Hi
friends. Long time no blog, I know. It has been a difficult last month
for me (traveling is hard on a person...) because after the shocking
death of my computer, I was left without any access to the world wide
web. I now know how the Inuit feel. Stranded, alone; out on the icy
tundra just trying to stay alive. I think the Inuit now have internet
though, so really I was worse off than them. Through it all, I
persevered. For 40 days and 40 nights I wandered Europe, beaten down
and cut off from the world (with company of course) (sidenote from
Alice: Neil wasn’t even cutoff from the world. When I was there he was
constantly on MY computer and then once I left he went into a STARBUCKS
(in Europe, the home of amazing coffee) to use internet. Cutoff
indeed), until finally I got a brand new hard-drive on the final day of
Carnival! (For those of you who appreciate the irony (fittingness?) of
this tale ending on the first day of Lent, I'm glad)
So long story short (you know it is still going to be a long story), I
have now regained the capabilities to blog once more, and will get you
all caught up on the adventures, starting NOW!
Where I (actually, where Alice) left you last, we had just arrived in
Tarifa on the southernmost tip of Spain, in the middle of a
near-hurricane, and you (and Alice) were all laughing at my expense as
I was trying desperately to keep my umbrella from turning inside-out
and/or catching the wind and hoisting me into the sky Mary Poppins
Style. We did make it to our hostel alive and there made friends with a
Canadian couple before drying out and going to sleep.
By morning the
weather had cleared up nicely and we checked out the big sandy beach
and (carefully) touched the Atlantic Ocean. Alice was still suffering
from the effects of that cold she had captured upon arrival into the
country (for this reason I will call it the Spanish Flu), and her
symptoms now included total sinus congestion, so we popped into a
pharmacy to get some nasal (ew) spray (ew) (sidenote from Alice: I
apologise that Neil found it necessary to talk about my sinuses). If
there is one reason why Alice converses better in Spanish than I do
(you think it's because she lived in Venezuela, but really that's not
why at all) it is because of the amount of times we have had to go to
spanish-speaking-only pharmacies for one of Alice's ailments. This
pharmacy was no different. Alice did well, "Yo tengo dolor aqui..."
yada yada yada and then froze when saying what she needed, before
making the hand motion of spraying something up her nose, and saying
"chhh, chhh". Whatever gets the point across. The pharmacist understood
entirely, and we got the goods and took off.
We hopped on a bus to Gibraltar, and it took us almost all the way
there, dropping us off at the town on the immediate Spanish side of the
border (Gibraltar is technically Great Britain), La Linea. We got out
and walked in the direction of the Rock of Gibraltar, which loomed over
everything else. After showing our passports, we walked right across
the border (a first for both of us, and now we were able to say that we
walked to Great Britain). Land is precious in the tiny peninsula of
Gibraltar, so the airstrip is bisected by the only road in and out, so
as we walked signs instructed us never to stop moving and to stay
within the lines (sidenote from Alice: Neil didn’t manage to do either
of these things. He’s lucky to be alive.). Once we were out of harms
way and off the landing strip, we were greeted by a red telephone booth
and all other things British. There was no longer any trace that we had
been in Spain mere minutes ago, other than the beautiful, very
un-British weather. Suddenly all of the people spoke English (with
british accents) and we stopped for some delicious fish 'n' chips and
watched all the Coronation Street characters coming in and out and
chatting with each other. They didn't even know we were watchin'...
We hopped on the gondola which forged a path up the mountain (aka. The
rock) and then disappeared into the clouds which were trapped on the
top. We, too, soon disappeared into these clouds, and the spectacular
view that had been so hoping for only existed with a good imagination.
We got off at the top and took the audio tour of the viewpoint, so we
could at least hear about the amazing view if we couldn't actually see
it. The receptionist told us not even to bother going outside with all
the clouds trapped up here, but to our surprise when we did go out to
the viewing platform it had started to clear off! Those powerful
Atlantic winds blew the clouds right overtop of the rock and we were
afforded an amazing view of the city below, the monkeys (Gibraltar has
a bunch of wild monkeys for some reason), the rock, and Spain. We
squinted and said that we could also see Africa, but I don't think it
was clear enough to the south to actually see Africa. We snapped some
awesome shots and headed back to Tarifa, where we made some more
friends in the American group that was staying at the hostel, as well
as an Austrian guy named Tobias.
The next day we, along with all of our
new friends from the night before, hopped on a ferry and went to the
next continent (sidenote from Alice: YES, it was JUST as casual as this
sentence seems). We had found a really good deal with a local tour
company where we would get a ferry to and from the city of Tangier,
Morocco, a tour guide would show us around the city, and we would get
lunch, all for about $100. This was less than the cost of a ferry
ticket alone, so we jumped on the opportunity. We had not idea how they
could make any money doing this. We got out into the Strait of
Gibraltar and could see the mountains of Morocco on the other side.
Just seeing Africa was exciting. We got to Tangier and officially
stepped on African soil (I'm pretty sure I took a picture of our feet),
as well as entered an Islamic nation for the first time. We wore our
stickers dutifully on our chests and our tour guide picked us out of
the crowd and led us to his van in the parking lot (this went against
everything they ever taught me in elementary school). He spoke several
languages, so we got the tour of the city in English as well as
Spanish. He drove us around the main parts and explained all of the
history and stuff and things. We noticed a rather extraordinary police
presence, and he informed us that, it was our lucky day, the King of
Morocco was in town! This also explained the countless large flags with
the Kings face on them. There was at least one or two police or army
officials on every single block of the city that we passed, so we felt
quite safe in Tangier's hands.
We made our way up the mountain, past some beautiful vistas overlooking
the city and the Strait of Gibraltar, and came to a stop next to, wait
for it... camels! Ya, we got to ride them. I may or may not have worn a
fez while doing so (pics on FB). I must say, riding a camel is a cool
experience, I would definitely do it again. (sidenote from Alice: as
touristy as this whole tour was becoming – I am a firm believer that it
was an amazing way for us to see so much of Tangier in such a short
time. Fez, dusty camel riding areas and all) Afterward, we carried on
back down to the Medina (old city), got out of the van, and walked
through it. Surprisingly to me, there were actually more people in
casual dress than in traditional robes and scarves. Our tour guide also
noted that today was the holiest day of the week for Muslims (Friday)
so there was more traditional wear than usual. There didn't seem to be
a certain demographic that dressed more traditionally than the others
either.
Probably the highlight of the day for me was seeing an Arabic
guy about my age, dressed in the long robes and such - but sporting a
faux-hawk. The fohawk is my thing, but I can let him claim ownership of
it for the Arab World, I'll represent in North America.
The differences we had were obvious, we were from two different
cultures - two different worlds. Two different worlds which so often
had such difficulty finding common ground, yet we had done so already.
Two worlds, oh so far apart, yet we were united
by something so simple, yet so powerful: a faux hawk.
...So that was me
waxing poetic about mah hair-do. (sidenote from Alice: that actually
just happened.)
Moving right along, we were led through some of the markets of the
Medina, where we found quite-recently-offed chickens, rabbits, and
other creatures hanging up for sale, fully intact. We didn't stop for
much browsing. (Try getting that across the border. "Do you have
anything to declare?" "Ummmm, ya, a dead rabbit?") Our fearless leader
told us about the many little neighbourhoods that make up the 1.4
million strong city of Tangier, and how they each have certain
characteristics. They all have a school, a central water-source (as
most of the places don't have running water) and some other facilities
which I cannot remember right now (this was a month ago)(sidenote from
Alice: one of the COOLEST things (personal opinion) that they have is a
communal bread baking fire pit place. There is a man who sits in a
dugout room with a wood fire who cooks the bread. Everyone brings their
dough to the man and he cooks it. Apparently neighbours pick up each
other’s dough on the way and it’s all very communal and friendly and
lovely!), and I also noticed that they all seemed to have one room that
opened up onto the street with a TV and video games which the
neighbourhood children shared. We also walked through the centre square
of the city which housed a famous mosque. The king was due to arrive
for second prayer so there was a exceptionally large crowd waiting for
him. If only we hadn’t been running on strict tour-time we could have
met (or at least seen) the king! I guess we’ll just have to go back
again!
We next were taken into a traditional Moroccan restaurant for lunch,
which consisted of a delicious cinnamon soup, lots of bread, couscous,
shishkebabs, dessert of sugar bread (which is like bread that is made
out of ONLY sugar), and coke with Arabic writing on the bottle!!! As we
ate we were serenaded with Arabic music by a band of skinny old men.
(sidenote from Alice: the one that kept grinning at me was a few
helpings of sugar bread too many away from skinny) It was so sweet.
After lunch we discovered how this tour makes money. We were "given the
opportunity to go to a traditional Herbal Pharmacy and see all of the
traditional Moroccon health products!" This meant that we were all
paraded into the "pharmacy" (I do not use those quotation marks
lightly, this place was not legit) and sat in a circle around the
""pharmacist"" (check that out, DOUBLE quotes). He would tell us about
some mysterious powder which, after one sniff, would stop your snoring
forever, or another which would combat seasickness, or some garamasala
or whatever, and then his trusty assistant would bring the item on
display to each person and force you to smell. Literally, he would
squeeze your nose and close one of your nostrils and then hold the
strong smelling powder up to the other one, and you would smell and go
"mmmmm, smells gooood". There were like 26 different miracle products,
and I'm pretty sure what he said would cure acne for good, he also
presented as fine saffron. He even had "Moroccan Viagra". After he had
gone through all of the products, he went through them again asking
each of us how much we would like to be. There was about ten of us in
the group, and it was the most awkward time in the world because nobody
bought anything. Not even the Moroccan Viagra, amazingly. He would go
down the line individually and at first we were like "Ummm, no I don't
think I'll get any of that, Thanks!", but after the first ten minutes
we were like "No", "No", "No", "No". He stayed cool for the most part
but near the end he started to show signs of exasperation with these
cheap North American backpackers. I really wished there could have been
just one money-bags with us who was willing to buy one of everything,
just so it wasn't so awkward. SO awkward haha.
We FINALLY got out of
there (interesting experience, but dragged on a tad long) and our
traitor, I mean leader, took us to the next place, a rug store.
Here it was less awkward and drawn out, and we got a presentation on
how they make the finest rugs in the world and stuff, and then they
attempted to sell us the thousand dollar, 12 foot long rugs. Where am I
supposed to fit that? Well I guess there would be lots of room in my
wallet for it! O ha, I made a funny. But ya at least these guys were
nicer about it and didn't pressure us too much. (sidenote from Alice: I
am disgusted to see how LITTLE Neil has talked about these rugs. This
store was AMAAAZING! Packed from ceiling to floor with beautiful,
elegant, amazing, to die for rugs! We saw a woman making the carpets
using a traditional loom, we sat while they rolled countless beautiful
rugs of every shape and size out in front of me, and the entire time I
sat there mentally trying to work out logistics of fitting a rug into
my backpack and how on earth I would pay for it. Unfortunately, the
money to rug space and sensibleness ratio didn’t quite add up and I
left empty handed. The owner of the shop did offer numerous hundred
camels for me though (how flattering!). Luckily that deal never came
about and we successfully continued on our way.)
As we exited the building there were several men hovering around the
door ready to sell us stuff, like watches, rugs, miniature camel
figurines, jewellery, etc. I think they make all of their money off of
these daily tours, and I wouldn't be surprised if the tour company got
some of the cut. One guy picked me out of the crowd and offered me a
watch, "10 euro" he said. I, after zero hemming and hawing, declined.
"Good price" he replied, as if I would only now realize what a steal
his authentic Rolex's were. "I already know the time, thanks" I said as
I showed him the watch on my wrist. "Five euro," He bargained, "Good
price". I must be quite the bargainer, I thought, I just made the price
of that Rolex cut in half. After his smooth, professional start, the
Moroccan street-hawker soon became pathetic. "Please," he continued,
"Three euro, please" and he used his Puss in Boots face to perfection,
his eyes nearly making me want to cry. I offered him one euro for the
watch and he acted as if I had hurt him in some way, but I could tell
he was thinking about it. I really had zero need for a watch, so I just
kept declining, but he walked with me for five minutes all the way to
the next store, which he couldn't go inside. I wanted to stand on the
invisible line that he couldn't cross at the very edge of the open
storefront and stick out my tongue, but I thought better of it.
This
store was a little nic-nac shop with dewdads and trinkets and gewgaws
and other funny words. Alice turned out to be the big spender of the
day and bought a coin-purse.
After leaving the store we were told that that was all that was planned
for the tour, so we would have some time to wait for our ferry. As we
stood outside the store, all of the street hawkers took advantage once
again, and made their rounds through us. As you know, I like to be
creative with street hawkers, so I answered one "I don't speak
English", then he spoke Spanish and I said "No hablo Espanol". "What
language do you speak then?" I tried to think of something obscure,
that he wouldn't know, but the best I could come up with was, "Dutch"
(why I would say the name of the language that I speak in English, I
don't know). To my surprise, he started speaking Dutch, and I gave up
on trying to outsmart him. (Why the best job this guy could get was
selling toy camels on the street escapes me. He knows like 12
languages. I try to buy a ticket for a train in Italy and they know
only Italian)
We got back on the ferry and returned to Europe, knowing that, despite
the money-grabbing attempts, we would not be forgetting our side-trip
to Africa for a very long time.
