog]

Ver mi signo zodiacal pitonisa Genessis. Algamitas, Sevilla

[greenbagjosh]

1 June 2002 - my first drive in Europe - bullfight, chocos and a few glasses of sherry

Good morning!  Buenos Dias!

Well last night was a mix of good and bad.  Most of the good was getting to visit Gibraltar, see the top of the rock and the tailless apes.  The bad was Senegal's defeat of France in the first match of the 2002 FIFA World Cup 1 to 0.  And that we had to leave Gibraltar to go on to El Puerto de Santa Maria, Chipiona and Sanlucar de la Barrameda.  I would return to Gibraltar in August 2017 for two days.

We woke up about 7:30 AM.  In Gibraltar, on the west side, the sun does not shine until about 10 AM so the sky was just bright.  As we decided not to eat the hotel's breakfast at the swimming pool's breakfast room across Bomb House Lane, we decided on somewhere local in Irish Town.  We went to some place north of the hotel on Main Street where they were serving a Full English breakfast.  That usually includes a fried egg, sliced sausage, baked beans, mushrooms and fried tomatoes.  It was quite good.  We would need that for the long drive ahead of us.  

I had left my radio in the room to record BFBS FM.  It recorded Ant and Dec's "We're on the ball" and a parody of Baddiel and Skinner's "It's coming home".  And also "Get over you" by Sophie Ellis Bextor which was not on the CD I bought the previous day.

I had some money in my bank account at home.  Rent was due back home, so I had to be careful not to withdraw too much money.  I would have withdrawn maybe 80 pounds, well enough for the cab ride from Cathedral Square / Bomb House Lane to the airport and the border with Spain.  The cab showed up about 9 AM and we got in with our luggage.  The cab was a Toyota Carina, had the steering wheel on the left and speedometer in kilometers per hour.  We drove past the Casemates and across the Gibraltar airport runway to end up close to the airport terminal and we could cross through the border into La Linea de la Concepcion.  We had to go through the passage to Plaza de la Constitucion and fetch our car.  The car was still in its spot as we had left it the day before.

We drove along CA-34 to the A-7 and drove it to the two lane road that would eventually become the A-381.  The eastern part close to Algeciras was not yet converted to full autopista use.  At some point, while we were in the Parque Natural Los Alcornocales near Las Algamitas, my father stopped the car and asked me to drive to Jerez and farther on to Sanlucar de Barrameda.  I drove on the two lane road that eventually became the autopista with a speed limit of 120 km/h or 75 mph, 110 km/h or 68 mph in tunnel.  As of my 2017 visit, the A-381 has five tunnels about 100 meters or 330 feet long on average.  The A-381 ends at the AP-4 and continues in to Jerez as Avenida de Medina Sidonia.  I followed it until the intersection that led to the A-480 to Sanlucar de Barrameda.  We were going to see a bullfight there later that evening about 7 PM.

We found a place to eat lunch nearby.  I thought we could order a small plate of chocos but somehow it was a big plate.  Chocos are basically calamari with pico de gallo.  It was good though.  We weren’t particularly hungry after that.

We had to drive on the A-491 and CA-603 to El Puerto de Santa Maria to check into our hotel, which I believe has become a Casa de Incas.  It was on near the Castillo de San Marcos and the Bodegas Osborne.  We left our luggage there and drove back to Sanlucar de Barrameda to get our seats in the "Sombra" section.  The last time I was at a bullfight, I would have not even been four years old.  At that age, I would not have been able to understand what was going on.  I must have gone through three or four glasses of the local dry sherry (to quote the British Comedy duo Hale & Pace:  “Let’s not forget the generous Spanish hospitality!”).  Bullfights are broken down into a horseman throwing darts at the bull that is on the floor, one matador goes onto the floor with a pink cape, and another does the same with a red cape.  Everyone shouts "ole" when the matador avoids being gored by the bull.  That night I may have seen about six bulls go through that.  I think that is all that should be said.  Ernest Hemingway wrote about his experiences at a bullfight in his novel “The sun also rises”.  

We were not particularly hungry by the time the bullfight ended.  So we went back to our hotel and went to bed about 10 PM.  We would have a tour of the Bodegas Osborne, one of the sherry houses in El Puerto de Santa Maria.  One I remember from childhood was Bodegas Terry as we would pass by it every day when going from our home in Valdelagrana to the southeast entrance of the US Navy base NAVSTA, at Cintura de Fuentebravia and Calle de la Guayaba - it has been built up so much since the 1970s.

Anyway I hope you will join me for the Bodega tour and trips to Arcos de la Frontera!

Hasta manana y buenas noches!