Into Africa
06 January 2018
Blog Update Africa
We found that it was less expensive for us to cross the Straits of Gibraltar via plane than ferry so we boarded our plane in Spain and headed to the African Continent. Boarding at the airport of Malaga, Spain looked much like any other modern airport terminal but when we landed in Morocco we knew we no longer in Kansas. We disembarked on the tarmac and walked into a rather tired old building with army personal very present and packing machine guns. The flight in gave us a little perspective to the lay of the land, with mostly dry hills and little clusters of flat top buildings of modest construction. As we approached the City of Tangiers we saw building after building of high rise apartments on the edge of the desert. Tangiers looks like any other large city from the air, you cannot see the ancient Medina among the tall buildings. We got a taxi easy enough and he delivered us to the edge of the Medina where our hostel was located. The word Medina is used to describe an old walled city. Inside the wall is referred to as the old Medina. The driver told us he could not drive into the Medina as the roads were to small, so he let us out at one the gates. As soon as our taxi came to a stop several men came to “help” us. We had already been warned about this situation and had seen it in Central America also. The game is: these men present themselves with big smiles and welcomes to our country with the insistence of helping you. If you allow them to carry your bag for you you are caught in the trap, as they then will lead you to where you are going or at least to where they think you are going and then the smiles are gone and the haggling for money begins and they have your bag! So with this in mind we started up the hill with all our gear on followed by men asking to help us. You don’t stop walking, eyes front, ignore all the pleas, keep saying no Shukran (thank you) and just keep going, because as soon as you so much as allow someone to point you in the right direction they will ask for money. We don’t mind helping out the poor and do so often but we try not to put ourselves in a position to be taken advantage of. We are very vulnerable with all our gear on as we could easily be shoved to the ground with the weight of our packs and then be defenseless. This in mind we try to get to our hostel or another safe place as quickly as possible when we have all our gear on. We got to our new home “The Maram Hotel” in one piece and rested up a bit before going out for our first little exploration attempt. The Maram Hotel is probably 50 years old so as one would expect a little “ethnic” so to speak, but it was clean safe and the desk man was at our disposal. We spent some time looking out over the old Medina from our rooftop patio. Our first profound experience with the Muslim world began with the mosque that was about 100 feet from our hotel. Each mosque, and they are everywhere, has a menaret (a tower) from which in days gone by a man would call the faithful to prayer five times a day, similar to the bells on the large Catholic Churches. Now days they all have loud speakers. So at five am we hear for the first time the call to payer at high volume in our room which faces the mosque. I’ll tell you it does wake you up, but just to be sure your awake they repeat it again in 30 minutes “Allah Akbar”. That first evening we ventured out a little but it was starting to get dark and the Medina is just crazy with people coming and going in the little streets, with lots of people still offering to help us or sell us something. With our gear off we feel less vulnerable but still try to be smart. We love new places and exploring, but we called it a night early after having dinner in a little restaurant near our hotel. Of course we tried to go back to sleep for a while after the call to prayer shocked us out of our slumber at 5am. We had a little breakfast, I forgot where we were and asked for a ham and cheese omelet. Dumb dumb me, the waiter just looked at me with the “are you kidding me look”. Pork of any kind is a no no for any practicing Muslim, they are not even allowed to touch it. This may sound extreme but if you check your old testament bible it will tell you in Leviticus to not eat the pig or touch it as it is unclean. If you think about it we all have learned to cook pork well because it could have worms in it. Pigs and some other animals are prone to tape worms as they tend to defecate where the eat. My wife looks at me and says I can’t believe you just did that. Spain prides itself on it’s Iberian ham and just 12 miles across the water you don’t even think about asking for it. Suffice it to say Morocco is a completely different culture from Spain. 98 percent of the population is Muslim where very little skin is shown. Women still where the full on burka, some with the entire face covered. This again may seem very strange to us westerners but if you think about it a nun with the complete habit and priest with full robe swinging incense is a pretty similar picture. This in mind we had purchased clothing so we could respect the culture we came to see. We spent the entire next two days wandering the inner city Medina. Little streets some only four of five feet wide were built for donkey and cart not cars. We visited the old palace and were amazed at the intricate lattice work carvings and exotic tile. Looking at some of this work one can imagine a man spending a month or more working on one door or ceiling piece. We strolled by streets of little shops selling exotic spices, clothing, bread, fruit, silver and copper artistically made tea pots, jewelry and an array of other things. Suffice it to say I don’t think there is anything you can’t find except a McDonald's but you can even find on of those in the newer part of town. Unlike many ancient cities surrounded by ruins of high walls to protect it against attack, Tangiers walls are all still intact. We walked the perimeter of the outside of the walls, explored the gun emplacements and stairs leading every which way. Like Gibraltar on the other side Tangiers was equally a strategic location to control the entrance to the entire Mediterranean and so has been fought over for a thousand years. Visiting Tangiers is like going back in time, more so then any place we have visited. I think many people still live in the Medina because they prefer to live in this time capsule insulating them from the outside world.
Our next stop heading south was the famous City of Marrakesh. We decided to take the overnight train (10 hours) rather than fly. We were in a semi-private car with four other people, which turned out nice as we were able to talk at length with some Moroccans and a Spanish couple who come here regularly as they have family in Marrakesh. We were able to get some good insight into the culture and also to explain to them that like ourselves the majority of America did not vote for our current president and that we do not agree with some of the things he has said that have angered many Muslims and other non-white people around the world. We arrived in Marrakesh the next morning and again got a taxi to our area of the old Medin (we like to stay in the historic areas). Again we had a guy wanting to “help” us. Neither our driver nor us knew exactly where our hostel was so we allowed this fellow to guide us, unfortunately I allowed him to take one of our small bags. We went around a corner and were at the door as it turns out, but our helper wanted the equivalent of $5 dollars for the one minute walk and had my bag. I did not have any change and he was not giving my bag back without money. We rang the bell and the manager of our hostel gave me some change so I could give the guy a couple dollars, quick easy money for him. Our hotel was really impressive and representative of the Moroccan home. Lots of pillows, tapestries, Moroccan seating around little tables, an inner courtyard with an overhead sky light and old black and while photos of the Marrakesh of the past. We dropped off our bags and again headed out to explore. The traffic was hectic to try to walk thru, don’t expect cars to stop at a crosswalk or even a light. People everywhere, crowding the sidewalks all going in opposite directions. Just crazy with lots and lots and lots of little shops everywhere with waiters coming out into the crowd to try and get you to come to their restaurant. It is a cultural shock even for us after all we have seen in Central America. But this is what we come for, to see the other side of the world. We finally made it to the famous square where you will find, snake charmers, acrobats, monkey handlers, story tellers, tattoo artists, musicians of all types, belly dancers, Berber dressed men (the Berber peoples were the first in this area. They speak a different language and wear a colorful hat and copper cups hanging on their chest as the used to sell a drink of water in the squares in the days past, now they pose for photos.) The square is about a ½ square so two miles to walk the entire perimeter. Food booths of every imaginable type. People pack into the square tightly making it a spectacle of humanity that one has to experience to imagine. Again it was starting to get dark and we were a little unsure about how to get back to our room and if the way would be lit, so we hired a Tuc Tuc (a three wheeled motorcycle with a back seat). It turned out our driver was a delight. He told us he was handicapped and so the government provides these tuc tuc taxis for people like him to make a living with. He got us right where we needed to go and we were happy to pay him for his service. That night we tried the traditional dish here called a Tajine. It is a ceramic pot with a steeple lid that is used similarly to our crock pot. You can get many different things in a Tajine with the exception of course, pork. Our first ones were, mine chicken and potatoes (a bit bland) and Leiann had one with lamb, potatoes and veggies which she said was good. Our room looked like something out of the Arabian nights with a copper sink, curtains around the bed, an antique dresser thing, and lots of pretty pillows in Moroccan style. The next day we headed out early to see what we could see. As we often do we took a tour bus around the city to get our bearing and to target sites we wanted to visit. We got off at a large olive garden and strolled around a the large man made lake that was it’s center piece. Back in the day to have water features was an extravagance that wealthy people liked to display. In the desert places where water is a matter of life and death bubbling fountains and pools were decadent displays. We found some camels for Leiann to get her picture taken on as she had wanted to do this for some time. Considering that she is deathly afraid of horses she was very courageous to give this a try. She had no inclination to ride though it was offered several times, “we just want the picture we told them”. We got back on the bus and continued to tour finding ourselves back in the square later that night feeling a little braver to stay out after dark. I got my picture with a cobra and then had to haggle the price for the privilege (this should be done before the photo). He started out at $50, I gave him $10. To watch these guys handle these deadly snakes is amazing. Leiann got her picture taken with the Berber “Water Man”. Later we walked home a new way through a two mile long gantlet of trinket shops. There were a few very little alleyways leading off this “road” but other than that it was like a dark tunnel with crowds of people going both ways, pot holes, boards to walk over larger holes and water, motorcycles and just craziness! Sometimes we get a little more adventure than we planned on, but hey it’s all part of the deal. The next day found us out of town visiting the original gathering place in the desert that became Marrakesh, the huge date palm grove. This little oasis began small but over the years traveling vagabonds would stop by, eat the dates and throw the seeds on the ground spreading the grove out until today it encompasses hundreds of trees. It was around this oasis grove that Marrakesh grew over the last thousand years to become the city it is today. Like Tangiers Marrakesh still has its Medina walls in tact. Their are several palaces inside these city walls, each having it’s own walls, so as one walks through the Medina you are surrounded by walls some 30 feet tall. Our GPS phone comes in pretty handy in these situations. (Thanks Thomas!) The dichotomy of these old Medina cities is hard to explain, imagine a little old man loading concrete blockss onto an old wooden cart pulled by a poor little old donkey being passed by a modern car with women wearing the same burkas that have been worn for a thousand years being past by tourists wearing tight jeans talking on smart phones? Marrakesh is nearly a million people strong and for us a little much. We were glad to visit both cities but now are looking forward to a little less crowds. We have just arrived in the coastal City of Agadir last night. We were a little dismayed to find our new home to be in a part of town with a large population of homeless refugees from southern Africa. We will not be going out much at night here or at least if we do it will be in a taxi. We feel for these people who we know are probably fleeing desperate situations, but we know that desperate people do desperate things and we realize that we look like wealthy defenseless old people to them so we take appropriate precautions. Stay tuned for more Chrysalis Adventures!