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| Cait on board boat to Morocco, with Gibraltar in the background. |
We got to the port and boarded our boat uneventfully enough. The passage over was on a "slow boat" and took about an hour and thirty minutes. I napped while Cait and Mom played gin and chatted with a couple of people from the states. As we were docking, the steward asked if we had our passports stamped yet. What??????? We, along with everyone else in our cabin lounge (about 11 people) had assumed that we would get them stamped as we disembarked. We assumed wrong. Apparently we were supposed to have had them stamped during the passage....but because the music in our cabin was playing spanish covers of songs like "If I were a Boy" so loud, no one heard the announcements. We couldn't disembark because the customs "policia" had left the boat already, so we were all stuck there for about an hour. During the hour, the "customer service specialist", interestingly enough named Mohammed, came by to scold us for not getting our passports stamped. Pointing out that there were 11 of us, all from the same lounge cabin, 4 American, 5 Middle Eastern, and 2 of some European descent.....we tried to tell him that we hadn't heard the message. He condenscendingly asked if we were American. When we replied yes, he ...again condescendingly...said...."yes this happens all the time with Americans because you don't listen to the announcements". I guess if we are going to be stereotyped, it is better to be stereotyped as a society who doesn't "listen" than to be stereotyped as something like a suicide bomber..........erghhhhhhhh.......No telling what Mohammed would have thought had he seen Mom peeking into the Mosque in Doha to "just take a picture or two". We hoped this wasn't setting the tone for the visit to North Africa!
When we were finally allowed to leave the boat, they had boarded the return trip, so we had to go down to the bowels of the boat and disembark out of the cargo hull. Now, this is a BIG boat....with three cargo levels....and tied up to a big commercial dock.....Thus leaving us standing in the middle of a big empty dock, looking a bit silly I'm sure, and trying to figure out how to get from the dock to a bus or taxi to take us the 30 kilometers to Tangiers. Thankfully, we met the first of what would be a series of great Moroccan men who would help us.....and he directed us to the customs entrance and then to the bus.
As we approached the bus, a man tried to approach us. The same official who had helped us stopped the man and wouldn't let him talk to us. We continued to go where we had been directed, but the man kept alternately screaming to us and screaming at the official. Apparently he had wanted to offer to take us to town and the official was not letting him. The screaming escalated and continued long past when we had boarded our bus. As we drove off, another policia had joined the scene and now all three men were screaming at one another!!
The bus ride to town was perfect. We went through a rural area....on a brilliantly modern road.....where everything BUT the road looked like centures gone by. Few of the hillside homes had access to power, and the people were moving about the countryside by donkey and afoot. There were goats and cattle being herded along small trails and burros carrying huge loads of produce to the market. It was very much like a movie....and yet strangely very different than what we expected, because instead of just sand and desert, the hills looked fertile and there were crops and groves of fruit bearing trees everywhere.
On the bus ride, we met a couple of men from Tangiers who were going home from work at the port. They spoke some English and spent the ride telling us about the countryside, the history of things we saw and what to expect when we got to Tangiers. Not only was it like having a tour guide on the trip, we got very useful information about how the best way to see the city was. The best information was that when we got off the bus, we would be approached by many men offering to "show us the city". They said it was best to wave off the first group of these men, and continue to the exchange office....but later allow a man to help us during the day.
Well, they were not exaggerating! As soon as we got off, men of all sizes, ages, and dress were trying to get our attention...asking us where we wanted to go, what we wanted to do.....it was certainly overwhelming. They were not quite grabbing...but certainly reaching for us....and all chattering in strange languages and accents. But one man was quietly persistent. He didn't yell to us...He didn't jump in front of us. He was a cute little man in a robe and colorful hat, with one single tooth left in his mouth, that he proudly showed off when he smiled. He just followed us along, telling us he was a family man, with a wife and two daughters....and then told us he was just like Coca Cola...everyone loved him!!!! When he told us his name was Ahmed, it was just too perfect...and we asked him to be our guide for the day....which would prove to be a great decision on our part.
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| Mom and Ahmed |
Ahmed....who for some reason I began to call Abdul, leading both Mom and Cait to call him Abdul as well (and he always answered to it).....led us through the streets of the oldest, strangest city we had ever been in. There were few tourists, since it was the off season....fewer women (all local, none tourists)....and no other women without head coverings. We stood out...but Cait....with her mane of red flying wild, was certainly the center of attention for the day. Children and men of all ages gawked at her, but never in a disrepectful way. The streets were narrow....but not like narrow by our standards. They were so narrow that we had to walk single file at times. The smells were amazing, and mostly good, especially in the spice market, where there were over 10,000 spices for sale! The sounds foreign, but pleasant. We climbed steps and visited markets and made our way to the apex of the city ......to the Casbah.....where once we climbed through the gates of the ruin and out onto the cliff, we were treated to a site that is almost undescribable. You can see the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, Spain, Gibralter, France and Morocco from that point. The shoreline was breathtaking and the sea as blue as you imagine when you read about it.
Heading back down into the city, we shopped and bought fresh breads. We saw rugs and beadwork and metalwork that were all esquisite. We also noticed that because there were so few tourists, we had aquired a bit of an entourage. Here we were, three women, all bare headed, being followed led by Ahmed, who answered to Abdul, and followed by 5 or six other men. One man was sort of tricky. The city was a bit of a maze, and he just kept "appearing" at different turns in the maze. He always acted surprised to see us, but we finally figured out that it wasn't such a suprise!
When we stopped for a late lunch, it was at a quiet little local spot where we ordered a sampling of the local cuisine. We did have one little bit of excitement before we got to lunch.......when we were being seated, Mom's chair broke, and she fell just a bit, cutting her arm. Of course, it wasn't Cait or I who broke the chair...it was tiny Mom....making it even funnier, once we found out she wasn't seriously hurt. Not only did the waiter panic, but Ahmed (also known as Abdul) came running in...someone got the owner of the hotel, who took over serving us, sending away the waiter, who we never saw again! Then, as we ate, the men who had been following us during the day kept coming in to ask Mom if she was okay. The brought bandaids and fussed over her.......with the owner finishing our lunch service and bringing us one of everything!
One of everything entailed some of the best tastes ever! We started with a fresh baked loaf of round bread and locally grown olives that were the best I've ever had. Then we had a soup that was so good we all finished it, even though the day wasn't cold and we knew there was much more food to come. Next...a salad made with all the local vegetables, eggs, rice and tuna. Caits favorite course was the Pastella....a chicken filled pastry that was strangely topped with a powdered sugar and cinnamon mixture that was so much better than we ever expected. The main courses were a chicken stew mixture made with potatoes, olives, cabbage and carrots and a chicken couscous dish that was really rich and yummy. Finally, though we were all three stuffed, they brought us baklava (different from the greek version because it was much more like a candy than a pastry) and fresh mint tea.
More walking through the town helped us work off some of the massive meal we had, and we decided we would head on back to Spain, so asked Ahmed to take us to the port. He led us there, stopping only to write his address so that we could send him copies of the pictures we took....and left us at the entrance to the port.
We were sailing back from the small port right in the city of Tangiers so we didn't have to go back on a bus...but as we approached the dock, a man came running to me. He was trying to rush me, saying this boat that was leaving was going to be the last of the day. We knew the schedule said that there should be 3 or 4 more, but still, we trusted him and started to rush. Another man came to tell us to hurry as well, and I decided I better run ahead....which I did. After going through the exit station, I went to the boat, but the gangplank was already pulled away. I saw the cargo hull was still open so i ran down the cargo plank to the hull. The official there waved me to hurry....and told me he would let me on there. I said I had to wait for my Mother and daughter. He said to move away then, he had to raise the plank. Well, I figured at that point we couldn't be stranded in Morocco all night....so I jumped up onto the cargo gangway. He looked at me strangely and said... "you cannot leave your mother". I smiled as sweetly as I could....not leaving the gangway...and said....YOU cannot leave my mother. They waited....and once again we made our way through the bowels of boat and up to the place where we were supposed to be!!!!
After finding a seat, we found out the reason it was the last boat was because the seas had become so rough....but since this was a jet boat, our trip home was only about 45 minutes...albeit the roughest 45 minutes I have ever had on the water. It only made the day more interesting and the memories more lasting.
As good of times as we've had and as much excitement as we anticpate having the rest of the trip.....today will be hard to beat.
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