Random roadside flamingos

Despite the fact that I like to consider myself a decisive person, in actual fact, I am not really. I am driven by all sorts of winds of indecision, and nowhere has that been more evident than in the last few days.

I came to Cadiz because of a story that was told to me 8 years ago. My cousin Carlos told me about the madness that is the Cadiz carnavale... of Romeo & Juliet Venice Beach proportions: costumes, craziness, carnality. It attracted me, and for years I yearned to come to this city by the sea that promised Andalucian antics.

So I came. Admitedly, as with Greece, it suffers from end of season emptiness. I roamed the streets trying to find fiesta, but found empty bars and doldrum restaurants. I was devastated: where was my fabled paradise?

So in exasperation, after having stayed out til 2am trying my hardest to find that little pocket of mayhem, I decided to leave Cadiz. My Lonely Planet book suggested that Tarifa would be enticing due to its bohemian spirit and crumbling Moorish ruins, so I packed up my rucksack and jumped on a bus bound for the windy southern-most Spanish city of Tarifa.

It was a beautiful place. A 10km long beach tuffeted by winds and a breath away from exotic Morocco, and a beautiful old town full of Moorish ruins and fountained plazas. Lovely. But there I was as the evening approached, desperate to have a wild night, and my hostel companions had settled down to a dinner of hostel-cooked pasta and 80c cask wine. Determined not to be stuck inside a dingy hostel, I ventured out solo. I ate alone, which I have no issue with: in fact, it worked out well as there were a group of drunken Spaniards just behind where I was eating, falling over themselves in their stupor, and the waiter was so mortified that he kept giving me free alocohol. I then ventured out to a bar.

Now, the hardest thing I have had to do on this trip is walk into a bar and find people to talk to. Its hard. And very scary. But I braced myself, held my head high, and strode in. And I managed ok. I went to one bar, then went to another where there was dancing. Its was nicely average.

I got back to my hostel late, woke up, and thought to myself: I havent given Cadiz a proper chance yet. I just felt terribly guilty and weak that after yearning for Cadiz for so long, I had given up on it after 2 days. So in classic Me-style, I packed up my bags, and got back on a bus to Cadiz!

I turned up in Cadiz, and I am writing to you now from a rather more social hostel than where I was staying before. Its fabulous here, so I am now drinking cheap rose and trying to convince sufficient people to go out with me for the evening, to give Cadiz a proper farewell. I am off to Seville tomorrow, and I know that will definitely be more social. But for now, I just want to leave Cadiz thinking that it has lived up to the visions of my youth.

As to the allusions of this entrys title: on the way back from Tarifa to Cadiz today, my bus passed a swamp that had a bog full of flamingos. I have never seen flamingos in the wild before, and they struck me as a tantalisingly ridiculous thing to see on a swampy roadside. I loved it! Bring it on, I want more random roadside flamingos in my life! That says it all really.