Awakened by the morning call to prayer at 5:30. Out to jog as the sky was turning from black to blue. The circumstances were quite bad for those I saw as I ran along the sidewalk next to the castle wall (sleeping in the hollow base of a street lamp, scavenging through trash, begging). Back at the hostel, I skipped the cold shower, ate the light breakfast of bread, jam, butter and café con leche. Then out to the bus stop with Nuri as our guide. We were all sorry to separate from him and promised to stay in touch by e-mail, until I visited Abobacker in Libya next summer (?!). We decided to go on to Fez on the strength of comments like ‘You have not really experienced Morocco, until you have been to Fez’. At the bus terminal, we allowed another ‘helpful’ guy who I thought was a bus company employee to get us on a bus with a scheduled 10:00 departure time, which did not leave until 12:30. And then he had the audacity to want a tip! In Morocco, there are numerous bus companies, each having a ticket counter at the terminal. Each has ‘barkers’ waiting at the main entrance and/or near the line to the ticket counter. Their purpose is to steer prospective passengers away from the competition and to their bus line. In addition, there are various con-men, who are independent of the bus line, who want to ‘help’ you for a fee/tip. All this happens amid a din of their shouting and arguing. None of these are in any kind of uniform. While waiting, I allowed a street kid to shine my shoes for 5 DM, and got some good pictures. Once we were on the bus, there was a constant irritating stream of men and women walking on to the bus and down the aisle, hawking food and various other things; also religious wacko’s, severely handicapped beggars, and on and on. Finally, we left at about 12:30 and arrived in Fez at 17:00. We got off at a bus stop near a McDonalds (we thought this was the main terminal, but learned later that it was just the first stop in Fez). At McDonalds, I had something called a McArabia, saw several stray cats and talked with 8 Moroccan college freshmen, who were chatty, but not very helpful. We walked to a hostel related in some way to the Rabat Youth Hostel, but it was full. The clerk advised us to take a taxi to the Bab Boujloud (the blue gate), a main gate into the walled Arab medina/city in Fez. For some reason, there was a rule that a taxi could not haul more than 3 passengers, which converted into 2 of the small red taxis for the 4 of us. Hannah and Jess left in the first one we hailed, with a contingency plan in case things went wrong and we got separated. After many tries to hail a taxi, Jennifer and I followed in another. Bab Boujloud was one of many gates, each shaped like the ‘eye of a needle’. By the time we all got there, it was dark and we found a hostel with 3 beds in a single room. We paid (20 DM??), dropped our bags and went out to sightsee and eat. The hostel was a few meters outside the Bab Boujloud gate. Inside the gate was an incredible maze of winding, narrow cobblestone streets and passageways, with open-air view of the stars. Lining these were many, many small shops of various sizes, selling everything from TV’s to raw animal brains. This was similar to the Kasbah des Oudaias, except creepier! In addition, the way became a steeper, downhill slope and the walls higher (30’ ??). The steep slope aggravated my right knee ache so badly that I could barely walk. After looking at some camel skin lamps (championed by Peggy Weisskirk) and a brief consideration of a 1200 DH dinner (too much!), the same con-man who had been ‘helping’ us, showed us to an alley that was supposed to deliver us back to the same ‘eye of the needle’ gate from which we started. In reality, we ended up a few gates away. Just imagine an irregularly shaped 20’ stone perimeter wall, with a few dozen entry gates in its 5 mile circumference, in the dark, in Arabic and the shops are all closing. Estamos perdidamos, we are lost!
November 20, 2007
November 2, 2007
Up at 6:30 and out to jog on the beach. It looked clean and nice from the hotel window, but actually quite dirty … plastic, trash, old shoes, dead birds and the occasional dead rat. Despite all that, there were 5-6 futbol games in process, teams of young boys/men … shirts v skins. I left the loose sand and got on a paved walkway. Back at the hotel, we 4 walked down the winding spiral stairs, out onto the street and into the cool sunny weather. Hiked several blocks to the bus terminal, bought tickets to Rabat (capital city) for the 4.5 hour trip. Bought cheese, flat corn bread, drinkable yogurt, espresso coffee. More scam artists when we arrived at the Rabat bus station; eg, four passengers cannot be in the same cab. We walked 1 block away and all 4 got into 1 cab to the charming Rabat Youth Hostel, which Hannah had found on-line for 50 Durham/night each (I never really figured it out, but I think that 50 DH = about 5 Euros = about $7.50). The exterior of the hostel was white, flat roof, Moroccan type. The interior had decorative tile lined walls and floor, an open court yard, 12 bunk beds/room, males and females separated and cold showers. We were checked in by a pleasant, English speaking, 30 year old Moroccan woman in a head-scarf. After dropping our bags on our bunks, we convened in the court yard and were invited to join in a lunch of chicken and vegetable couscous, eaten from a communal dish, followed by a kefir drink, all in celebration of some Muslim holiday. What a treat!
The invitation was extended by a 30 year old Libyan man named Abobaker. He described himself as the son of a wealthy farmer, currently working on a master’s degree in international law. We were soon joined by another young English speaking Libyan man named Nuri, who described himself as the son of a high level Libyan government official. He had traveled world-wide for 10 years, doing some kind of low-level, advance PR duties. They befriended us (might have had something to do with my 3 beautiful, young, female companions?) and all 6 went on a few hour tour of the Kasbah des Oudaias, a huge walled city palace/city and bazaar of 100’s of stalls with every imaginable thing for sale: modern clothing, shoes, electronics, traditional crafts (Hannah became a Muslim princess with her purchase of a head-scarf), jewelry (I bought a nice silver ‘Hand of Fatima’ good luck charm), raw meat, vegetables, grains and many things I could not identify. Nuri took us to a restaurant that served traditional i food . We had couscous and veggies and chicken hot dish, served in a thick red pointed dish, called a tajine. I did not realize it at the time, but this food took hours of slow cooking to make in the traditional tajine. We had fun and Nuri ‘smuggled’ in some canned Moroccan “Speciale” beer. Since alcohol is not encouraged in a Muslim country, we were asked to wrap each can in newspaper! Hannah and I showed the others how to fold origami cranes and boxes. Jess had her hair in dreds and saw 3 young men with dreds at a table near us and joined them for a while. As we left I got 500 DH from an ATM. I had coveted 2 Moroccan futbol jerseys I saw in the bazaar. Now that I had cash, Nuri volunteered to go back and get them. He was a remarkably nice young man, who seemed to delight in making sure that we enjoyed our time in Morocco. Back at the hostel, Nuri made some traditional, hot, sweet Moroccan mint tea (lots of suspended mint leaves). We all enjoyed that and some hashish was smoked. Abobacker brought out a photo album containing pictures of his family and the farm. He also said he had been in a men’s choir back home and then sang/chanted some ‘evening prayer’ sounding song for several minutes. It was hauntingly beautiful. I checked out at 24:00.
November 1, 2007 (cont)
Hannah is indeed brilliant, and loving, and beautiful and thin! We hugged and kissed and were so glad to finally be together. Also greeted by UW college roommate Jessica and Jennifer-Anne (a Brit they met in the CLM program). We all hurriedly walked from the bus terminal to the ferry terminal. Then things got confusing. Because of bad weather, all ferries were cancelled, except one at 21:00, to Ceuta (a Spanish colony on the Moroccan coast). At my urging, we decided to go for it (in retrospect, a mistake, in bad weather in the dark). This started a series of rip offs; I agreed to pay 145 Euros for all 4 of us, but was charged 264 Euros on my credit card! The actual ferry was cruise ship size, with capacity for 100’s of people and cars. I was somewhat reassured by that. However, we quickly realized why all other ferries were cancelled … this was a ROUGH crossing! We had brought on some food, which we ate at a small table for 4. Eating it was a mistake for poor, seasick Hannah (and several other passengers). I kept on a ‘game’ face until we actually docked at 21:00, on the north coast of Africa! Ceuta is a Spanish colony, on the tip of Morocco, east of Tangier. We got off and found a taxi to the Morocco border, as planned. We walked through a gauntlet of hucksters and con-men. We let one ‘help’ us fill out a form that we could have easily done without him, and then wanted several Euros each for his ‘work’. I refused, and finally gave him 4 Euros and then we walked away, over his considerable protests. We walked 100 meters to the official crossing. The indifferent guards checked our passports and forms and waived us on. Within a few meters we were in a somewhat desolate maze of ‘taxies’. Here we were treated to the ubiquitous gaggle of loud chattering con-men, in this case each trying to get us to chose his taxi, somewhat like jackals fighting over a kill. One named Mohammed somehow got our attention, but did not have any ‘taxi’ markings on his vehicle (an old grey, 4 door, manual shift, Mercedes). Amid the din, I insisted that he show me his license. He pulled a red folder from the glove box, which included a form with his picture and several stamps on it, all in Arabic (it could have been a prison ID, for all I knew), but it was something, so I negotiated the rate to Tangier … and we were off. We went to a gas station (?) and then to a police office in an alley (?). The uniformed policeman looked at Mohammed’s paperwork, then pulled me aside and reassured me that Mohammed was legit and that if were stopped on the road, we would be safe (this was all curious, but we were in fact stopped 3-4 times at checkpoints, and then waived on). Mohammed took a route that only a local could know (through alleys, through a huge port construction project site), driving like would-be F1 driver, on the wrong side of the road, passing on blind curves and over-driving his lights. He was a good driver. Despite all that, we made it safely to a hotel in Tangier (the city we would have preferred, but could not reach by ferry because of weather). The hotel was a modern, run-down, 10 story, Arab place. As we stopped in front, his engine died and would not restart. I was actually surprised that we had made it that far. I paid him and we went inside the hotel. I negotiated a 20% reduction in the rate for our adjoining 7th floor rooms. We went to the 7th floor and all crashed at midnight.
November 1, 2007 (cont)
After saying ‘Adios Amigo’ to the proper-English Scot, I hiked 2 KM to the bus station. As expected, there was no direct bus to Algeciras, Spain (my meeting point with Hannah) … so, I bought a ticket through Huelva to Sevilla, then ??? On the bus, I met a nice ‘older’ Spanish lady (she revealed in conversation that she was 65!) named Carmen. We became friendly. She even dictated exact instructions for me to follow when I reached Sevilla and then ‘mother-henning’ me out of the Sevilla bus station and pointing me toward Estuation Prado. After a 30+ minute walk along a beautiful section of Guadalquivir River waterfront and the amazing Alfonso XIII Hotel (built in 1928 by the Spanish king for an exposition), I entered the station and found the correct line to stand in to get a ticket on the 15:00 bus to Algeciras. By the time I got up to the counter, I was told to go to bus location #22 and buy the ticket on the bus. I rushed to #22 and learned that it was only 6 minutes until departure; sounds OK, except that I knew that there are no toilets on these busses and I was almost ready for a bladder explosion! Set my pack down in front of a likely looking guy and made a dash for a WC. Back in time to be the last one on board … and we were off. This is a long ride, about 4 hours. A friendly young guy let me use his cell phone to call Hannah (it seems that everyone in Spain has a cell phone).
Aside: Passed through a rural area where there were literally 100’s of giant, modern, power-generating windmills; as well as an occasional roadside billboard ‘cut out’ of a black bull – a 25’ tall Toro.
Finally arrived at the Algeciras bus station at 22:30, after an approach through mountainous, winding roads. I was greeted by my darling Hannah!
