Seeing some of the countryside between Sevilla and Chipiona. I really like the rural Andalucian Spain. Kind of reminds me of home actually.

  Expansive and beautiful

 Hahaha, okay first I need to explain this picture. This older gentleman and I talked for a bit on the bus and I wanted to get a picture of him. So I switched cameras on my phone so that it would take a picture of me and him… but then he looked over and looked at me like I was the weirdest and vainest American for checking myself out on my phone screen. Ah, I felt myself go beet red, it was pretty embarrassing. But not to be thwarted, when he turned away again I gave it another shot and got this picture.

An interesting cultural note, this gentleman, as I’ve found with all elderly, was sooooo difficult to understand. I’m not sure why this is but I have a hunch it’s because when they were young, Spaniards didn’t move around as much and thus there wasn’t quite as homogenous an accent or way of speaking as there is now. Kind of like how the cowboys out west spoke with all sorts of slang and mispronunciations (doggies, git for get, etc.) but that kind of died away when people became more mobile and started civilizing that bunch. The Spanish of the elderly in Andalucía is rough and guttural, we made out all right though. 

 A quaint little church from the bus window on the ride to Chipiona

Ah, the Spanish are actually very environmentally concerned and all the advertisements for “save the environment” this and that are as prevalent here as they are in Eugene.

 A lovely vineyard. Chipiona is known for its wine.

Haha, ah this picture has a nice little story behind it. The bus was coming into a station in the “town of Chipiona” (so I thought, they don’t really announce it or anything). I took this picture all excited and how neat the city looked. I got of the bus and asked where a certain street was. ARG! There would be a street in a neighboring city that had the same name as the one I was looking for! Haha, I walked over there and asked somebody for directions and after talking a bit I showed them my address and they told me I wasn’t in Chipiona… rats. Got back on the next bus (had to wait for almost an hour!) and then headed off.

Ah, when I took this shot I was thinking of the caption, “the bus that brought me to Chipiona.” The woes of life ;-)

 Back on another bus

 Alright! Now we’re in Chipiona. This is my first view of the town after leaving the bus station.

 

Wow, glad I’m not apposed to purple because my host at the hostel obviously loves it. Whew, like a slap in the face it was ;-)

 This is the main avenue to get down to the beach. It’s lined with these beautiful trees, it’s a really elegant drive actually.

 Ah yeah, da beach! Around that monument there are a bunch of steps by which you can access the beach. It’s really commercialized with permanent umbrellas and foot wash and shower stations. It even has wooden walkways to get you over the dry sand and onto the wet. A very nice place.

Ah, gorgeous! :-)