The boat ride from Tarifa, Spain, to Tanger, Morocco only takes about 30 minutes. 30 minutes is enough time to cook a few cups of white rice, or to watch a sitcomm, or to have your teeth cleaned at the dentists. But between Tarifa and Tanger 30 minutes is enough time to travel from one world into a completely different one.

The Spouse and I planned to hire a guide when we arrived in Morocco, but could never agree on what exactly we were looking for (I was anti-guide, he was pro-guide). We never actually hired one, but probably just because we were too timid. Our taxi took us to the hotel that I had emailed the night before (the never received the email) and since the room wasn´t ready we left our bags and wandered the streets.

Although Tanger is 30 minutes directly south of Spain, it is in a more reasonable time zone, and is thus two hours behind Tarifa. When we hit the streets it was 8 a.m. on Friday, the holy day, and very little was happening. We struck out for the Medina, which was quite close to where we were staying. As we walked down the steps into the market area just outside the grand socco familiar scents and sounds came to me - things that I hadn´t experienced since I was living in Asia. The market smelled like raw meat - new and old - and dust, and rotting vegetables and overripe fruit, sweat, tumeric, paprika, urine, and more dust. Men were unloading trucks of live chickens, boxes of apricots, crates of socks and electronics and slippers and silver jewelry. All along the market were coffee houses with dim florescent lights and rusty tables. Everywhere there was activity, noise, and chaos.

When we reached the grand socco, which is relly just a roundabout with a fountain, a small old man with only a few teeth and a wool cap on his head kindly offered in broken English to be our guide. In his hand he held a tin cup and two fresh, still-bleeding ckicken feet. We said no as politely as we could several dozen times until he left and walked through the arched gate into the Medina.

The streets in the Medina are low and narrow. The buildings overhang some of the small alleys, so they are less like streets and more like tunnels. This makes sense considering the heat, but since there were no maps of the medina available at the tourist office and our guide book shows the heart of the old town as a blank spot, they can be a little frightening when one is lost in the evening, and we were lost often. We wandered for several hours, visited a museum, and then tried to find a place to eat, which proved to be our biggest challenge.

On almost every block there were large, dimly lit coffee shops with men drinking cups of coffee or strong, minty tea. The men sat in these shops and watched the world go past. They also watched me go past, and it was uncomfortable and menacing. Jordan was hungry but I refused to go inside one of those rooms full of stares, and I was convinced that they would refuse to let me inside if I tried. We searched for a restaurant that had another woman sitting in it but never found one. Eventually, we discovered a women´s shelter with a restaurant inside. The courtyard was packed full of laughing, chattering French men and women, with their heads uncovered, enjoying each other´s company and good conversation. Quite different from the leering men in the street cafes. We ate tagines full of couscous, chicken, and steamed vegetables, scented with raisins and cinnamon.

I could write more but that would make this post too long. I could talk about the fact that the shadows were full of skinny, pathetic cats and kitens...but no dogs. I could write about the little boy with sad eyes who the Spouse and I saw being beaten by two older men in the street, or about the long stretch of beach where families strolled slowly in the evening, or the Moroccan man with the Brooklyn accent who pestered us for blocks offering us evening from restaurant advice to drugs, or about how the white buildings turn tangering and purple when the sun sets in the evenings.

We were very anxious to leave Morocco the next morning, and were on the first boat away. We understand that Tangier is the armpit of Morocco - a dirty, dangerous, unpleasant border town. We were told that the further you go intot he country the more wonderful it gets, which I believe. I don´t judge the country or the people on my one-day experience. We simply didn´t have time to do those things, and so instead we made our way back to Tarifa where, since I hadn´t eaten any food after the women´s shelter the previous morning, we immediately headed for a restaurant, and watched men and women and children all enjoying each other´s company with totally new eyes.

After saying goodbye to the lovely couple at the Hostal Luna in Marbella, the Spouse and I hit the road and headed for Tarifa, a little white gem on the very southern tip of Spain. Tarifa reminded me of Pai, in Thailand. It´s laid back, sleepy, and people there know how to have fun. Because the wind tears through the straight of Gibraltar between Spain and Africa, kiteboarders from around the world converge on Tarifa for its persistently breezy weather. Thus the town feels similar to any other surf town, except that unlike most surf town this one stares at Morocco all day and is surrounded by stone walls and monuments paying homage to Guzman el Bueno.

On our first night in Tarifa we saw signs advertising a free flamenco performance. We found the cafe where the band was playing on some steps near a small plaza. The cafe was too full of people for us so we sat outside and listened to a very young male flamenco singer, a small band, and several girls keeping compas (there were no dancers). A small crowd gathered outside on the steps with us, including a rathered tall, disheveled gentleman and his little dog that cowered around with its tail between its legs. The man heard the music, straightened up, lifted his arms in the air, and began to dance. He snaped his fingers and stomped his feet, still in their flip-flop sandals, and he spun so hard that his crack pipe flew from his bag and clattered on the ground. No matter. He put it away with great ceremony, removed his dirty sandals and secured them under his bag so they wouldn´t be stolen, straightened up proudly, and tried again. He wasn´t terribly steady on his feet and eventually stumbled. The crowd laughed and he bowed. The Spouse and I watched for a while and then decided to leave before the police came to investigate the proliforation of drugs that suddenly appeared on all sides of us.

The next day we woke up and dawn and boarded a boat for Morocco.

We made a stop in Marbella after seeing Ronda. We stayed in the Hostal Luna, which is run by a sweet, generous retired Spanish couple. On our first day, as we walked out the door to go see the beach the old man was in the courtyard, concentrating on washing the bathroom mats in and letting them dry in the sun. He had neat white hair and thick glasses that made his brown eyes owlish and huge, and a southern Spanish accent. After inviting us to sit in his courtyard, he shuffled inside his apartment and returned with two beers and a plate of olives. He sat with us while we drank. When he noticed that the Spouse doesn´t care for olives the old man jumped up and disappeared into his apartment again, and returned with a plate of cashews. We were embarassed at the generosity, but also quite pleased. He resumed his mat scrubbing and squabbling in machine-gun fast Spanish with his wife, and we left for the beach.


The beach at Marbella is long and narrow, and impossible to see from the road because it is hidden by a pink cement curtain of hotels, office buildings, and condos. There is a nice, smooth promenade that stretches between the sand and rows of overpriced restaurants. People walk and rollerblade in the windy cool of the late afternoon before the evening meal. Far away on the horizon the rock of Gibraltar peeps out of the marine mist. We spent the entire day on a stretch of gritty beach under an umbrella that we cost 6 euros. After carrying my pack, sitting inside on rainy Spanish days, and walking around on cobbles for the previous two weeks the warm sand was lovely. Not even the ovewrweight, blistering tourists could spoil it. Not even the gawking Americans.

In Spain, women can sunbathe with their swimsuit tops off, whereas in America this is not allowed. A Spaniard explained American freedom to us this way "many countries think they are free, but they don´t realize how little freedom they really have. You Americans brag about being free, but you can´t even drink a beer on the beach. Women aren´t even allowed to take their tops off." Then he added that the tops are better on, to preserve some mystery. When we first walked on the beach in Marbella I sensed a profound feeling of disappointment emanating from the Spouse. The only women who were decent looking had their bikini tops firmly tied in place, whereas the only women who wanted to take them off all seemed to have three things in common: belly fat, purplish sunburns, and pendulous breasts that sagged as if someone had put two tennis balls in two gym socks and tied them around their saggy necks. I liked the beach, but for him I think it was a bit of a ...bust.

The Spouse and I found ourselves on a bus full of Swedish tourists heading for the hills to the white town of Ronda. The tourists pontificated proudly in Swedish about who knows what and snaped photos over our heads on the twisty, windy drive into the hills. We were glad to be rid of them - even my Swedophile spouse who lived in Stockholhm for a year in college seemed to have had enough.

If you use your imagination and mentally strip out all of the pushy, doddering, camera-flash happy tourists, Ronda is a magical place. It perches on top of the mountains comfortably, and glows like a torch when the sun sets - orange and pink against the white buildings. The old Moorish town and the new town are separated by three ancient bridges which span a steep gorge and a slow green brook. It looks like a fairy tale painting and some mythical stories have been written about it, including the famous chapter ten of Ernest Hemmingway´s For Whom the Bell Tolls. Here it is the village where Pilar witnesses the fascist leaders of the town being flogged and flailed and then thrown from the cliff into the gorge, about a 300 ft sheer drop to the yellow rocks below.

We stayed in a lovely hotel on the edge of a cliff overlooking some pastoral hills that could have been in a painting. The hotel was also white and had a garden that was too windy to sit in. The only ones brave or foolish enough to be in the garden were the birds perched in the prickly pear cactus plants and the Spouse and I who sat under a blanket drinking vino de la naraja and giggling. The staff was rude to us when they spotted our backpacks earlier in the day. We paid them when we left, and they appeared genuinely surprised that we didn´t climb out of our window without payment. Score one for wheeled luggage. Apparently rich people use wheeled luggage and theives use backpacks...

Ronda was absolutely beautiful. The building were white and crumbly and the everpresent wind smelled like mountains and pine trees, but the swarms of day tourists were too much (although evenings after the last bus left were quiet and wonderful). We left the next day for Marbella.

Today is our last full day in Sevilla. The Spouse and I marvelled that, despite our long stay here, we still can´t find our way around. Our linear, square-city-block brains are incapable of comprehending the winding streets of this city. After one particulary long period of being hopelessly lost we agreed that we should never set out with a destination in mind, because whenever we try to find something we get lost, and whenever we wander aimlessly we end up just where we wanted to be (whether we knew we wanted to be there or not). The Spouse confessed that he thinks the streets are enchanted and have a mind of their own. Now every time we lose our way he mutters "faery roads are not like Christian roads..." in some sort of reference to Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell, I think.

The last two days have been full of dancing. On Wednesday at sometime past midnight we stumbled into a dim, smoky bar to find it packed with locals taking their ease after a day´s work, claping and stomping to a flamenco band. A few drunk tourists with no rhythm clapped and stomped with them. Last night we found ourselves in a dimly lit courtyard watching a fiery flamenco show. On our walk home we encountered a tiny plaza that spun with couples slowly dancing tango in the moonlight.

Tomorrow we will go to Malaga to visit the Spouse´s cousin Brenda. She writes the English version of Andalusia.com. This is her blog: http://blog.andalucia.com/ We will spend several days getting lost on the coast and then who knows? We still have weeks ahead of us.

We have been in Sevilla for three days now and are finally starting to relax. Yesterday and the day before we spent time exploring, and today we have been lazily eating our way around town, stopping in for a tapa and drink at a different restaurant every hour or so. We also visted the beautifully mosaiced Alacazar and the museum of fine arts, which is jsut a few steps from our apartment.

Oh yes, our apartment...it wasn´t exactly what we expected. Thank goodness for all of the dank, mouldy, scary places I stayed in Thailand because they dulled my senses a little. The apartment is a disappointment, but because it´s not comfortable we spend as little time in it as possible.

On our first night in Sevilla we wandered deep into the Jewish quarter in the daylight and lingered until nightfall. With nightfall came rainfall and we became completely lost in the tangled, lamplit labarynth that is classic in medieval cities. Every street was completely deserted and narrow. The Spouse was wearing flip flop sandals that turned every smooth marble surface into a slab of ice. I had no jacket. Neither of us had an umbrella. It took about an hour and a lot of drunken good luck to find our apartment again. When we did find it we were locked out.

What we discovered from all of this rain in Spain (it´s been raining every day, constantly, since we got here) is that there is a pecular and delightful event every evening after a downpour. When the restaurants open after a rain chalkboard signs appear mysteriously outside of each door advertising fresh snails. The gardens look curiously messed with. Spaniards hustle with a sense of urgency to any open seat they can find.

The Spouse and I parked ourselves at a tiny cafe near Plaza de Alfalfa last night to watch the spectacle of hundreds of ravenous Spaniards stepping out in search of snails. The snails are cooked in butter and their own juices and eaten alone - sucked out of their shells loudly. The Spouse and I joined in and were presented with an uncomfortably large plate of snails, most with their little eyeballs still poking out of their shells. I am a fan of escargot because I like the sauce, but I couldn´t really get into freshly foraged garden snails. They are rubbery and taste oddly spicy. Their shells are lovely and striped, and make a pleasant, hollow tinkling sound after they are discarded.

At about 11:30 the tables cleared slowly. Everyone seemed joyously happy and pleased with themselves. The Spouse and I wandered back to our damp, wretched apartment and fell asleep to the sounds of night birds and wailing cats. Ah, España!

It´s Raining in Madrid

We made it to Madrid and today are heading to Seville on the high-speed train. It´s been six years since I was last in Europe and there were some things that I forgot about, like what it´s like to ride a subway in a country of garlic eaters at rush hour with an enormous packpack on. We missed our conencting flight in Charles de Gaul airport, and for some reason (exhaustion? dehydration?) I fainted while waiting in a sandwich line between our flights. Well...technically I slumped over on to a table took a very quick nap in fropnt of a lot of people.

It´s 6:30 in the morning now on a Sunday and the streets are full of tipsy twenty-somethings who, after being kicked out of the bars for the night, are staggering around trying to figure out what to do.

Sleep-Walking Towards Repose

This morning the Spouse and I are putting the final touches on our packing and in an hour we'll head to the airport and then off to Spain. We are leaving this miserable, moldy, cold state for warmer weather and more picturesque scenes. Weather.com just informed us that is equally as cold and rainy and miserable in Madrid as it is here. Awesome.

We considered taking wheeled luggage. We probably should take wheeled luggage. We're old now - technically in our "late 20s", which means that, against our will, the days of shabby hostals and dodgy guest houses are over. Still, the thought of wheeled luggage repulses us. We take wheeled luggage on business trips and not because it is more convenient but because it looks better.

True, the backpack is symbolic of that worldwide scourge, the "western traveler", that sandal and khaki cargo shorts-wearing clueless young person who turns up in remote places trying to find parts of the world where they will not see any other western travelers. While I was traveling in Asia I think I managed to avoid being a western traveler most of the time (although there is one incriminating picture of me on a beach on Koh PhiPhi wearing a sun dress and a full backpack).

While we are in Spain we will be something entirely new to me: middle-class leisure traveler. We are staying in hotels and renting an apartment. We will eat at restaurants instead of subsisting on the typical western traveler diet of crusty, impossibly fresh bread and stinky cheese. Here we are - so worn out by our lives that we are not interested in adventure, only rest. Is it healthy to feel like you're ready for retirement when you're only 27?

At least we haven't succumbed to wheeled luggage though.