Calle Flor, Rota, Spain.

 Dear Henry,

The city of Rota, Spain—quiet, sun-drenched, hugging the southern edge of the Iberian Peninsula—began as no more than a humble Bronze Age fishing village. A backwater, perhaps, but one rooted in salt, sea, and survival. Long before the chatter of tourists or the hum of naval machinery, it stood as a mere speck on the Atlantic coast.

Then the Phoenicians arrived, those maritime traders of the ancient world. Around 3,000 years ago, they carved their presence into the Iberian coastline, and Rota was transformed from obscurity into a node of maritime commerce. The village became a harbor, a gateway, and a name on a sailor's chart.

The Tartessians came next, a mysterious and semi-mythical people who called the settlement Astaroth, a name that would echo through the centuries. Until Rome swept in and renamed it Speculum Rotae, the "Rose Mirror," suggesting a port reflecting back the red-hued sunsets that bathe Andalusia.

But in 711 AD, everything changed.

The Visigoths fell, and Roderic was defeated by Tariq ibn Ziyad. The Moors claimed the land. Astaroth became Rabitta Rutta, "The Watchtowers of Rota." The city began watching the seas, guarding the coast, and it changed once more. Minarets rose. Gardens bloomed. The culture shifted, and it became rich with North African influence.

In 1217, the Frisians arrived—Crusaders, and by 1248, the settlement had settled into the name we now know: Rota. It was still a trading post, a place of passage, but no longer anonymous. It had found its voice in stone and wave.

Centuries passed.

In 1953, Spain sought new alliances in the long shadow of the Spanish Civil War, Franco's rule, and the two World Wars. To burnish its image and pull itself into the modern world, Spain signed an agreement with the United States. NAVSTA Rota, a joint Spanish-American naval base, emerged from that handshake. Strategic, controversial, and teeming with foreign life, it became a strange new chapter in the city's story.

And in 1971, during the waning days of the Vietnam War, my story began.

My father was a SeaBee, working in naval construction, not combat. My mother was a housewife and emotionally adrift. Both were ruled by their addictions. They came to Rota on orders, and there, on a quiet stretch of old Roman coastline, they brought me into the world.

I was born on Flower Street, in the Bay of the Sun, on the Coast of Light. I arrived in the ancient city of Astaroth, named "Messenger of God." It felt like an omen—an auspicious beginning for a storytelling photographer.

However.

My parents live by their indulgences and vices. And not long after returning to the U.S., they divorced, and I became no more than an unwanted child from an unwanted marriage.

Yet, I carry something beyond the inconvenience that I was. A piece of me remains in Rota. In Astaroth. In the rustle of palms above old Moorish walls, in the hush of dawn over the Atlantic, in the ghost-sung stones beneath Flower Street.

And that's why I tell stories. Why I photograph the wild and the weathered. Because I was born with an augury—a sign that beginnings matter.

May peace be with you, and may you always find the beauty of where your story began.

xoxo a.d. elliott

PS - Check out the YouTube video here  https://youtu.be/YWAKAUlDErY

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a.d. elliott is a wanderer, photographer, and storyteller living in Salem, Virginia. 

In addition to her travel writings at www.takethebackroads.com, you can also read her book reviews at www.riteoffancy.com and US military biographies at www.everydaypatriot.com

Her online photography gallery can be found at shop.takethebackroads.com

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