November 9, 2007 (cont)

More screwed up dates!?! We used our tickets to see La Alhambra. La Alhambra is a group of sites, high on a hilltop above Granada, ringed by defensive walls and moats, built by some Arab Emirs from 1200 to 1400. The Arabs were sophisticated builders. Nothing I could write would do it any justice. However, here are a few of my observations:
- Because Islam forbids visual representation of Mohammed, or any living animal or plant, all Islamic art depicts patterns, not people or nature. Those patterns are beautiful and seen everywhere on walls, floors and ceilings throughout La Alhambra.
- The Arab influence in Spain is dramatic and much more prominent than the Spanish influence in Morocco. Arabs are proud of that, even today.
- The Emir’s palace, inside the walled section of La Alhambra, is awe-inspiring, even after 500 years and various Christian efforts to erase/replace Islam with Christianity.
- Aside: The tickets to get in are confusing. We thought the tickets got us into the main gate. It turns out that entry into the main gate is free. The tickets get you into the Emir’s Palace, in our case at 11:30. By the time we decided to go to the palace, we had missed our 30-minute time-window. After some cursing, we decided to buy another round of €11 each tickets for tomorrow, a good decision.

November 9, 2007

Lost a complete day with no journal entries, or maybe just got the dates mixed up? Anyway, today, up at 7:00, out by 9:00 with Sarah and Craig to a small café near the hotel for our normal (and good!) breakfast of roll, OJ and café con leche. Leslie and Sarah went off to shop. Craig and I got ATM cash and a 1GB chip for Leslie’s camera. Fortunately, Craig had recharged my AA camera batteries last night, so I was ready for action. We set off for a walk east of Granada, but with no specific plan. We followed the narrow winding streets up hill, attempting to reach a long wall visible in the distance. After the streets ended, we continued on steep dirt paths, until we passed some ‘caves’ dug into the hillside. When Craig stopped to take a picture, a young man wearing modern clothing appeared from one of the cave openings and said (in English) that there was no need to take a picture of the trash. I was confused by that, and approached him. He invited us over to get a closer look. He said he had been cleaning out the abandoned cave for 3-4 months and invited us see the inside. There was a mound of dirt and stones at the mouth of the cave. I climbed over and down the 6’ – 8’ foot drop to the cave floor. Although there are supposed to be elaborate cave dwellings in this Sacromonte area, this clearly was not one of them! The 3-room, man-made cave was dug horizontally into the hillside. The cave was 20’ wide by 20’ deep by 6’ tall. There was a main room at the entrance and 2 bedrooms deeper into the hill. The rough surfaced ceiling and walls were covered with white stucco/paint. There were no utilities.

The occupant introduced himself as Sandro, a 33 year old Dutchman (of perhaps Indonesian origin) and his black Lab dog. He invited us to have coffee and I believe that he was pleasantly surprised when I said yes. He had a 2 burner white propane stove with an orange gas tank. He boiled water and coffee together in a sauce pan (Craig later referred to it as ‘cowboy coffee’) and served it in beer glasses. He talked a lot and was energized by our presence. He said he was a former web designer, who had a problem with ‘international law’, but did not elaborate. Now he said that he lives without money, but works occasionally if he has to buy something. He was currently ‘homesteading’ this cave in southern Spain, but needed to have 2 long term neighbors vouch for him in order to claim ‘patrimony .. ‘, which would then give him the same rights as a Spanish citizen. He rambled on about being anti-Bush (Yeah!) and saving the world, sounding like a kindred-spirit with no-government anarchists. My kind of guy! I drank all the bitter coffee I could stand, dumping the rest on a small pile of rocks. We saw a bed in another room, as well as a makeshift table and 2 chairs in the front, but very little else. I asked him if he would be willing to take a picture of Craig and me inside his cave, and he did. We shook hands, thanked him and said goodbye. I wanted to take more pictures and also offer him some money, but decided not to treat him like a tourist attraction. Sandro had been very welcoming and kind to us, no other European had ever invited me into his private home. Craig and I climbed further up the steep hill, hoping to find a break in the wall. At the top we saw more hippies, a few vans, a church, a nice view of the barren hilly landscape and the Sierra Navada mountains in the distance. We cut through and around the church property, down the very steep hillside on switch-back dirt paths, through wild cactus and aloe plants and eventually back to the hotel. What an adventure! Out to tapas bars with Hannah and another OK night sleeping on the floor.

November 8, 2007

It was a cold morning (0 – 5 C). Sarah, Craig, Leslie and I walked to an inside cafe in the Plaza Nueve and ate breakfast of cafe con leche, OJ and croissants. Walked across the plaza, to get information from the Tourismo office and then decided to go through the cathedral again (this time without Hannah as a tour guide). Saw giant (2′X3′) hand lettered books of choir sheet music, that were held up in front of a choir (prior to printing presses and Xerox machines). Outside the cathedral was a band of 6 female gypsy (?) fortune tellers in modern clothing, offering sprigs of rosemary to every person and wanting to be paid to foretell fortunes. Hannah had previously warned us not to make eye-contact. There were sidewalk tea and spice vendors; I bought some Marrakech Moroccan tea. We bought bread, cheese, meat, cherry tomatoes and a pomegranate (a must in Granada!) from various shops, met Hannah and we 5 walked up the steep very narrow streets (which we shared with automobile, motor scooter and bus traffic; somewhat unnerving). We arrived at another plaza, with excellent views of La Alhambra; the large imposing hill-top fortress/mosque, built by the Moors (north African Arabs) as capital of their occupied territories for several hundred years during the Crusades, ending in 1492. We have tickets to tour on Friday. During this walk, I was somewhat surprised to see dozens of modern-day ‘hippies’; scruffy clothing, dreds, dogs, guitar playing, happy. Quite a flashback to the 60’s. I wished that I had had the courage to live that life back then; what about now? Back to the hotel and out to a fancy dinner, the only one of the trip, I had lamb couscous. We ended up at the gelato shop, a delightful place, with dozens of flavors; 2 flavors in a plastic cup for €1.6 (I had café and ?) Slept well on the floor again. I have a cold that I fear is getting worse. I suspect that I caught from a guy who was sneezing and coughing near me on a bus to Morocco (I had brought a few N95 paper air masks with me for just such a contingency, but they were in my pack, in the belly of the bus). I may need anti-biotics; difficult to pull off in Spain?

November 7, 2007

Cleaned up and organized our gear, said goodbye to our lovely hotel. Last breakfast at ‘our cafe’ (damn, the OJ machine was broken). Walked 30 minutes to our new hotel where we met up with Sarah and Craig at 19:00. Out for tapas and also had Churros Con Chocolate, a vey interesting and tasty desert; a big tray of fresh, long, 1″ thick donut-like pasteries and a hot chocolate pudding to dip them in. Unique and tasty; I am surprised this has not caught on in USA. Slept on my Thermarest air mattress on the floor in the bathroom with the door closed, so my snoring would not keep Leslie awake.

November 6, 2007

Breakfast at ‘our’ café, including OJ. More shopping, including my purchase of a 2 CD set of classical guitar music at Festival Discos. Met Hannah at 14:00 at the gelato place and had schwaga sandwiches with Elliot Peet (from Noblesville, IN), then to a tea bar and smoked flavored tobacco in a hookah pipe and drank Moroccan tea. Walked to Hannah’s apartment, saw her room and met more roommates. Then out for tapas again (going out for tapas in Granada is a very entertaining thing; combination of beer/wine and a variety of free snacks served with each round of drinks, bar-hopping and running into friends, starting at about 14:00 and continuing until 9:00 the next morning, 7 days per week). In one place, a white haired gentleman came in with an acoustic guitar and played solo classical Spanish music. I loved it, although it was a little too noisy in the bar to hear him well. Apparently, the norm was for the musician to ‘pass the hat’ during breaks. I put in 5 Euros, which was a lot for the circumstances, but a lot less than I would have gladly paid for a concert, if I could have found one. I asked the bartender for a business card to keep as a little souvenir. He gave me an attractive postcard, which the guitar player gladly signed for me. Then we went to an Irish pub! I had a pint of Guinness (served in a frosted glass, too cold for me) and peanuts. There were 3 HDTV’s, each with a different European futbol game on! Liverpool beat Glasgow 7-0. I was in hog heaven again.

November 5, 2007

Leslie and I got up early Monday morning, out to have café con leche, croissant and fabulous OJ (which I accidentally ordered). We hiked around, taking many pictures. I bought her a single red rose, at the urging of a weird guy who walked out of a flower shop (the Hotel Abadia clerk later gave us a nice little blue vase for it). While shopping for post cards, a little old lady pointed out a specific card in the display rack, then led us around the corner and pointed up the hill. We followed her suggestion, meandering around until we ended up on a hilltop at an outdoor café, near a church. We ordered sangria (the best one of the trip) and Alhambra 1925 beer in a cool green bottle and were given our first free tapas! The whole experience was great and a wonderful introduction to Granada. Hannah met us at our hotel at 14:30 and escorted us to the Los Italianos sidewalk gelato shop (many beautifully displayed and delicious flavors). Gelato became a staple of our daily diet. Hannah took us to the Cathedral of Granada and was quite the tour guide, followed by shopping. Later we did our 1st drinks/tapas/dinner/bar-hopping, another staple of our daily diet.

November 4, 2007

The ferry crossing was better this time, but still rough. We nearly (10 minutes) missed the ferry because we were seated in the wrong waiting area, but it worked out. At the time I faulted Jennifer for this near miss, but in retrospect, I believe that I was expecting too much from an 18 year old. The balance of this part of the trip is a blur, caused by only getting 3 hours of sleep in 1 hour increments! The highlight of the whole Morocco segement of the trip was getting to have this adventure with Hannah.

This starts the Spain part of the trip. My knee continued to ache. Hannah insisted on carrying my pack to help me and also not to slow us down. She could walk faster wearing the 17 kilo pack than I could wearing no pack … a tough cookie, that Hannah. We spoke with Leslie on the phone 2 times as we approached Malaga. She was justifiably terrified about our well being, frustrated by her 8 hour stay in the Malaga Airport and pissed off that we had not planned well enough to arrive on time to meet her. I really enjoyed the mountain views coming into Malaga. Met Leslie at the airport, then taxi to the bus station for a 3 hour bus trip to Granada. Taxi to our delightful Hotel Abadia, then Hannah on to her apartment and school the next day. We all crashed.

Oops, forgot my reflections:
- I loved Portugal. There are so many more things that I would like to have seen and done there than I could squeeze in. The weather was perfect, the people were welcoming toward me. The language is beyond me. I hope I can return someday.
- Morocco was generally a negative experience. I saw and learned a lot. I liked the food. The Moroccan people were loud, boisterous and slovenly. They seemed to lack pride in their surroundings. The amount of trash and garbage in the streets was alarming to me. But the worst part was the constant attempts to scam me and others. I hope I never have to return.
- I learned a new respect for Arabs, Berbers/Amazighe and Islam from the Libyans. I also learned 2 Arabic words: Chukaran = Thank you, Afuan = You are welcome.

November 3, 2007 (cont)

Eventually, we figure it out, with some help from a touristy ‘You are here’ map in French and Arabic. During this time, we all discussed our looming departure-time crisis. I proposed the alternative of catching the train to Tangier at the ungodly hour of 1:50. We made it back to the hostel in time to eat a traditional Moroccan couscous meal at the cafe attached to the hostel. There was a televised futbol game in a room that opened out onto the sidewalk café while we were eating. It was packed with about 100 boisterous fans, all drinking tea. I was amazed that there could be a sporting event and a room full of rowdy futbol fans and not a drop of alcohol anywhere! We went to our room, got about 1 hour of sleep … and we were off. This time I did not mind tipping the hostel guy for making our arrangements. The train was old, but functional, we each slept 2-3 hours, arriving a little after dawn.

November 3, 2007

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 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.