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.