Tapas

In front of the Bodega
Fried cheese & blueberry jam

Ham hanging in the bar

Chicken, chili pepper, & ketchup sandwich

We finally had wheels and our Jet lag was getting better. So we headed off base to really start our trip and needed to get our passports stamped. So Janet (GPS) led us directly to the Policia National station in Rota. We had all our paperwork ready to go and walked in. After a conversation in broken english we figured out that we could not get our passports stamped until Monday morning at 8 am and this was Friday evening. Well what a way to get the trip started, so we had to scramble around and change some hotel reservations and so on to allow for us to come back to Rota to get our passports stamped. Paperwork....UGH!!!

After that, we headed over to Puerto de Santa Maria for some dinner. Josh had been here 9 years ago when he was on his way to Naples, Italy. So after some driving around we parked the car and started walking around. We tried several little Bodegas which serve drinks and little tapas (little helpings of food). The first place we stopped was pretty average, nothing too exciting. We had a toasted sandwich that had chicken and peppers on it with Ketchup!! Not great! Josh knew that there was something better to be had close by. He remembered a place he had been to before that had Legs of Ham hanging in the bar. I thought he was crazy, but Josh never forgets a good meal.. that's one reason that I love him. Well we finally found a little section of town that had several of these places and walked into the one that Josh thought he had been to before. The women working behind the counter was very friendly and made several great suggestions to sample. The HAM is wonderful, it is similar to prociutto. They call it Serrano which means "from the mountains", as the cool dry mountain air offers the perfect conditions for the curing process!! There are two distinct cuts: the hind leg or "jamón" (ham), and the foreleg or "paleta" (shoulder). We had the Paletta portion and it was wonderful Wow was it good!! They serve it on toast and warm, very delicious. We also had some excellent Manchego cheese that is slightly similar to parmesan, a little softer, but also very good. The other item we tasted was some deep fried cheese with fresh blueberry jam, and that was also amazing, much better than the American fried Mozzarella sticks for sure. We finished it up in true American style and had some Ben and Jerry's ice cream. Scott Saunders would be proud. Overall it was a great start to the trip and worth the wait for sure....Next Stop Seville Spain.....!!!!