Iberian Discovery - Part 7

Morocco and Gibraltar

For weeks I had been both apprehensive and excited about our trip to Tangier in Morocco. Even our normally unperturbed guide seemed nervous about keeping everything under control and on schedule. He worried about border crossings, passports, police, and customs officials. I didn't know what to expect. We departed Spain from Tarifa and crossed the Strait of Gibraltar on this boat.

Crowds entering the ship eventually spread out over the spacious interior. They left piles of luggage on the lower deck next to cars and trucks parked there. The one hour journey to Morocco was unremarkable except for moments when I realized we were actually traveling to Africa! Seating was comfortable inside the ship as you can see in the next picture.

Leaving the ship was a slight adventure because everyone was pushing to exit through one narrow door. Our guide frantically tried to keep us all together as passengers hurried to pick up piles of luggage. All was well as we emerged near the docks in Morocco and saw our first view of Tangier.

In a nearby parking lot we were met by our Moroccan guide, Mohammad, who first drove us around the wealthier parts of Tangier on a bus. Eventually, we got off the bus in a more interesting place near a street market. This market was an authentic slice of ordinary Tangier life. We walked along the edge of the market trying to avoid raucous car traffic at our elbows. I really felt out of place here. I tried not to interfere with any local people, or stare like a gawking alien. We were told the seated women in straw hats were Berbers not fond of having their pictures taken. I carefully snapped a few quick pictures that seemed to do no harm.

We walked away from the hectic, noisy, traffic clogged street market through the following plaza, the Place du 9 Avril, 1947, towards the medina, or old section of the city.

Here is the entrance to the medina enclosed by 15th century walls.

We saw sheep tied to the top of a car as we crossed the road toward the gate. By coincidence we were visiting on the day before Eid al Adha, a Muslim holiday celebrated with the sacrifice of sheep. In America we all eat turkey at Thanksgiving. We get our turkeys already slaughtered and wrapped up nicely in the supermarket. In Morocco things are different. If I correctly understood the guide's explanation, in Tangier families actually slaughter sheep themselves at home to celebrate Eid al Adha. The day of our visit was a baa-baa-bad day for sheep!

Once we entered the narrow market streets of the old city I remained acutely aware of my foreign status. At the same time I was fascinated by the surrounding environment. Shops and stalls were stocked with all sorts of interesting items, but there was no time to stop to browse or ask questions. We were marching along steadily, and I needed to stay with the group or be hopelessly lost in an alien labyrinth. The pictures that follow were hastily captured while making our way through busy shoppers.

The butcher shop was quite a sight.

The colorful tea sets in the second picture below were enticing, but we swept past the shop and kept walking.

Eventually, our guide brought us to what he called a craft store. The entrance was lined with attractive items.

Soon we were led upstairs and told we would hear an educational talk about rugs.

We sat on stools while a master of ceremonies came out with several assistants. The assistants labored mightily, unrolling rug after rug with a flourish. You can see the master of ceremonies in the picture below telling us how beautiful and desirable each rug was. It soon became obvious we were a captive audience to a sales pitch. It was also obvious the Moroccan tour guide probably had a business arrangement with the rug merchant to bring tour groups in for the sales pitch. These guys were expert experienced salesmen! Anyone who showed the slightest interest in a rug, or anyone who merely said the rugs were beautiful, was immediately invited "upstairs" for the hard sell.

C is too kind-hearted and polite to tell salesmen to bug off. She has a gentle aura that attracts sales predators like these guys. They immediately latched on to her. Upstairs she went to be harangued on how much she needed a rug as you can see in the next picture below. Fortunately, something about my body language and attitude told them not to bother with me.

There was no escape from the salesmen because, without our guide, there was no way to exit the store to the narrow teeming streets outside. Furthermore, outside, waiting like vultures, were a flock of aggressive street salesmen who would have assailed any of our group foolish enough to exit.

Eventually, we all escaped the rug store and walked to a restaurant for lunch. Annoying street salesmen followed the whole way through narrow alleys urging us to buy bracelets and hats. Once in the restaurant we had an oasis of calm. The restaurant owner and staff seemed very, very happy to have us, and they were eager to please. The meal was actually quite good. The sweet Moroccan tea served at the very end was particularly good. Somewhere along the way we lost our original Moroccan guide and the fellow in the next picture became his replacement.

The new guide needed to hurry us along through narrow streets to our tour bus so we could reach our ship back to Tarifa on time. So we hastily left the restaurant oasis and plunged back into street salesmen hell. These guys were like persistent, aggravating gnats. Poor C was subject to lots of attention. I did my best to block them from her, but they were experts at following closely. Along the way we saw sheep being loaded into a trailer for delivery, and young men selling hay, feed, and supplies for the sheep to be slaughtered the next day.

Street salesmen followed us right up to the tour bus, prices dropping all the way. One of them actually came on the bus! One of our group finally bought some bracelets at the greatly reduced price. At last we made it back to the ship on time and settled in for our return to Tarifa.

The Morocco visit was quite an adventure, but our day wasn't finished. Back on our usual tour bus, we headed for Gibraltar. After a short drive we pulled into a parking lot and there it was, the iconic Rock of Gibraltar!

It's hard to imagine how we could actually drive up this rock, but our small Gibraltar tour bus did exactly that. Our local guide had an amusing British accent. He first drove us around to the back of the rock where we saw this mosque with a view of the rock in the background.

Over many years the British military had constructed roads going up the rock. Soon we were driving up an incredibly narrow, hair-raising road with a shear drop on one side. The guide driving the bus kept up a carefree chatter, driving at a good clip, seeming to ignore how close we were to disaster. Here is the view over the edge on the way up.

Gibraltar's famous Barbary "apes", actually Barbary macaques, are descendants of northern African macaques. They are the only wild monkeys on the continent of Europe. They live high up on the rock, and are interested in one thing: food. They know tour buses bring food, so they hang out on the side of the road waiting. One monkey apparently knew our guide. He climbed right in the window next to the guide and rode for awhile in the bus.

The bus soon stopped at a lookout point high on the rock. Monkeys were out in numbers to see if any food was available. They jumped onto the bus and walked around within a few feet of us.

We left monkeys behind and drove to another lookout point where the Gibraltar airport was visible. In the picture below you can see how the only entrance road to Gibraltar cuts perpendicularly across the airport runway! Obviously, all traffic is stopped when planes land or take off. The border crossing with Spain is where the road seems to begin near the right side of the picture. Spain is towards the top of the picture, and Gibraltar is towards the bottom. Comments made by our Spanish guide suggested that Spaniards generally resent British possession of Gibraltar. In particular, they resent how the airport was constructed, apparently, by creating new land beyond the Spanish border.

After a harrowing drive down the narrow roads we thankfully arrived safely at sea level where we walked briefly through some neighborhood Gibraltar streets.

It was a long, exciting, exhausting day. We drove from Gibraltar to our enormous resort hotel on the Costa del Sol. The resort was so big we needed a guide to get to our room. We had a late buffet dinner at the hotel. The oceanside resort reminded me of Hawaiian hotels we've enjoyed where areas are open to warm ocean breezes. We were so tired we went to bed instead of sitting outside to enjoy the evening by the ocean.

In the morning we walked through the open space behind the hotel pictured above. The ocean and beach were behind us as we faced the hotel. There would be no time for lying on a beach because we were headed for our next destinations: Malaga and Granada.

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