I am alive. I have had so many experiences in the last week and a half it has felt like two months. I apologize to those of you who have sent me e-mails that I haven-t responded to I have been really sick with a sore throat and achy body due to not getting any rest and being so run down. I am in Grandada and the last two days I have been in a nice Pension down the street with a room all to myself!! After my experience in Tarifa with pensions I was a bit nervous but the guy who ran this one was so nice and kind. I am currently at the Oasis hostal which has free internet so I will be bringing you all up to date within the next few days. Lets just say I am glad to be alive after everything I have experienced. I did get to Morocco and was glad to leave. Some parts were really good but there were some bad as well, a good learning experience. Happy belated Easter to everyone and I will post more later today as there is a que of people staring at me as the other two computers are not working for some reason. More details to follow..
XOXO Marci
Ok I arrived in Tarifa on Friday afternoon. I met my 2 roommates who were just arriving as well and we went exploring the town. Tarifa is beautiful , it is a well known destination for wind and kitesurfing. I had booked a pension which was the only available lodging that I could find over the internet in Tarifa. I had heard good things about pensions as they were usually family owned and ran. Well my place in Tarifa was awful,the family that ran it had hatred and little respect for those staying there. There was not anything anyone could do as everything else in town was booked. Tarifa is a very small windy coastal town, like a Hood River yet tropical and warm with palm trees.. Also this last week was Semana Santa which is a huge holiday celebrating the week before Easter. It is like Spring Break for all of France and Spain. The town was packed with people who wanted to party. The first night my two roommates and I, Ingrid from California and Elisa from Germany who was a kite and wind surfer instructer, hung out and made a nice dinner together and Mojitos and went out on the town. The nightlife doesnt start until 1'00 and goes until 6 or 7 it is crazy! So we all went out a couple nights but it was just really wild and exhausting. The party scene was like something you would see on MTV, the girls wearing the most outrageous outfits and the guys over the top as well. Really not my scene but interesting to be involved with for a couple nights. So on Sat we got up and went to Gibraltar as they had seen my pics and wanted to see the monkeys. We were going to take the cable car up the side of the rock to get to the monkeys. We got off the bus and Elisa starts talking about how she is afraid of heights and look how high those cables are, so I look up at the cables as I am walking down the hill, not a good idea on a limited amount of sleep, so I twist my ankle as I am looking up, grab Ingrids arm to try to catch myself, and proceed to fall off the sidewalk, scraping my knee up. I was lying there in the road laughing, when the girls grab my arm and say get up, get up, as there was a car heading for me. The car ends up being a police car and they stop and say are you ok, I smile and say I am fine thanks, of course the girls and I howl with laughter at how I fell like that, Elisa was behind me and she said it was like slow motion as she watched me lose my balance. It gave everyone a good laugh in the days to come.. So after all the drama of how we were going to die in the cable car going up the rock, they ended up being closed due to it being too windy, which was good because at that point even though I am not afraid of heights I had gotten nervous as we had talked about it. We had a wonderful time with the monkeys and I got a ton of good pics so it was all worth it. So the good part of the hostal was the location, close to the bus and grocery store, the people staying at the hostal and that is about it. Example When we returned from Morroco the owner burst into our room one morning as it was close to check out time and the two hot guys in our room hadnt paid yet and were still asleep in bed. I was feeling sick and I was still in bed too. He screamed at them to EITHER PAY OR GET OUT but I just couldnt believe he would just burst into the room like that, he didnt knock or anything. That is just one example but I dont want to dwell on that because it sucked. So Elisa agrees to go to Marrakesh with me on Mon. There were six of us in a room and it was so packed with luggage you could barely walk to your bed. None of us had gotten hardly any sleep as Ingrid had a really bad cold and was coughing all night and there had been a bad thunder storm as well. I just felt really run down and wanted to wait until Tues to go. Elisa was leaving Tarifa Friday so she wanted to go Mon so we would have more time. I finally agreed thinking I would get some rest on the night sleeper train we would take to Marrakesh, I was wrong. We took the ferry from Tarifa to Tangier, Morroco at 5. You gain two hours when you go from Spain to Morroco. So it was only 3 in Morroco when we got there. We met some nice guys trying to get a cab to the train station and shared a cab with them. The exchange rate is really good for the Euro in Morroco, it is 11 derham to 1 euro. So we were looking forward to being able to save some money, the guide books stated that we could get lodging for about 3 Euro. We had left our lugggage with the hostal and only taken the bare minimum with us. We get to the train station and they are sold out of sleepers to Marrakesh, it is a 12 hour train ride so we were really looking forward to having a nice place to rest before we arrived the next morning in Marrakesh. So one of the guys said how about Fes instead, we didnt know what to do, there was a train that left in 5 min so we all just said why not, we jumped on the train and amazingly got seats all together on the train. The train was completely packed people sitting in the hall of the train, you have to walk over them playing a game of Twister to try and balance as you try to find a place to put your foot and not step or fall on anyone. The guys were in front of me squishing their way through, and I couldnt stop laughing because it was such an absurd situation. Stepping over so many people and holding strangers hands to help balance. I just couldnt get over it! We didnt get to Fes until around 2 in the morning because of the delay with the connecting train, making it actually 4 in Spain time, no sleep, in a dangerous country, without room reservations, not the smartest thing I have ever done in my life. They were having a taxi strike in Fes so Elisa and I chose to stick with the two guys and walked around with them trying to find a hotel.
I am so glad I am here in Granada, I am feeling so much better physically, and it was a lovely sunny day and I spent the day hiking to the top of this really steep hill with a nice guy and girl from Australia to see the gypsy caves. This is such an amazing place. As I am typing this my bad memories are fading as I am surrounded by great fun people and the bar room is right next to the computers and they are blasting Lilly Allen so I am chair dancing unable to concentrate on the dramatic stories I have to tell so I will continue my story tomorrow.
XOXO Marci
