Excerpts and transcripts taken directly from my personal travel journal
In late July, I departed for the "meat" part of my summer vacation & headed to W. Europe & Morocco.
My adventures included stops in:
Spain Madrid, Segovia, Valencia, Barcelona, & Malaga
Morocco Chefchaouen, Fes, & Marrakesh
Portugal Faro, Portimao, & Lisbon
Sicily Salemi, Palermo
Modes of Transportation included:
ferry, taxi, car, train, bus, tram
Some memorable highlights:
I succumbed to & became a well accomplished beach bum!
Never before have I visited so many beaches. Not being a lover of beaches, I must confess I did pretty well in going with the flow and chilling under the hot European sun!
We hit beaches in Valencia, Barcelona, the Algarve of southern Portugal and Sicily.
The mass exodus from the Spanish enclave of Meilla (which is on the Moroccean side) to the Moroccean governed territory of Nador was one thrilling, scary & nerve-wracking experience all rolled up into this multi-layered experience! First, let me start off by saying that we had started our day by leaving early from our Malaga pension to catch the ferry to Meilla (Spanish enclave on Moroccean side). The ferry ride was a few hours. I mostly slept because we had to get up early that morning & I had still felt tired. Now, picture an exodus, a "mass" exodus that is, where all you see is people!!! In fact, a sea of people carrying their many loads, bags & packages. Then, picture also cars, a huge line-up of cars with the same intentions of wanting to enter into Morocco! We lined up like all the others. The line-ups weren't too long but there was only one poor soul in the Passport Control booth! There were many other plains clothes people who looked mighty suspect. I didn't know if they were the police or something other. Some Moroccean joe came up to us and wanted to "sell" us those custom papers that you fill out before entering a country! He asked us to give him our passports so that he could fill it out for us. Then, of course, he would ask for a fee. I declined & ignored the guy by getting & staying in line. Factor in the blistering heat into all this & you can imagine that the situation gets a little heated (no pun intended). When it comes to my turn, I'm relieved & just hope the control officer (he's wearing a legit uniform - whew!) can give me clearance to go! With all the hectic action happening, people everywhere, under that unforgiving sun, I thought to myself, please, please let us just get through! I felt like a person marching in a massive crowd of refugees seeking authorization to cross the border. And, actually, this is the very way of daily life for many people!
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| The coveted stamp |
Once we pass the solider, we were met by oodles of people wanting to sell us everything from food, gum, to taxi services. In our state of still being overwhelmed & dripping with sweat, we kindly declined all advances. We needed to figure out how to exit this place! In due time, we figured out that we needed to get to a place called Nador. This is where we could catch long distance buses travelling to different locations in Morocco. We ended up deciding to get on a packed local bus with our big packs, in the blistering heat & head to the bus terminal. At the bus terminal, we were stuck in a few predicaments. We needed to get to Fes but that was a long shot since it was further south (we were in the north) and we had already dealt with an ordeal of a day getting into Morocco! Plus, we felt famished and didn't have a place booked to stay! So, destination unknown... This was hardcore backpacking at its best because we were scrambling with ideas & possibilities. We ended up deciding to go purchase tickets to Chefchaouen which was about a 4-6 hour drive from the bus terminal. We ended up waiting for a few hours before the bus was scheduled to depart. The terminal was suspect...many little shops selling food to eat, candies, clothing, shoes, bus tickets...We didn't speak French or Arabic so we had some communication problems because we had assumed the bus was coming earlier than it was scheduled to & was wondering about the delay??? Everywhere we went, we got the customary stares - it didn't matter if it were a kid or a senior. They all liked looking at the "foreigners". Ha! Finally, we ended up boarding the bus & took 4-6 hrs. before getting to Chefchaouen at 2 am in the morning! Thankfully, we did make one stop in the middle of the night in some small town to pick-up a quick bite & have a washroom break. Thankfully, I didn't have to use the washroom in the station because behind the closed door, let's just say, the light wasn't working & you couldn't see a thing! We ate what the locals ate...some sandwich thing..not sure what it was & it tasted a little "different"...let's just leave it at that...
The long bus ride was torturous. I couldn't sleep & it was extremely uncomfortable. The bus was quite cold. The constant zigzagging of the mountain switchbacks had us swinging like bowling pins about to fall. It also didn't help that we had been on the road for the whole entire day! The only positive note was that the shimmering stars & mountainous terrain was gorgeous to watch & in fact looked like a picturesque scene right out of a Hollywood movie set! We had finally arrived in Chefchaouen in the wee morning hours. We got off the bus with 4 other Moroccean young men. They were helping us look for the hostel where we had made a reservation. We got off and gathered our packs. The direction in which we were headed had one gigantic hill going up! After one super long day, that hill angered me & I just rolled my eyes in disbelief! Without exaggerating, that was one wicked incline, with all our gear and all. We had walked around in vain for what seemed like "forever" looking for our hostal. We finally found it & discovered that it was FULL! Since we got in a later time than we anticipated, I guess we lost our room & were brought to check out another place. Thankfully, the other place had a 3-bedroom which worked out fine for us. I quickly showered, conked out & disappeared into a deep, deep abyss of sleep.
We were now in Morocco & I'm glad we went to Chefchaouen because it was such a gorgeous town in the Rif mountains!
Since we were travelling in the dead of summer, the sun was intense & the heat nearly unbearable! This was another time that the hankerchief, aka hanky, came in handy & was most especially useful after we washed our hands from using the facilities. So..one of our travel rules was to always have a hankerchief on our person! Not having one would mean busting a serious "amateur move"!
The hospitality in Sicily
AA had some relatives in Salemi, Sicily so they hosted us & opened up their summer home for us to stay in. Let's just say that although Sicily was undeniably beautiful & we had a really amazing "homestay" (as we affectionately coined it) experience, our whole time there had its fair share of "drama".
The homemade food there was fantastic and the beaches were gorgeous!
The hospitality that we received was both remarkable & memorable!
All in all, my travel experience this summer was tremendously awesome! Backpacking has its elements of fun & excitement as well as its challenges of planning, organizing, being on top of things, researching etc. I find that in traveling there is so much beauty to soak in, cultural differences to gain insight and openly embrace, languages to appreciate, and age old traditions to learn & welcome. The reward is in the journey & there is so much to gain through travelling that it makes the whole experience so worth it!
An unforgettable experience!
Visit my photo collection of my Western Europe adventures
http://www.flickr.com/photos/gigglesyee/collections/72157629078563203/
Next destination: Perhaps touchdown in South America ~ Chile or Argentina?
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