Morocco 2 Ibiza
After Gibralter, I spent a windy night in Tarifa, which is the southernmost town in Spain. There isn’t much there other than windsurfing opportunites, due to wide, unbroken expanses of beaches with furious winds ripping in from the Atlantic. Those same winds proved to be quite a hassle, as my chosen ferry company’s boat was cancelled at the last minute due to choppy seas. Thus began a long and arduous journey to cross the Strait, which ate up almost the entirety of the day. First I had to jump on a bus back to Algeciras (1 hour) and board the next available ferry to Tangiers (departed in 5 hours), so I bought a new one that left in 1 hour, and rode it uneventfully across the water (2 hours). However, I neglected to get my passport stamped by the police on the ferry en route, so I had to wait on board on the far side (1 hour) for the police to come back and stamp me. Then I lingered at this port for the next bus to Tangier proper (2 hours), and rode said bus into the city (1 hour). No fun. Moral of the story- even if you are as close as Malaga, you should fly in to Morocco – don’t do it by ferry.
Luckily I had a fantastic book to keep me occupied – A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O’Toole. I can’t recommend it enough. After that ran out I plodded through The Essential Peter Drucker, which is solid stuff by very dry. America needs to give that guy our version of knighthood – the dude is a genius.
Immediately upon disembarking in Tangiers as the sun was setting, I was confronted by a man who was intent on getting me a taxi to a reputable hotel. I knew about all the swindlers in the city, so I was skeptical, but apparently he was from the Tourist board, and his good English and helpful nature seemed to back that up. He was not so keen on my CouchSurfing story, as you can imagine, and told me plenty of tales about hapless tourists getting robbed blind by locals. Yeah, yeah, buddy, I’m not quite as hapless as you think, and CourchSurfing is better than that.
To be fair, my host this time around had a negligible profile and no references, but I was willing to give him a shot – if I felt sketched out at any point I’d just up and leave. Tourist board man assaulted him with questions about his job as soon as he showed up- presumably for my safety. Mohammed wasn’t going to hurt anyone though- he was a fragile looking man with bad teeth and thin glasses who welcomed me affably. We walked back to his place past myriad mosques, churches, and synagogues, as well as countless mangy kittens tussling in the streets. The ambiance reminded me of the other, shall we say, “down on their luck” countries I knew, like Greece and Mexico. They all share numerous attributes, like hot weather, dirty streets, mangy street cats, beggars constantly harassing you to buy crap, and cheap price of living. Morocco looked to be no different in these respects.
Tangiers the city is slightly different in that it used to be an international zone after World War II, mostly because it’s strategic location was too sweet for any power to give up completely during the Cold War. Odd designation, that, but it means that its denizens can speak a good number of languages. While it is definitely Arabic and African, it’s not quite as dangerous or alien as other countries in those respects. Much like my Russian trip, I was drinking up all the exoticism, like Sprite and Coca Cola logos in Arabic, the ridiculous traffic that follows no laws or reason (you basically have to play chicken with the cars to cross the street) and their version of Girls Gone wild, which comes on late at night with phone numbers to call, but instead of bikinis, it features normally dressed women dancing rather un exotically in some kind of discotheque.
Unlike my Russian trip, I felt incredibly conspicuous walking around on my own. Now I can appreciate the saying; “like a target is painted on your back”. Maybe I was overreacting, but all eyes lingered on me for a few seconds longer than normal, and the insistent beggars everyone in the street were drawn to me like moths to a light. You had to walk with purpose everywhere – if you ever showed hesitation or uncertainty, they’d descend in droves. Asking for money, supplications with babies and crutches, or selling useless things like cigarettes, tissues, or even nail clippers.
Mohammed lived with Amin, who spoke English better than he did, and took an instant liking to me for some reason. He drew me into too-long conversations about Islam, Morocco, and Oum Khalthoum. His teachings were very informative and good background, but he liked to go on about it far past my pointed hints at disinterest. Things I learned from him include 1)Morocco speaks a different kind of Arabic than those from the Middle East 2) Their king is very important to them (he said he would leave the country if the monarchy ended; every single eatery I saw during my stay included a regal picture of the resplendent king I some position of honor on the wall) 3) The Koran was sung from generation to generation for a long time before it was written down 4) Islam promotes scientific thought, 5) Wifi is easier to find there than in Europe- at Mohammeds place we simply logged on to the unprotected network of the nearby art library, which was even stronger than that of my Barcelona apartments’- and 6) He starts his phone calls to his mother every week with a minute or so long song/recital from the Koran about love, which he sang to me as well. The man liked to sing- years of singing Koran verses made him pretty good at it too.
My two full days consisted of me getting footsore exploring the city with other CSers who offered to meet up but were unable to host. There was Zakharia, a friendly young man from Fez, and Omar, who told me his occupation was “supplying”, and seemed to know every other person in the city. Zak and I discovered some camels on the beach, so I managed to get my required camel picture after all, for about one American dollar. I was amused to find numerous eurotrash looking teenages astride tiny horses among the playgrounds on the beach – it seems they hang out there to tempt the playing children to pay them to ride the dwarf horses. Picture that – a normal urban playground surrounded by opportunistic 15 year olds astride pint size horses eyeing them greedily. Only in Morocco.
Omar introduced me to another Omar; a laconic gentleman who helped at his father’s sandwich shop, which was delicious (the shawarma was delicious, too, but still not the best I’ve had. The ubiquitous Moroccan mint tea stole the show in terms of yummy edibles). Omar 2 No2 told me his life story over said tea, rather emotionlessly recounting his stint as a pimp, absence of a girlfriend, and fondness for American college movies. Omar No1’s life story was not too bad either – he had worked in Disneyland a while ago and had a gunshot wound in his neck left over from a misunderstanding with three gentlemen in Florida during which he also broke two of their legs. (Final name count of people met on trip: 3 Mustafas, 2 Mohammed’s, 2 Omars, and 1 Zakharia)
I always pride myself on a good sense of direction, but without Google Maps in my pocket the going was a lot tougher. On the second day I wandered into a crazy street near the old town that I can only describe as Tatoonie, because the scene was straight out of Star Wars. Narrow alleyway sloping down a hill, with Backstreet Boys branded towels providing shade up above, all sorts of colorful characters pushing their way past you as you push your way past vendors selling just about anything you could think a flea market would sell. My personal favorite was the snaggletoothed man guarding a cardboard box full of baby chicks dyed various gaudy colors like pink and fuchsia, all chirping madly and rubbing against one another.
Near the end was a complex that seemed devoted to livestock of many types. Sure was an eye opener to see the behind the scenes of chicken breasts – 4 or 5 scraggly birds tied together at the feet and hanging from the stalls. A rather nasty looking machine was making loud noises in the corner as men held poultry upside down inside it and it violently defeathered them. I was so busy staring at this that I almost got blindsided by a man walking by lugging what appeared to be exactly one fourth of a cow on his shoulders. I got out of there before my stomach protested any further.
I really wanted to eat authentic cous cous while in the country, just because it’s delicious, but everyone told me “No, you must wait until Friday, that is when we have cous cous.” Apparently Friday is cous cous day. But when it finally came around, they all said “no, you have to wait until the afternoon, when everyone comes back from the mosque. That is when we have cous cous” Man, I’m not down with all this religiousness if you’re only allowed the have cous cous in a narrow window during Friday afternoon.
The country is astoundingly cheap – I spent less than 15 euros in 3.5 days there, and you can have a filling lunch for something like 40 cents. It really makes you understand all the stories of Westerners moving South or East in order to live like kings on their paltry salaries. That said, then you have to put up with people harassing you all the time. Overall, the country was an eye opening experience and a good opportunity to expand your personal horizons, even if I was happy to get away from all the dirty beggars by the end. I’d be down to come back and go deeper, but not alone – Africa is no continent for solo men.
Finally I crashed back to Spain, and spent the night in Cadiz in La Casa Caracola, which was a great little hole in the wall hostel filled with friendly people. Cadiz looked like a fun laid back town, but I wasn’t feeling too good, perhaps because of Moroccan food coupled with leftover bronchitis, so my time there and subsequent night in Seville en route back to Barcelona were painful but not worth recounting to you fine folks.
Then it was off to Ibiza with 2000 other Erasmus students from all of Spain. The days blur together, but I’m getting a wicked sunburn and not much sleep, sums it up pretty well. I learned that what we Americans call a “farmer’s tan” is a “futbol player’s tan” to those soccer crazy Europeans.