Weekend of Cultures and Continents- Part II

Well, the next part of the adventure began at 5:30 Saturday morning when we awoke and took a taxi (the busses had just gone on strike) to the port at Algeciras, a small city further north on the coast. Like the day before, it was cloudy and windy, so we sat at the port watching ferry after ferry cancel for the day until we found a 9am that wasn’t cancelled yet. “Here’s your tickets… but you’ve got to run!” The boat was nice, but the 3-hour ride was pretty rough, making me so thankful I don’t get motion sickness like tons of other people did.
I have heard that as soon as you step off the ferry, you are mobbed by tons of Moroccans clambering for money, but for us that was not really true. After finding a hotel, we followed the advice of the manager and ate at this amazing restaurant traditionally decorated with Arab tiles and bright woven cloths on the walls and couches. We ate wonderful soup, bread, cous-cous, and lamb meatballs, finished off by a cup of sweet mint tea.
When the hotel manager magically reappeared at the restaurant and offered to guide us around the city, we agreed, thinking it would be safer walking around with him. It worked out very well because he showed us all around the real city, and we could take pictures with him around to explain things and fend off people who weren’t too thrilled about our cameras. We may not have gotten to see all the tourist stuff there, like snake charmers or the beach, but what we did see was amazing, like the high defense place in the city with cannons, the outside of the Sunni mosques, the old Catholic church left by the British, part of the new city, and La Medina (I don’t know the English or Arabic word since we were talking in Spanish, but it’s the old part of the city with a labyrinth of tiny streets weaving up the hill). And we did get to see how the people really live: women wearing veils buying fruit on the street from men in robes, stores filled with pyramids of spices and nuts, raw halves of animals arriving in trucks, market streets filled with people talking loudly, men and boys weaving clothing on a small street, a crippled man baking pita-ish things on another, public water faucets for those who have none, men on mats bowing towards Mecca… Morocco can break your heart.
After our guide got tired of us and we got tired of him, we walked around the outside of the mosque we heard the calls to prayer coming from. Sad. I had never been to a Muslim country or (North) Africa before, and I appreciated being able to experience it firsthand. One day I would like to visit Marrakech and Fez, bigger cities in Morocco, just to really see the country. Yes, this trip was intense at times, but it was beautiful and I felt pretty safe most of the time, especially since there were so many women on the streets and we were in a group with a guy. And a lot of the people there were nice. Actually, the biggest excitement occurred when Laura fell in a manhole (but she’s okay).
It was pretty nerve-wracking when we went to leave… the weather in Spain was still bad so most the boats were cancelled... Look, one is opening a ticket office… herds of people pressing hard against us, pushing at the window… men yelling… we don’t know what’s going on, don’t know Arabic or French… I really should learn some… police jumping into the mess, separating the women to one side away from the men… men still straining to throw their passports over our heads… But we survived and made it back to Spain just in time for the bus to Sevilla.

Y’all, our money might not be worth much now, and we might not know who the next president will be, but we have water. And we have Living Water. Remember that this week. :^)