Day 2

Early in the morning, we had our coffee and were off to the train station via cab. Once we arrived, one of the cab drivers followed us into the station, trying to get whatever extra money he could. He hit us up individually, talking a good story in English, offering his help and asking for charity. We talked him down as best we could, and continued to our train.

On the train, we settled into standard compartments. I watched the landscape change into desert scenes and sea-salt fields. Camels passed by, ugly and angry, but still fascinating. The man who shared our compartment was a Fes businessman, eager to give advice. He recommended a hotel on the edge of the medina, the "pension dahlia". As we spoke, he surprised me by occasionally jamming his finger up his nose. Damn! It's hard to maintain a conversation when he's digging for nasal treasure...

After one change-over in the middle of nowhere, we arrived in Fes and took taxis to our newly chosen hotel. However, roads only took us to the edge of the medina (old town), so we had to schelp our bags the rest of the way. We could see our destination, as it was painted in lovely striped bold colors, a departure from the barren and beige concrete all around us.

Once we secured our rooms and left our bags, all seven of us dove into the medina for something to eat. Always take your passport with you! The roads had become alleys; far too narrow for cars. Men in turbans matched our pace in the winding corners of the ancient city. We followed Kevin toward whatever lay ahead, with the surroundings of an age 1000 years past. Jesus could have fit right in with the donkeys and sidestreet merchants.

We hit a bigger junction; shops lined both sides of a new street. It was the middle of the day, and the middle of the week. The sun beat down; trading took place all around us, but the crowds were not unmanagable. In our walk, Foltz and I saw a chicken vendor slicing the throat of one of his charges, by means of a hand-held knife. We shortly settled into a cafe next door.

This cafe was casual, to say the least. It was filled with smoke from the cooking fire, which was arranged BBQ-style. Florescent lighting reigned. We drank bottled water and ordered grilled chicken and salad. The language barrier was surpassed to the degree required. We had a bargain, and left happy, even though the place was fairly filthy. Due to the maze-like nature of the medina, I could never find it again. Never, with any amount of money or time.

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Day 1 - continued...

First night in Tangiers:

Hotel secured, the seven of us went to dinner, hoping to find something nearby.

Since we were in an older part of town, the streets were all narrow, one-lane passages, and not terribly well-lit. It was about 9pm...

Kevin's Polish girlfriend Ania, about 7 months pregnant, was wearing a tight-fitting knit sundress. Suddenly, a man passing by yelled "SLUT!!" A few steps later, another male stranger approached her and shouted "WHORE!" He then carried on in French, ranting in a way we couldn't understand. We pushed on, but Ania had been reduced to tears. She was being publicly shamed for being pregnant and overexposed (in their minds) in public.

Within another block, we found a mid-range restaurant that looked authentic and cozy. Ania was still very upset, and Kevin was trying to comfort her. We hadn't seen many other women, and even though Morocco is not as conservative as many Muslim nations, the women we had seen were covered from the neck down. Ania's dress was normal summer fare by Western standards, with her legs and arms exposed, and a "V" neckline. She's not one to take insults, but became flustered when she realized that using her Polish or English wouldn't do much good.

Once inside the restaurant, we saw that we were the only patrons dining so late. Perhaps no coincidence, then, that we received exceptional service from 3 of their staff; all male. We all ended up with a variation of the traditional couscous, with roasted vegetables, flatbread, and meat. Dolmades (not sure what they're called in Morocco) made an excellent appetizer.

After dinner, we returned to the hotel - Michael, Will and I were sharing a very large room that was on the 3rd floor, overlooking the street. As we were winding down, we heard a commotion and looked outside to watch a fight being broken up. No one was hurt, but the large crowd and the shouts in Arabic made me feel very out-of-place. In the middle of the night, these feelings were reinforced by another call to prayer - at what felt like 3am?!? Can't sleep through that.

First stop: Tangiers

Arriving in the coastal city of Tangiers, the ferryboat unceremoniously dumped us on the pavement of what appeared to be another dirty dock in the industrial area. No gangplanks, no skybridge, and certainly no sidewalks... we walked past the freight trucks and and out to the fractured street in the hopes of finding a taxicab.

We had been aground for not more than 5 minutes when the "call to prayer" went out. It was dusk, and the minarets around us wailed like sirens: "allaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAHHHHH! AKBAR!" The atmosphere was more than a little alien. A nearby worker knelt on a scrap of cardboard and bowed toward Mecca. No one else seemed to mind, as they went about their work.

The seven of us - myself, Kevin, his parents Skip and Sandy, his very pregnant Polish girlfriend Ania, and two American friends (Michael Foltz and Will) piled into 2 nearby taxis and headed downtown.

Since Kevin was the self-appointed leader of this trip, and the only one of us who had been to Morocco before, he led us to a decent, antiquated hotel in the older section of downtown Tangiers. As the streets became progressively smaller, the taxis stopped in a square to help us unload. We walked about 2 blocks to the hotel and found the rooms to be incredibly spacious. However, there was no restaurant, so after a brief repose, we hit the streets again.

By this time, even at the peak of the June daylight hours, all was dark.

From Gibraltar (Algeciras) to Tangiers, Morocco

June 2005

We were at a friend's wedding in Spain, and had a few days to go to Morocco by ferryboat.

Leaving from Algeciras, Spain - we could see the Rock of Gibraltar from the boat.