Last stop: Lisbon, and scurvy!

This is it. Literally the end of the road. The bus I hopped late in the afternoon in Seville took me a sleepy six hours along the coast, over the border, via Faro, and north to Lisbon. A bridge over a roaring river tells you that you are entering Portugal. Our stopover in Faro was brief. Long enough though to sample my first bit of Portuguese language and for me to say, “Obrigado” after buying a can of coke from a news stand on the street near the bus station. Soon I was going to be let off in the last city that I intended to visit on this trip. Lisbon is the capital city of Portugal and its largest city. It is one of those up and coming cities in Europe that attracts young tourists looking for good weather and hip nightlife. It is located on the coast, on the Atlantic Ocean, and is similar enough in latitude that if you look straight west out to sea and somehow are tall enough to negate the curvature of the earth, you’d see Boston, the shining beacon of a city looking straight back at you. But because of trade winds and sea currents and its location in relation to the continent it belongs to, its climate is nothing alike to that of Boston’s. Lisbon is warm, mild year round, and perpetually sunny. It is a city in the south. And it was my last stop on this long, long journey.

We pulled into the bus station right at dusk, as the sun was receding further and further below the horizon, I hopped off in search of the metro. Lisbon is not really a large city, buttressed by the a large river that quickly meets the sea, so orienting myself was pretty simple. And the hostel I had reserved was located right in the heart of that hip district that is drawing all the Euro youngsters to the city. The hostel was a three minute walk from the metro stop, located on the top floor of a beautiful, old building by a small square. When I walked out of the metro and out into the square, people were clustered in groups, sitting on steps, on railings, standing in crowds in the middle of the square, talking, smoking, and drinking. I could hear the music from bars and clubs in the distance. I found the hostel easily, took the elevator to the fifth and top floor, and checked in with the super friendly girl at reception who went really out of her way to help me, recommend places to me around Lisbon, and talked to me more as if I was a friend and not a customer, even inviting me out for a drink with her when she got off at midnight with another person she had met at the hostel. She recommended to me a place to eat, it was 10:30 and I was starving, a place called Casa do India, a very local, down to earth place, and she recommended a Portuguese dish, all for a very reasonable price. I was very happy for the recommendation and walked the five minutes across the street and down to the corner where the little restaurant was located. But it seemed that the quality of food here was no secret, the place was packed to the brim with people, and, being a more local place, lacking English and tourists, I decided not to try and squeeze myself into a seat somewhere and instead wandered around the nightlife district in search of some food. But I remembered the place and the dish and promised myself that I would return before I left the city. I finally found a place that served some cheap, late night sandwiches in the bar district, and realizing it was well past midnight, decided to return to the hostel and go to sleep.

Lisbon is set on the edge of some very steep hills that slope in and down to the water. It reminds me a little of parts of San Francisco because the very steep hills are sometimes a little too difficult to walk or to drive and so they have cable car trolleys that you can hop to make the trip up and down these narrow corridors. There is also a massive bridge, much resembling the Golden Gate Bridge, that connects Lisbon to a neighboring satellite city across the huge rive that dumps into the sea nearby. The nightlife district that I had been wandering around the night before is built deep in the heart of the city, in dense alleyways that criss cross steeply up the side of one of these hills. It makes for a pretty cool scene. I got up the next morning after sleeping in a little and decided to wander around the city a bit, casually, no strenuous agenda of sightseeing or anything like that. I walked out of the little square that housed my hostel and turned up the hill along the edge of the nightlife district, and near the top into a residential area with a park on one side that had views of the rest of the city that slope down another side of a hill toward the east. In this direction, Lisbon moulds itself down into a deep valley, buildings interspersed amongst huge leafy trees, and then eventually rises up in the distance to another huge hill, atop which lies an old castle. So I sat on a bench in this park for awhile beneath some trees, soaking in the warm air and the sweeping views over Lisbon. I could smell flowers from a garden nearby, and I read a few chapters of “The Shadow of the Wind” which I had nearly finished.

A view out over the valley of Lisbon and the opposite hill with the castle

Eventually I continued back up the hill and into the neighborhood a bit further. The road I followed started to bend along the top of the hill to the left, away from the valley that opened up to Lisbon, but directly above the nightlife district. I decided to trickle my way down through the alleys that lead through this area and down back towards my hostel to see what the neighborhood looks like during the daytime. Last night was a Saturday night so the place was jammed full of people. This morning, city workers were power washing the cobbled streets with water from a truck, blowing the rubbish and beer bottles that had accrued over night, and old men with pipes were walking small dogs and talking to each other in the streets. It turned out that this neighborhood that had become so hip recently, was one of the city’s oldest original residential neighborhoods and although the first floor of all these buildings are now full of bars and restaurants, the upper floors are still full of residents. It was nice to walk around these streets late on a Sunday morning and see the residents slowly waking up and buzzing around in the daylight hours. The streets in this area are so weird because of their orientation in relation to the steep hills, but they are beautiful in their own way, odd walkways and steps duck in and out of old buildings and cross trolley tracks. Flowers burst from every window sill and doorway and even the residents have seemed to embrace the graffiti that is found on every wall. It gives the pretty neighborhood a bit of an edge.

The nightlife district in the daytime

Flags of Portugal waving in high terraces above the old neighborhood

The tram that ferries people up and down the steep alleyways

I walked back towards the plaza where my hostel is located and then down the hill towards where the main part of the city is. I was going to stop in on the Casa do India for lunch but they were closed on Sundays, it would have to wait for tomorrow. But I was getting hungry. When I was in China, or more recently, when I was living in Chengdu, my body had to adjust to the drastic dietary differences between my normal Western diet and that of the spicy foods of Sichuan province. At first I had a hard time of it but my body eventually adjusted to the intense spices found in everything. But there’s more to it than the spices. Your body, growing up on certain foods with certain levels of vitamins and minerals, gets used to these types of food that you eat every day and when you plant yourself for a long period of time in a place where the food is completely different and contains drastically different levels of different vitamins and minerals, your body needs to learn to readjust or else there are certain health repercussions that follow. My stomach eventually got used to the food but my body eventually couldn’t keep up with the chemical imbalance as a result of the different vitamins I was exposing myself to. My immune system weakened and I started getting sick more often, being more vulnerable to colds and viruses. But the worst thing that happened was that after awhile, I had started to develop early signs of what I, in my non-medically trained way, can only describe as scurvy, a resulting disease from a lack of vitamins that come from fresh fruit and vegetables, most traditionally a disease that plagued sailors as they went months at sea without fresh food (in the old days). Scurvy, early on anyway, makes your gums very sore and makes it nearly impossible to eat anything. I had to supplement my new diet with a heavy dose of vitamin pills to regain that balance. I got over it eventually but the reason I’m telling you this story is because it finally came back to me, as I feared it would, here at the end of my trip in Lisbon. Perhaps my body was trying to readjust to a normal western diet but I think, due to my traveling and cheap eating, I just wasn’t getting enough healthy meals. Luckily I had brought some antibiotics for this purpose and with another round of supplemental vitamins, I was quickly back in the game, but I’ve come to appreciate the importance of a healthy diet. Anyway, long story short, I went to go find somewhere healthy to eat for lunch. I found a little veggie cafe and ordered a big pasta salad with every vegetable I could find. It tasted good and I could feel my body processing the vitamins from the vegetables through my body. It was nice. But word to the wise, for travelers who intend to do serious traveling for a long period of time, making time to cook and eating healthy, especially for those on a budget, is a must. Hostels are always equipped with kitchens and finding food to cook with is easy, anywhere. It is just a matter of devoting the time to do it. I’m a super lazy traveler, and I suffered for it.

But like I said, I was back in the game, I wandered down into the valley. My goal was to wind through the central streets of Lisbon down in the valley, up to the other big hill, to the castle above. I eventually found it. The entrance fee was pretty pricy and I wasn’t too interested in wandering around the old fort, the neighborhood around the castle held my interest enough on its own. I got really excellent views of the bay below and the city sprawling towards the west, and the other hill opposite, where my hostel is. I made my way through some side streets, allowing myself to get lost in the quiet alleys of some local residential areas, and came across another, virtually silent square, hidden in between buildings. I took a bench and began to read some more. I stayed here for at least two hours it was so pleasant. Eventually a local family came walking though and took up residence in the square with some extended family members or neighbors perhaps. The kids played in the nearby fountain while the adults talked around another bench. They eventually got up to slowly leave, an old man in the group tried to make an animate point about something to another family member but he had a pipe in his mouth that he refused to remove so the point he was trying to make seemed lost on the family member as all that was coming out of his mouth was a strong, “Shushushush” sound. He had beady glasses and a casual emerald green, corduroy jacket on, and he waved his arms around as if that would help his family members to understand. An old woman, presumably his wife, giggled at the whole ordeal. Eventually they left around a corner of the square and I did too, back into the valley.

A view out into the bay, the "Golden Gate Bridge" in the background

One of the entrances into the castle neighborhood

Fancy tapestries hanging above the entrance way of a government building

I walked around the city’s main square a little, packed with tourists. I was offered hash on eight separate occasions in this area. It was odd how blatant their attempts were. Especially considering the heavy police presence that for some reason hovered around every corner of this city, possibly in an attempt to curb the illegal hash trade, I don’t know. But it was getting late and I was getting tired so I made my way back to the hostel. I had one more day in this city and on this trip. Tomorrow I planned to do much of the same thing. I planned to eat at the Casa do India, and then take a tram a little bit west, along the coast, to discover a new neighborhood recommended to me at reception.

One more day.

The soul of Spain

This was a travel day, a true travel day. My plan was to wake up, take the ferry back to Tarifa, then catch the bus to Seville, via Cadiz. If all went according to plan, I’d leave the hostel in Tangier at 8 in the morning and get to Seville at around 8 in the evening. A long day. I woke up, checked out, wandered my way out of the medina, and walked down to the ferry landing. I hopped the ferry and took a nap. No one lined up along the wall this time, waiting to stamp their passports. After and hour and a half, I was back in Europe, checking in through immigration like normal. I walked back through familiar, wonderful Tarifa, to the bus station at the other end of town, by the beach. I thought I was going to have to take two buses today, one to Cadiz, a coastal town, and then connect to a second bus to Seville. I discovered though that there were direct buses to Seville, but that the next one didn’t leave until 4 in the afternoon. I chose the direct bus route and suddenly I had some time to kill. I bought some cheap food at the grocery store and with that, plus some leftover olives from the medina, I sat by the beach and ate some lunch. It was another beautiful day along the blue coast. I wandered back to the little bus station and waited for my bus to pull up. It eventually did, I paid my fare on board, and sat on this bus as it rolled through the Spanish countryside up to Seville.

A view across the river, behind me is the Plaza de Toros, where the bullfighting stadium is located

I didn’t know much about Seville before I got there, but beforehand, when I told people that I was on my way to Lisbon and I was going to spend the night in Seville, they all told me that Seville was wonderful, possibly the most beautiful city in Spain, and they were disappointed I was just spending the one night. After our arrival, I started to get disappointed as well. I walked off the bus late in the evening and navigated my way to the hostel. Seville is a truly Spanish city. By that I mean, everywhere you turn, Spanish culture exudes. This city is one of the most attractive places I have ever been. The architecture is old Spanish, through and through. The climate is warm, if not hot, much warmer than any other place I have traveled to on this trip, the landscape is dotted with palm trees and other exotic, warm climate plants. Seville is famous for its music, flamenco, I believe, and the Spanish guitar. It could be heard emanating from bars and restaurants as I made my way through to the hostel. The city is also famous for its bull fights that still go on seasonally. In fact, many of the bulls given to the fights are raised in the hills around Seville, as could be seen from the bus ride. Everyone walking around the streets, whether locals or tourists, are tanned, fashionably well dressed, and happy. Bars spill out into the street and tapas restaurants are everywhere. The city is so remarkably pleasant.

And my hostel was incredible too. I booked a night here as per a recommendation from the German girl I met at the hostel in Tarifa. The hostel is attractive, new, and also has a rooftop terrace with a pool, with a view overlooking a popular square below. I’ve never been to a hostel with its own pool. You know this is one chic hostel too when there is no sign to the place out front, just a discreet symbol that I had only recognized from the website as the hostel’s logo when I was booking the room the night before. I walked up to the guy behind the counter to check in, a guy from Manchester, England, who had come to Seville one year ago without a word of Spanish. Now, he’s working in a bilingual hostel, speaking Spanish fluently to the other patrons. Pretty cool. I took my card key and opened the door to my hostel dormitory room on the fifth floor of the building and walking in, looked around at all the empty beds and then looking down at the number on my card, realized that none of them matched. Then I realized that my bed was sort of occupied by a girl who was passed out, sprawled across the top of the sheets, fully dressed. Another guy who was in the corner of the room, watching over the girl said to me, “Sorry, this must be your bed. My name is Esteban and this is my girlfriend. She’s drunk.” It was 8 in the evening. I said, “Oh okay, no problem, I’m just going to head out anyway. Do you think you could move her over to her own bed when I return in a few hours?” He assured me he could. At this stage of the game I’ve learned to just go with the flow. You kind of have to be a bit laid back when staying in hostels. To be fair, she was in her own bed when I got back later.

I went back down to the reception desk to ask about bus tickets to Lisbon for the next day. Like today, I thought I was going to have to take two separate buses, one to Faro on the southern coast of Portugal, and the second straight north to Lisbon. Wrong again, there was direct bus. But he recommended that I go to the bus station tonight in order to reserve a ticket in advance. Since there are no easy ways to get to Portugal from southern Spain by train, bus is the only option and the seats tend to get filled up. But as soon as I was about to head out the door to make the twenty or so minute walk over to the river where the bus station was, it started to downpour, lightning cracking, thunder booming, downpour. I looked out the door and decided it might be best to wait a moment while the rain let up a little. While I was on the bus earlier, we had passed through this storm in the countryside. It was night and day between this single storm cloud and the blue sky surrounding it. In fact, I could clearly see out in the grassy fields the edge of the wall of rain and where it ended. Pretty weird. I figured this same storm cloud had now found its way up to Seville. But I also imagined that it would be a quick downpour and it was, I was able to head out into the streets about 10 minutes later. The rain had stopped but the storm was still visible above the humid air hovering over the beautiful city in the distance. Lighting streaked the skyline and cracked in a million different directions, traveling sideways, parallel to the ground. Shielded by the safety of the buildings around me, I confidently made my way along the road towards the river and to the station. 

Some colorful flowers and lively bushes in some side road in Seville

I walked up to the first ticket window where an old man sat behind a glass counter. He looked up at me when I approached and I said, “Hola, hablas ingles?”. He said flatly, like a man who had been doing this everyday for the last forty years, “No.” I said, “Okay, quiero una billeta para mañana a Lisboa en Portugal, por favor,” in my best Spanish. He understood me and I was proud of myself. But he also said he couldn’t help me, that I wanted ticket booth number three. I said gracias and repeated the process with a slightly younger, but just as tired looking man behind ticket booth number three. When asked if he spoke English, he replied, “Not really” in English, as if he got that question more frequently than he’d liked. So I just used my same Spanish phrase to reserve my ticket to Lisbon and not another word of English was spoken. I was really happy that I had two successful encounters in the language that I had given up studying years ago. I had my ticket in hand and I left the bus station to go explore a bit in the late evening hours.

My ticket for the bus the next day told me that I wouldn’t depart the city for Lisbon until 3 in the afternoon which meant that I had some time tonight and a little time tomorrow to explore. This was good news because I liked every inch of the city so far. I exited the bus station and walked back towards the street that runs perpendicular from the river, where most of the major sites are, towards the denser city center where most of the nightlife was rolling on around the streets. I passed a small plaza, La Plaza de Armas, across from the station where dozens of rollerblading tricksters had taken over. I read a sign nearby and it looked like they were practicing for a tournament that would be hosted the next day in the square. Some people had set up miniature cones and were doing tricks as they weaved in and out of the line of cones, some were playing soccer on skates, some were dancing around like they were on ice skates, jumping in the air and landing majestically. But most were just fooling around. It was pretty cool to watch. But I left them and continued on. 

A crystal clear morning in Seville

Getting closer to the plaza where my hostel was located, I could hear the sound of drums in the distance slowly getting louder and louder. I went down a side street to investigate and found a crowd that had gathered by the hundreds. Some people were simply watching but others had tied Spanish bandana head scarves around their head and led a huge procession slowly down the alleyway toward the main square. I have stumbled across things like this in the past, but they almost always were protests of some sort. I pushed my way through the crowds to get a better look at what was slowly rolling closer and saw a huge float, like a giant, ornate, box with several statues of Mary and other religious figures around the edge and topped by a huge cross, which to me looked like the Orthodox cross I had seen in Russia, given the trend of having another dash at a 45 degree diagonal, just below the main portion of the cross. The float was being carried by at least 20 people, all concealed below and within the box, their feet visible, slowly marching together in unison. Behind the box was a group of brass instrument players, at least a hundred of them. In the fore part were at least thirty or forty trumpeters followed by a cascading array of larger brass instruments, culminating in the drum line that I could hear from a mile away. They all had a shirt that read “Las Cigarerras” and they all played a sad Spanish serenade that matched the slow, wallowing pace of the procession. The trumpets were beautiful, playing unimaginably high notes, like playing an ode to an important local figure who had just died, maybe, I didn’t know. It seemed like a confusion of culture, music style, and religious affiliation, Arab, Spanish, and Russian, respectively. But I had only stumbled upon the grand procession and didn’t know anything about it. I stood by the side of the road as the procession of hundreds slowly moved past me, getting swallowed by the dark streets under the cover of night, further down the road.

I eventually made it back to the hostel, and taking with me my computer and a couple of Cruzcampo beers, the local beer of choice, I headed up to the peaceful terrace above and took a seat by the edge, overlooking the square and the people on their way to restaurants and bars, late at night. I was joined by a guy named Pedro, from Santander, who had come down to Seville to meet with some of his partners and promote a startup company they were founding. We had an interesting conversation about what it’s like living in Spain, how he liked Spanish beer, and what was going on with the procession. He assured me that it was very typically and very traditionally Spanish from the headscarves to the Orthodox cross that was not in fact Orthodox but Catholic, the diagonal dash that represents the Orthodox cross in the East is a symbol for the Latin letters that were written above Jesus when he was nailed to the cross. He had to work though so was off to sleep before too long and I had heard some lovely singing and wild applause coming from some corner of the plaza from high above on my terrace so I went to go check it out and see what the fuss was about. In a small bar below the hostel there was a good size crowd of young people jammed into the small space around a couch where a woman, accompanied by a Spanish guitarist and a bongo player who simultaneously worked those Spanish clapper things, was singing at the top of her lungs in wavering Spanish tones that sounded sort of Flamenco to me. It was incredible and she was very talented. The roars of applause coming from the inside of the bar was evidence of that. I observed the show from the open window on the street for a little while and then finally gave way to fatigue and made my way back to my now unoccupied bed.

I woke up the following morning to a bright and shining sun, made my way back up to the terrace for my free breakfast of toast and cereal, as is the custom for hostels in this corner of Europe, and prepared for my morning out and about, seeing some of the sights of the city. I walked back towards the bus station and the Plaza de Armas, along the gorgeous river that slowly drifted down its humid banks, passed the Plaza de Toros where the official bullfighting ring is, and down towards the palace. The palace is amazing. It consists of a massive open square with a huge, exotic fountain in the center, spewing water high into the sky. The square is shaped like a semicircle whose flat section gives way to a grand entranceway and whose rounded section is bordered by a moat and then the actual palace, ringed by huge pillars and a walkway. There is a scene in one of the newer Star Wars movies where Annakin, now grown up, is walking beside Natalie Portman and R2D2, explaining something about the palace. They walk the perimeter of the walkway along the edge of the palace and Annakin is talking about how inspiring the place is to him and his training as a Jedi or something like that. Anyway, they changed almost nothing about the palace in the movie because of how amazing the place actually already is. I spent a good amount of time wandering around the plaza and the gardens that sprawled out in front of the entranceway, much like R2D2 did.

The official bull ring in the Plaza de Toros

Stage coaches in the plaza in front of the palace

The fountain in the center of the plaza, the palace circling in the background

A shot from the balcony of the palace out into the square, also found as is in the Star Wars film

I kept going, winding my way through the dense alleys of the central part of the city, back towards my hostel. I ate lunch from a small deli in the Alameda de Hercules, another large plaza where kids were playing soccer on the tanned stones. Then I checked out of the hostel and hopped the bus to my last stopover in this long journey of mine, Lisbon, Portugal, a shining city on the Atlantic Coast. I was both excited and saddened, it would all be ending soon.

Couscous and a big bag of olives

My room in this hostel had just the right amount of everything to harbor an excellent night’s sleep. I think this is how bears feel when they hibernate in caves. The little door to the room, in the same style as the front entrance door, swings open on two hinges as I have to duck and bend in, the door height goes to my chest, and then shuts whatever remaining light is left, which isn’t much anyway. The result is a dark, slumbering cavern, a little cool as the heat of the day gets sucked out of the ancient stone walls and into the sky at night. It’a a good thing the other guy woke up at a reasonable hour, otherwise I may have never woken up. But he started stirring and I caught my bearings and too woke up, showered, and spiraled my way slowly, to the top, to catch my breakfast of baked naan, butter, and jam and some excellent Arabic coffee. I know how much I raved about Italy’s coffee, and rightly so, but I think Arabic coffee deserves its moment in the sun too. Arabic coffee, like Turkish or Greek coffee, is coffee prepared in a different way than that of Europe or the US. Arabic coffee is prepared directly in the cup, grounds sit on the bottom of the glass making it very strong and bitter. With some sugar the drink becomes an intoxicating start to the morning. It’s sipped slowly, because of the bitterness, and care in preparation, until you start to feel the grounds at the bottom of the cup. In some traditions, older ones, people were trained to read the patterns created by the grounds that collected at the bottom of the cup. They were supposedly like a charm or fortune, predicting the mood of the day. Kind of a neat tradition.
 
I didn’t hang around too long though. This was my only real day to explore Tangier, I was taking the ferry back in the morning. I didn’t have any specific plans though. I just wanted to walk and wander. Much easier and more relaxing than researching the sites and then spend all day being herded around in a pack of tourists. I wanted to get a sense of this place. I had by this time gotten the neighborhood, not figured out, that wouldn’t be accurate, but I knew and could recognize the main alleyways and I could get back to the hostel if I wanted to. That was certainly a step in the right direction. I followed the main access alley out of the little nest of side paths where the hostel is, along the edge of the medina over the harbor, and then turned north up the main pathway, through the heart of the bazaar, cutting through the middle of the medina. I walked past all manner of shops and touts. A good ten minute walk spits you out of the medina to the fountain that separates the old and new towns, the place I had wandered and relaxed the day before. Remembering this site of refuge fondly, I took up brief residence on a bench in front of the fountain. I sat there for a little while, people watching, when a person approached me, said hello, and took a seat beside me. I awoke in a pretty good mood that morning, the evening on the terrace had calmed my nerves completely. So as I walked through the medina this morning and people approached me and asked me questions and tried to sell me things, I was polite and gave them some attention and spoke to them at least, as opposed to the gruff cold shoulder I usually reserve for such cases. I think that’s best. Besides, sometimes, people are just being friendly. Yesterday, I was sitting near the same spot as I was now, near the fountain. I was left alone for a long time as I was munching on some bread I had bought for lunch, when a guy started to walk by, an older man with a white beard and a long stride and sunglasses and, walking passed me, said in my direction, “how are you today?” I was in the habit, that afternoon, of ignoring such advances, but, still passing and now turning back a bit said again, “not much of a talker, are you?” I then turned, looked in his direction, and smiled, saying nothing. He smiled in return and kept walking on. So this other guy came up to me today and, sitting down, asked me how I was and was met with a, “good thanks. And how are you?” He said he was also good. He asked me what I was doing and at the time I was looking at a map, well, a bad photocopy of a map. I asked him if he knew where the fountain was located on the map I was looking at and he said he didn’t, that he wasn’t from this city. I was a little surprised and then realized he probably didn’t want anything from me other than a chat. So I engaged him a bit. His name was Aziz, he was from a small city one hour’s drive from Marakesh, the capitol, was 23, and worked in a cafe. He had three days off and decided to take the overnight bus to Tangier for a brief holiday. He was by himself on this little trip and had just arrived a couple of hours ago. His English was broken but I understood most everything he said and he understood everything I said. We talked for nearly an hour actually. About how he’s frustrated with his country, how he can’t travel anywhere abroad because he doesn’t get paid enough, its too expensive everywhere else, that Africa has too many problems, how difficult it is to find a girlfriend in Morocco, and how much he wished he could see Europe and America, to confirm what he’s seen through films. I couldn’t promise him that he’d be able to confirm those impressions if he visited but I hope he gets to try someday. I didn’t know what his plans were for the day, maybe he just wanted to sit by the fountain and meet people, but I told him I was off to explore and he put up no resistance, we shook hands, and I left. I was happy for the genuine conversation and I think he was too.

Local fishing boats in the harbor below the medina

A view of the medina from below

I spent the rest of the day wandering around. I walked through a bigger, more open bazaar on a street of the roundabout circling the fountain, kind of like a middle eastern flea market. At the top of the hill along this street, there was a Catholic church, surrounded by a grassy yard in which a pretty graveyard was placed for all the residents and parishioners of the church. Maybe they were missionaries, many had died a couple hundred years ago. The church wasn’t anything too special but it was interesting that there was one in the first place. I walked back in the direction of the fountain and near the entrance of the medina there was a side entrance that covered what I soon found out was a dizzying array of goods, a food market a mile long, zigging in and out of the ancient neighborhood. Not many foreigners had made this discovery it seemed. I wandered through this drastically local market, down the never ending alley, passing all manner of food stalls, butcher stalls, fruit and vegetable stalls, grain and wheat stalls, spices, dried fruits, etc. I stopped off at one of the olive stalls and tried to buy 20 (two and half dollars) dirhams worth of olives. It’s a good thing I didn’t because when I pointed to the basket of olives I wanted and handed the old man my twenty, he gave me 15 dirhams back in change and then handed over a massive bag of olives. A bag of olives I couldn’t finish if I had a week. And the olives were so fresh and delicious. They were just standard green olives, he had pitted them, and I walked around the rest of the market and munched on them. The market alley culminated in a large covered room where nothing but various seafood stalls were set up. The room smelled indistinct from high tide and was packed to the brim with locals, but the various sea creatures that were sold there were pretty interesting to check out. I eventually escaped the maze of the food market and back into the fresh air, outside the medina. I found a small restaurant out by the fountain and took a seat out on the front patio at one of the tables. I was persuaded to order a bowl of couscous that was baked in a covered, clay pot, with potatoes and carrots, over a roasted chicken wing. It was an excellent meal. It came with some naan bread as filler and a small Arabic salad, which was just a ton of cut up vegetables with some balsamic dressing. The meal cost only a few euros, a good price for a good meal.

My meal of couscous and naan and mango juice

I then made my way over to the new part of the city. I snapped a lot of photos in this area because I knew I could keep my camera out without being harassed by a tout. I stopped in at a small newspaper shop, selling various Arabic and French language newspapers. I picked up a postcard and stamp and in French, we worked out the details. I’ve learned that the French had set up shop in this place a long time ago and it was important for the locals to learn the language in order to interact. Then later it became a status symbol of the Moroccans after the French had left. And now it is an official second language of the city. There is no english on official buildings, or in museums, or at customs, just Arabic and French. In fact, at least half of the cafes and shops and various places in the new town had French names and menus and signs. It feels like an outpost of France.

A souvenir shop in the new town

I found a nice place to sit for awhile on a ledge overlooking a park and the sea beyond. People were lounging in the park below, under the shade of trees. Nearby, a local CD shop was blaring middle eastern dance club music, when suddenly the music ceased and what I believe was some Celine Dion song started to play. I wondered if this was somehow for my benefit when the guy who changed the music kept making side glances in my direction. I sat for the duration of the song, humoring him, before I kept on walking.

Flowers from the garden in the Casbah museum

Walking through the paths in the garden

I eventually returned to the medina, via the Casbah, and popped into a small museum that was closed the day before when I had passed it. It was a little museum that talked about the history of the medina and the casbah in Arabic, French, and Spanish. I got the gist of what they were trying to say through the Spanish language signs. They also had a really beautiful garden in the premises of this small villa, the property they converted to the museum. Exotic flowers grew around huge fruit trees and butterflies and birds floated around. It was a nice place. Late in the day though, I slowly made my way back to the hostel and back to relax on the terrace. I met some American girls there studying abroad in Morocco. They talked about their interesting experiences studying Arabic and staying with host families. They also cooked a meal, later on, of eggs and vegetables, and made way too much, which they gave to me to polish off. I felt homeless, but appreciated the meal. I later returned to my cave and went back to sleep. That was it for my brief stint in Africa. I was going to take the ferry back to Spain in the morning. This is not a proper glimpse of the continent and I knew that. It was a cool look into the culture of North Africa and it’s nice to be able to compare this culture to that of the Middle East. But Africa is massive. I met an Irish guy who had just arrived to Morocco the day before, his first time in Africa too. But he was carrying with him a copy of the Lonely Planet Africa guide book, a massive book. I asked him if he intended to continue on into the continent and he said, “Yeah, for two years.” Some are more dedicated than others I suppose. But I know enough that I’ll want to come back and see more of Africa, if only to confirm my suspicions from films that I have seen, much like Aziz will want to do with the West. Maybe someday I’ll return.

Rock the Casbah

I was so excited for today. And even the mild hangover that lingered through the morning couldn’t contain my excitement. I was finally going to Africa. This is the one continent that I have almost been to so many times but never set foot on. On the ship, we had patrolled the waters off the coast of Somalia for months, just staring at the shoreline. And I had taken the ship through the Suez Canal in Egypt between the Red and Mediterranean Seas on three occasions, getting excellent views of the vast desert on either side of the narrow canal, but never getting off and setting foot ashore. And my ship was supposed to pull into the Seychelles, African islands just north of Madagascar, but that plan somehow fell through. And now I could see the coastline of Africa looming in the distance, just beyond the shores of Tarifa in Spain. And I had ferry tickets in hand. I was really going, if only briefly, finally.

I slept in to about 10:30, just in time to roll over to the kitchen and snag some free breakfast before they packed it up. I needed to eat something, I was starving. I had an hour afterwards to shower and pack up and check out. I did and then ran some errands around town before heading down to the ferry. I got some cash from the ATM and bought some food from the little grocery store for the ride. And then I retrieved my bags from the hostel and made my way to the ferry landing just down the road. This terminal and its port are small for such a drastic international, intercontinental crossing. I walked into the terminal, flashed my passport, and was stamped out of the European Union, hanging in international limbo. I boarded the ferry and took a seat. The ferry was packed with people. I noticed off to the starboard side of the passenger seating area a line was forming that quickly became long enough to wrap around the entire length of the ship, a fast ferry so not too big, and around the stern as well. I couldn’t imagine why people were waiting in line. But it didn’t take me long to figure out. Once we got moving, people who were standing in the line had to hold on to each other and the things around them to keep from being thrown to the side. The seas were kind of rough, not surprisingly, and since the ferry was a fast one, we jostled pretty violently all over the waves. One by one, people inched their way forward to wait to get their passports stamped into Morocco. The Moroccan government decided it would be more efficient to get this taken care of on board the ship, as it was moving, old people flying around and spilling drinks. I think the incentive to wait in this line was to get this process taken care of before pulling in to maximize their time in the city and not have to wait at customs when debarking. Fair enough. But I didn’t much care and couldn’t be bothered to stand in line with everyone else. I waited until right before we pulled in to hop in the now much shorter line and I had to wait only a few minutes after pulling in to get myself stamped and cleared to enter the country. So I did and then debarked. I was in Africa.

My first task, and the task I have in every new place, was to locate the hostel and drop my bags. Lugging around big bags always makes you a target. People know you’re a backpacker when you have 50 pounds of crap strapped to your back, wandering around a place, looking for something recognizable. In Europe, locals just look at you like you’re any other tourist (but I don’t like that too much either), but in Morocco, it’s as if there is a big sign on your back that says, “I’m a tourist, I need a place to stay, take my money!” As soon as I got off the boat and onto the pier I was bombarded with taxi offers, and a simple “no, thanks!” is never sufficient. They will ask you three or four times and in different ways to try to persuade you to take the taxi. And when I finally got past the hoards of taxi drivers, I was bombarded with locals asking me if I needed a place to stay, or if I needed directions, or any number of a million other questions that always end in them trying to get money from you. It’s really, really annoying. Politeness will not get rid them. And no one (I should say, almost no one) is generally concerned about your well being. Directions lead to tips, places to stay are always overpriced, taxis are overpriced, guides are always a ripoff, for tourists that is. I’ve experienced this before. It is a common tactic I’ve found throughout the Middle East and all around India. Luckily I had some experience with this and I was expecting it. I was able to brush past most of the unwanted attention. But my problem was I couldn’t figure out where the hostel was and every time I took out a map or looked at a street sign, three or four people would distract me. I had a booking with a hostel that was in the heart of the medina, the old town, in Tangier. The medina is a mishmash of narrow alleys and buildings on top of buildings and secret passages, its like getting lost in Aladdin’s bazaar. The hostel was somewhere in this place and it is impossible to orient yourself in the medina because every twist and turn and alley and underpass and overpass and magic carpet looks the same. You can barely see the sky in between the buildings rising inwardly above you. Don’t get me wrong, the medina is really, really cool. You really do feel like you could jump along rooftops and steal loaves of bread with your pet monkey, Abu. But it’s not so much fun with a 50 pound bag strapped to your back.

I was approached by a thin man, probably in his mid-40’s, missing half of his teeth, who flashed me a small card that had the name of the hostel I was searching for, the only hostel in the city as it turns out. Frustrated and overwhelmingly disoriented, I said, “yeah, where is this place?” He said, “no problem, I will take you there.” He introduced himself as Abdul and as he walked me towards the hostel, he started pointing out things and teaching me Arabic words as we passed. I could see where this was headed, but I really did need to find the hostel. Finally we did and I was buzzed in. Abdul, I guessed, was going to wait for me outside the door. I walked and checked in at the front desk. This is such a cool place for a hostel. The hostel is located in one of the old, traditional Arabic buildings of the medina. The building is directly interconnected with the others in the medina, nothing but a small wooden door built into an Arabic shaped (I don’t know how to describe this shape, straight sides and a mushroom top that is pointed at the very top) cut through the side of a wall. Otherwise, all buildings and walls blend together. The hostel had six, very small floors, none of which had windows, naturally (there are no windows in buildings like these). The first floor had the reception desk and a couple of dorm rooms (including mine) and the second, third, and fourth floors also had rooms. Each floor was connected by a narrow stairwell that led up the left side of the entrance way and each floor circled around the center of the floor which was open through from the top to the bottom. A railing separated the floor from the open center. And each floor wound in a circular pattern all the way to the top. A long, Arabic style chandelier hung from the very top and reached all the way down to right above the reception desk. The chandelier was made of tin sheets, I think, blackened, and in it were cut hundreds of small star and moon patterns through which the light would shine. The fifth floor had the kitchen on one end and the other end opened up into a bar and terrace that looked out towards the sea and towards Spain. But the best floor was the top floor, the roof top, an open air terrace that sit high above the busy medina below, with undisturbed views of the strait and of Spain, far from the chaos of the medina and bazaar, way below. The hostel was beautifully and tastefully decorated in an Arabic style, as is the Moroccan custom. This is such a cool place. I settled into my room, a small cave within the building, dark, dimly lit (but tastefully - and probably functionally). I grabbed a map from reception so that I’d be better prepared when I had to find the hostel again upon returning later on, and I set out.

It was early in the afternoon so I had plenty of time to explore. And I was right, Abdul was outside, waiting for me. I groaned quietly to myself for the agony that I would have to endure over the next 10 minutes or so as I had to figure out a way to ditch this guy. He immediately came up to me and offered to give me a tour of the medina. I sort of felt him out, asking what he meant by tour and if it was free. He said, “Of course it’s free! I’m a friend. I take you through the medina, you take some pictures, two or three hours, no problem.” I told him I wasn’t interested in a tour, that I wanted to just walk around on my own, but he just kept repeating that I could trust him, that everyone else around couldn’t be trusted, that it was free, no problem. I had seen this exact same song and dance in Nepal. No matter how many times I told him I wasn’t going to pay him any money for showing me around, he did anyway, and I let him follow me and tell me things, in Nepal. But of course he demanded money in the end. I of course didn’t and the next 10 minutes were a very unpleasant period of time as I tried to ditch the irritated “guide”. Abdul kept following me, and it was especially hard to ditch him because I didn’t know where I was going and he knew that fact quite well. I kept telling him I wasn’t interested and he kept following me, telling me stuff. We walked to a nearby vista, with viewpoints of the sea. I asked him very firmly this time to leave me be. He got frustrated and started to walk away. Suddenly another guy approached and started to sweet talk to me in French (most of the people in Morocco, if they speak a foreign language, speak French) and Abdul conveniently swung in to confront the guy and say in English, “no! this guy is with me.” The other guy kind of backed off with a kind of gesture of respect, like, “oh, ok, Abdul, sorry about that. I didn’t know.” And then Abdul turned to me and said, “See, you can’t trust anybody around this area.” If this sounds like a show to anybody reading this right now than you would be right. It was a clever tactic but I’ve seen it before. Every one of these guys knows each other, the medina is small, and they all work together to try and lure the tourists in. But not this tourist! Eventually I started getting really angry and told him to buzz off and all that and then he changed tactics, he demanded money in order to leave me alone. That’s sort of the last trick these guys will pull when all else fails. But I was having none of it and then he got angry and stormed away.

I wasn’t affected in the least. Unlike Rome when I felt my trust had been betrayed by the happy hour woman at the bar, which put me in a very sour and down sort of mood, I expected this and was proud of myself for winning this round of the endless game. I was never harassed by anyone in the Medina again. It’s as if they all heard through the grapevine that I wasn’t buying any of it and none of them tried to bother me after that. It was a good feeling.

I had a map but navigating the medina was still nearly impossible so I allowed myself to just get lost. I wandered all around, deep in the bazaar, barely able to see the light of day through the cool, dank alleyways. Eventually a small pathway spat me out of the old district just north, inland, towards the beginning of the new city. There was a huge fountain circled by a roundabout for cars and a park and sitting areas. I took a seat in the sun, happy to be in the fresh air again. I wandered uphill back towards the sea, just north of the Medina, passing some beautiful buildings and neighborhoods. I walked along a metal working street, much like the one I visited in the early part of the trip in Kashgar, where metal workers were hammering away and slicing through tin sheets, making those chandeliers like the one that hung in the hostel. They also made for good lanterns and other decorative pieces. I walked through a park where local boys were playing soccer, actually everywhere there were local boys playing soccer, in the street, in the park, in the alleyways of the medina. I kept going higher and higher, hoping that it would lead me to a good view of the strait and of Spain beyond. I found one eventually, a small road that led to a rocky outlook and park where locals took blankets to sit and picnic, the wind blowing in from the sea. It was a beautiful day so the sea was bright blue and Spain was clearly visible. It was a great view. I climbed back down and kept on through the neighborhood in the direction of the medina.

The view of the start of the new town from my seat by the fountain

The fountain and roundabout, just north of the medina, my "safe spot"

Kids playing soccer in a park, the medina in the background

This park was a nice spot to sit and relax, a reprieve from the crowds of the bazaar

A shot of the medina from the park

A group of girls picnicking by the cliff edge, looking out towards Spain

A Moroccan boy contemplating the world, looking out towards the sea

Eventually I wandered into the medina again, but this time in the section known as the Casbah. This small section of the medina is famous as a place where many European artists came to take up residence. The place was a small artist’s haven and place of inspiration. To me, it looked like the rest of the Medina, but it was cool to walk around an area so famous. But I was tired of getting lost and of the crowds. I walked back towards the hostel and after three or four tries, wandering around in circles, I found it again and let myself in. I spent the rest of the evening on the terrace, sitting in peace, watching the sun slowly set on the horizon. There were a few others up on the terrace as well. One guy sat in silence by the edge with his feet propped up and binoculars in hand. He had a birdwatching guide book on his lap and he was searching the skies and the other rooftop terraces around us for exotic birds. There was also an American guy, a student from Ohio who just graduated from Brown, now teaching English in Madrid. And we met a few other Americans down in the kitchen. One of the hostel employees was cooking a dinner of Moroccan rice and vegetables and for a small fee, we could partake in the meal. So we did and it was excellent. The big group sat around the table until late in the night chatting about our adventures. I particularly enjoyed the stories of people traveling around Africa, a region of the world I know nothing about.

A shot of the medina from outside, the Casbah section is on the near right

A typical alley of the Casbah

I only had one more full day in Tangier. I didn’t have any specific plans. Just to walk around a little and make more good use of the peaceful rooftop terrace. I think I could spend the rest of my life on that rooftop terrace. What a cool place.

A Spanish toast to the Dutch queen

The weather forecast was a little bit grim for today, from what I could tell by searching last night, and so I had expected a day of rain cloud dodging and lounging around the hostel. But when I woke up this morning it was because the sun had been shining through the open window just beside my sleeping head. I was pleasantly surprised. But I didn’t get my hopes up. The weather can be unpredictable and especially along the Atlantic coast, the weather can change pretty quickly. So going with the flow I hobbled up the steps to take a shower and popped into the kitchen to make my free breakfast, compliments of the hostel, of toast with jam and butter and coffee. It was a quiet morning, the sun woke me up a little earlier than the rest of the guests that I had seen the night before. I went back to the room and decided to pack a bag for the beach. The morning looked promising weather wise.

I walked out of the hostel, aiming for the beach. I made it as far as the quay wall behind the beach and paused for a moment to take in the scene around me. The sun, high in the morning sky, was surrounded by a huge, perfect bubble of clear blue. Huge, scattered puffy clouds sat in the sky off to the north, and just across the strait, Africa was engulfed in these black clouds, pouring rain all along the coast. But since the sun over Tarifa was all alone in its blue bubble, I figured I had some time to go down and sit on the beach awhile. I walked probably for about two or three miles north along the beach, north and away from the town, closing in on the mountains and meadows. The beach just kept going and going as far as I could see. I found a nice spot, miles from anybody, the open ocean spread in front of me, wild flower meadows directly behind, it was great. I brought my beach towel, changed into my swim suit, and sat there just enjoying the peace and quiet. Occasionally a dog walker or jogger would make their way along the shore but all in all I was left pretty much alone. A few times I braved the water, walking in and dipping my toes, but the water was icy cold and I was not bold enough for a swim.

Meadows sprawl out from behind the beach in Tarifa

The sidewalk that leads down the length of much of the beach from town

Black clouds hovered over the African coast in the distance, nearly completely hidden from view

A lone white horse munching on some flowers in the open meadow behind the beach

This playground had seen better days

The beach had clean, white sand for as far as the eye could see

I sat here for a couple of hours. Eventually, from out of the meadows apparently, a hippie couple and their puppy appeared out of nowhere, approaching from behind. They took a seat off to my right, about 20 feet away, and set up camp. They dropped their huge packs with camping gear and all sorts of hippie necessities. I looked around in all directions, and still no one had joined me on the beach for miles. I was wondering why the hippie couple had decided to set up so close to me but to be honest I didn’t really care and wasn’t bothered at all, just amused. They didn’t say anything to me, nor I to them. We just sat there together in some silent commune. It was kind of nice. Their little puppy, a little black lab or something like it, ran down into the water and jumped around in the waves. The hippies eventually fell asleep, and I eventually left.

I decided to walk in the direction that the hippies came from, directly behind where I was sitting, into the meadows. I have never seen a more attractive collection of wild flowers. Every color imaginable burst from the bushes and grasses around me. And, looking off into the distance, the rain clouds were swirling and transforming shape, but still the same bubble of blue sky, perfectly protecting the sun, told me I could continue my outdoor trek. I eventually popped out to the main road that connects Tarifa to the coastal, two lane highway. I crossed it and made my way to the foothills of the looming green mountains just beyond. From where I was I could spot a winding access road that led up the edge of the mountain towards several windmills that lined the top of the ridge. I thought maybe I could make my way up the mountain and to some really nice views if I followed the access road so I crossed the highway and made my way in that direction. I found a dirt road and followed it past some horses being led on a rope from a Spanish cowboy, and then past a large motocross circuit where a few guys were offloading there bikes from a pickup truck. I found the access road and continued to walk up but just beyond the motocross park, I eventually ran into a gate. I was up a little ways though and I did indeed get some nice views of Tarifa and the beach below, but I figured it was time enough to turn back anyway. I walked my way all the way back to the hostel and took a short rest in the common room.

I tried to follow an access road that linked these windmills up along the ridge

The two lane highway, north to Cadiz or east to Malaga

I was preparing my trip out to Morocco for the next day and went to the receptionist to ask about reserving ferry tickets. She helped me and I had them ready to go, but at the same time she was checking in two Austrian girls and a German girl from Bavaria, and we met and started chatting awhile. They were off to the beach and I had no other plans so I joined them, back to enjoy the sun that refused to find the clouds. Back on the beach the clouds that were wreaking havoc over Africa had disappeared and the blue bubble around the sun became the entire sky. It was a gorgeous afternoon. We laid out some blankets and sat on the beach. During this time I had worked up the nerve to jump in the water. I had been wanting to go swimming in the ocean by the beach on this trip since Russia and it seemed that this might be my last opportunity to do it. Walking up to my knees was no problem. I had done that before and was relatively used to the temperature. Besides, the best way to approach situations like this is to just jump in and worry about being cold later. So that’s what I did. It was a nice feeling, being in the ocean, but I didn’t last more than five minutes before I had to jump back out and warm up, which I never really did. It was getting kind of late so we eventually packed up and went back to the hostel. The girls were going to cook some dinner and they had made way too much food so I was lucky enough to snag a free meal of potatoes and vegetables. Then we lounged awhile in the common room and met some more folks staying at the hostel, two Canadian twins, two French guys, and an American from California. The big group that we were, we decided to head out into the night to see what Tarifa had to offer.

We were pleasantly surprised how hopping this little town was on a Wednesday evening. We found a local bar where a live, local band was playing some very cool Spanish music. The bar was packed with locals, kids, and dogs and everyone it seemed knew the words to the songs that were being played. We ordered some cervezas and watched the band grooving in the corner. It was a great scene. There was another group of what looked like foreigners, really tall ones, that turned out to be a group from Holland, and they all had these red, white, and blue stripes painted onto their cheeks. I knew from Tim, my Dutch friend, that today was Queen’s Day back in Holland which is the country’s number one holiday and huge party day. So the group had come out to celebrate here in Tarifa. They were all kite surfers who had come to live and work awhile in the south. Our groups blended and before I knew it I had Dutch colors painted onto my cheeks as well.

Eventually the police came into the bar to complain that the band was making too much noise, I guess, and the bar had to close down, it’s a small town. But we moved on and found a few other spots for cheap beers and good music. It was a really fun night out. We came back around 3 in the morning and crashed at the hostel. Luckily, I didn’t have to get moving to catch my ferry until about 11 in the morning so I had some time to sleep in, catch breakfast, check out, and make my way to the ferry landing for a one o’clock departure to Tangier.

Tomorrow, Africa!

The bottom of Europe

My bus ride from Malaga was a harmless two and half hours bound for Tarifa, a ride along the coast. I purposely took a seat on the left side of the bus so that I’d have good views of the sea as we drove west. For the entire trip, the bus slithered and snaked its way up and around these huge mountains that plunge down to meet the shore, the blue waters of the Mediterranean Sea below. The views were excellent but nothing new. I had seen similar views along the Cote d’Azur and around Malaga. But what we eventually drove by and what was very different than everything else I’ve seen was the very distinct and very tall rock of Gibraltar jutting up into the sky. We stopped in a small Spanish city called Algeciras to let off some passengers, some of them undoubtedly on their way to Gibraltar, the small British colony in the strait. But what I thought was even better than the rock was the view just beyond the rock, across the strait. It was a very clear and beautiful day and just beyond the strait lay very visibly the continent of Africa. I didn’t think it was possible at first, that Africa couldn’t have been that close. But later I confirmed that that huge landmass just across the sea was in fact Morocco and just 15 km (10 miles) from the shores of Spain. I was amazed. The shores of Morocco shoot into the sky just like they do in Spain, green and lush. In fact, Morocco, from my vantage point, looked like a mirror image of the Iberian shoreline that we were driving along. If you look at a map of the Strait of Gibraltar using Google maps, you’ll see that the point where the two continents are about to meet on either side are covered in shades of green, indicating their environmentally temperate similarities. But just south of the green shades of the Moroccan shore, Google maps indicates that the color turns a sandy tan quite quickly, breezing into the expanse of the Saharan Desert. It’s amazing to think about what lies beyond what I could see from shore, from the vastness of the Saharan Desert, to the political turmoil in North and West Africa, to the jungles of central Africa, and the safari and plains of the south. And I’m a bit of a geography nerd. Being in this place and realizing its significance was a goof moment for me. What had been a tough few days started to look better, even from the bus.

My first glimpse of Africa, from the bus ride

But the bus was just the beginning. Little did I know that my hopes in finding a good spot in Tarifa were more than met. Tarifa is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been. And it’s a small town, so different than the city I had left, and surrounded by the majestic Atlantic Ocean, just a few short kilometers west of the strait, with broad, green mountains covered in wild flowers and an occasional horse. I had no trouble finding the single hostel in this town, there are few streets. And the hostel was a gem all on its own. A short three minute walk from the beach and with easy access to the town which had a grocery store and some pretty little streets in the tiny little old town that was full of restaurants and bars. The hostel was located in a building typical of the architectural style of southern Spain, at least in the older places. Low, white washed walls of cement with tiled roofs and open terraces on the roof and in the front yard. Tarifa isn’t dense like Barcelona or Malaga’s old town. Tarifa is a small town, maybe a few thousand people, so buildings have yards and gardens and terraces and views. In fact, from the open terrace on the upper floor you can look out across the strait to Africa. The hostel’s windows and shutters were opened to the warm air blowing in from the ocean nearby, and the place was super chill, its residents identifying with the theme of the town. There is a good size population of extreme sports enthusiasts here, from all over Europe and the world, that live in the town, kite surfing during the day and running bars or shops or kite repair places to get by. Tarifa is a very windy place, ideally located along the western edge of Spain and along the Atlantic coast so the beach here is a haven for kite surfers. Kite surfing was really big in the coastal town where I was living a few years ago in Japan, in a small city called Kurihama, but besides there I’ve never really seen kite surfing before. It’s sort of like strapping your feet to a shorter, broader surfboard and harnessing your body to a gigantic parachute. Operating the parachute, somehow, allows you to zip around the waves, flipping and diving over them before they crash and you reset and start over again. It’s pretty cool but it looks really challenging.

Kite surfers lounging on the beach, taking a rest

A look down the beach in Tarifa, to the north

My first real glimpse of the Atlantic Ocean, I've come a long way

I settled into my room at the hostel and set out. It was early evening and being this far south and this far west in the same time zone as the rest of Europe means the sun hangs into the sky until quite late. The very first thing I did was to follow my nose along the direction of the salty breeze coming from the beach. Walking along the small street from the hostel for just a few minutes brings you to the vast, white sandy shoreline. The beach stretches for miles and miles to the right, a northerly direction, and terminates to the left where the land hooks in and away towards the strait, Africa visible to the left. The sand is fine and pure white. And unlike Malaga where the beach was met quickly by a road and then the intruding city, the beach here met the open streets of the small town and then, walking further down the beach, quickly became nothing, no people, no buildings or roads, just the sand that met dunes that met wild flower meadows that slowly rose up to the foothills of grass covered mountains. And the town itself was picturesque as well. A moment of intense satisfaction came over me the minute I laid eyes on the Atlantic Ocean. I realized that in a way, I have completed my goal, here in Tarifa, by taking trains (at least as much as possible) from the Pacific coast, through the great Eurasian continental landmass, to the Atlantic coast. And here it was, right in front of me. I know I’m not quite finished with my trip but I couldn’t help feeling like I had made it and succeeded. I let that moment linger as long as I could.

It was a very windy day and the beach was rife with kite surfers, many of them zipping along the waves, and others hanging out in groups with beers on the sand in their wetsuits. It was a cool scene. I took a lot of photos and then eventually made my way to the left, around the hook where the beach ends and starts running from the south to the east, towards the little port where the ferry runs between here and Morocco. The town has a very small old district, walkable in a matter of minutes, and I explored the area a little. A few narrow alleyways are home to cafes and shops but this section of town doesn’t really come alive until the night as I would later find out. So I kept on walking through to the newer part of town, newer, but in the same architectural style as the old town, and this is where the locals live. I found a small grocery store, bought some late day baked goods for a cheap, one euro meal, and a naranjo schweppes, my new go to beverage of choice, and took it with me to find a good spot to sit and eat, somewhere outside with a view of the water. I wandered my way down to a local sports complex, and by sports complex I mean an area with a lot of small soccer fields (because that’s the only sport that matters here), where a youth league game was about to begin, parents watching from the stands. The Spaniards are well known for their superb soccer  abilities and the Spanish fill all the world’s best leagues, so I wasn’t shocked that these kids, maybe 12 years old, could play like little Iniestos. I watched and ate my cheap baked goods for a little while before heading back to the hostel to relax in the common room. 

There was a small castle in the town, built hundreds of years ago during the Muslim occupation

Africa from the port of Tarifa

Some beach rules

The wild flowers in Tarifa are very pretty and grow like weeds

I liked the way the shadow of a palm tree is plastered on the white washed walls of buildings in the old town

A glimpse of the old town in Tarifa

I was pretty wiped from my brief exposure to the sun, it had been awhile. I messed around on the computer a little, writing and checking emails, and before long I was too tired to continue and just passed out in the dorm room. The windows were open to the cool air of the evening sky, which was nice, but it also allowed some nasty little mosquitoes to make their way into the room as well, which is a positive sign that indicates that I’m in a place with warm weather but naturally I’m not a big fan of those buzzing pests.

Tomorrow was my day to chill. I had one full day in Tarifa, one day to explore the shore and relax in the sun. What made me so exhausted last night and what I was doing on the computer was mostly planning the end of my trip. I’m pretty close to the end now, I’m realizing. Basically, what I came up with is a plan to take the ferry the day after tomorrow to Tangier, across the strait to Morocco. I know it’s a bit of a novelty to say you’ve been to Africa and I would be lying if I said that wasn’t my main reason for going on such a short, trans continental voyage, but I really did want to see Tangier for a few days. Dreaming of the shores across the strait earlier made me want to take the very accessible ferry across for a quick, two day preview. So I planned to be in Morocco for two days and then take the ferry back to Tarifa, hop a bus to Seville for one night, and then hop another bus along the coast into Portugal and then up to Lisbon where I intend to complete this journey. Having a plan in place is sort of bringing me back to reality and the realization that this trip really does have an end.

But not yet, my friends, not yet!