memory

Saturday. A day of travel. Walk to the ferry. Take the ferry back to Tarifa. From there, a bus to Cadiz and finally a train to Jerez de la Frontera.


A time to allow for memories to take shape. For instance, in leaving Tanger, as we walk through the very quiet morning streets and alleys, I take note of the cats of Tanger. Alley cats. They get lost in the crowds that fill the streets later in the day. But now, they’re prominent.






I have to think, too,  that the image of men in cafés will remain a fixed one.






Perhaps women would find no pleasure in sitting in smoke filled places and yet their absence there is, to me, memorable.

Tanger images. Of turquoise taxis. Of a medina sitting on a hill, but really on several hills, as the alleys go up and down and then up again.






The ferry ride. This is the smoothest set of waters I’m ever likely to see here, on the Straits that separate Europe from Africa, the Atlantic from the Mediterranean.






So, is there no wind in Tarifa? As we pull into the old familiar port, everything appears very calm. Here's the lighthouse at the tip of the causeway. Atlantic there, Mediterranean here.






And now we are almost at the ferry port...






...okay, we're docked. We step out.  The fishing boats, the fortified walls, the cluster of shore-front houses...







Ah, but there is wind. A little lighter than before, but it requires that I pull back my hair unless I want to work out the tangles later.






But, the people of Tarifa are used to it. They go about their business, despite the gusts and breezes.






We walk along the beach, but not for long. An hour maybe. We have our packs and they seem a tad heavier. Or maybe that it's carrying them on our backs on sandy shores of the Atlantic that makes them appear more of a burden. One should be free to romp on a beach. Like this guy.











Still, even for us slow pokes with the packs and bags, it's just so beautiful here! The colors -- unforgettable colors!






Will I remember that looking toward Africa, I saw the rain cloud pass by and what with the gusts of wind and cloud, a mini tornado formed?






The rain never touched Tarifa.

We return to sit at our favorite café and I order a salad and I remember the very first such salad that I had in Granada (and many since then). They’re all the same. And they’re all delicious.






People watching here. A handful of girls sit at a table, practicing the art of café life. I take note. It's hard not to make comparisons.






And now it’s time to leave – we have a 14:45 bus to catch. So, a final glance at the entrance to the old quarter...






... and we return to the bus station, where a trio is also waiting. I note the heels again and I note that these women all have long hair and none of it is tied back against the wind.





The bus ride is 80 minutes. Time to think. About how as I get older, my memory is more fickle. For instance, somewhere in Granada, I lost 100 Euros. I have no idea how it happened. I zip up all purses and guard against theft in any number of ways. It must have dropped out as I was pulling out coins. But I just do not remember. Perhaps it's not a matter of memory, but rather carelessness. But here’s a true memory issue: in Ronda, I left behind, at the hotel, my cosmetics case. Amazing how little one needs one’s 'cosmetics' – I’ve managed fine without them. Still, I now know that I cannot rush to post something and scoot out the door at the last minute. In decades of travel, this is the first time that I left behind something that large and that obvious.


We pull into Cadiz. Pronounced variously. It’s beautiful enough (this, gleaned from our walk through part of the old town, but again, encumbered with packs, so it hadn’t the value of a real stroll) that we’re likely to return. So just one photo for now.






Okay, maybe a second. We were there for an hour after all.






It’s close to Jerez de la Frontera – our final Andalusian destination. You hop on a commuter train there (and back). We’re now heading to Jerez, the two passengers here are on a train heading back to Cadiz.






I’ll well remember the train rides – they were all 100% wonderful.

In Jerez, we arrive at our hotel, the beautiful Casagrande, only to find it locked. We ring the bell -- nothing. We walk to a local café, ask about it, but no one knows. Shrugs. We go back, ring again. I’ll probably forget that it took a half hour’s effort to finally get someone to answer the door. (They’d been on the rooftop, repotting plants and they didn’t hear the door.)

But I’ll remember the grand room with windows on thee sides.





(And maybe even the price – 85 Euros with a full, cooked breakfast included.)

We ask for dinner recommendations – not touristy please. Something local, simple. The hotel person laughs. There’s nothing touristy about any of the places. Jerez is not a tourist destination!

We eat at La Cruz Blanca – a terrific place with the best wild mushroom salad ever. Will I remember it? Maybe, maybe not. But I’ll remember that when we ordered shrimp with garlic, we got these, the ever familiar pel pels.






And I'll probably remember that in every place on this trip we've gone into a bakery for a small handful of cookies. Often with nuts or pine nuts, like these.






Funny how some things stay in your head. And others do not.

a bevy of interesting observations (not necessarily my own)

(Morning)

An unexpectedly bright and sunny sky, as seen from the roof top of Dar 23 in the medina of Tanger.

(Later)

We look out at the Strait of Gibraltar. The seemingly endless hazy mist over these waters is less pronounced. Spain is quite visible from where we stand.
Ed shakes his head in wonderment: in one place there are parts of a pig in every store, then you cross a thin strip of water and now there’s no pig anywhere. Amazing.

(Earlier)

After a pleasant breakfast of yogurt, flatbreads and fried pancakes, Ed and I take a walk through Tanger. Peter suggests stopping off at the Phoenician tombs – nearly three thousand years old (Tanger was probably discovered by the Phoenicians) – easily discernable on a cliffside overlooking the ocean.
You wont miss them. They’re carved into the stone, probably filled with rain water or garbage or both.

(Around the noon hour)

Our walk starts just before the big Friday call to prayer. Initially, the shops are open, the city noises blending with the noise of the taxi engines and motorscooters. Streets are crowded, benches are occupied, the men are at their cafés.
















But at twelve, the men turn to the mosques. Or most men. On the cliffs, we find a few who, like us, come to gaze out at the sea (and unlike me, have no fear of being near cliff edges).



(Ed)














As we continue to walk away from the medina and city center, the coastal streets become quieter. Some of the side streets have driveways leading to moderately prosperous homes. We come across a man washing a car.
Ed mumbles: he’s sporting a gun in a holster. I respond -- a guard maybe? We move on, out of the range of fire.

Eventually the road dead-ends. We give a glance to the cliffs before us and turn back, away from the coast, toward the complicated set of streets, boulevards and alleyways of Tanger.











We’re by a large cemetery and the road leads right to one of the side entrances. We hesitate about going in. There are a number of people there today, some praying, some merely tidying the tomb site – putting in branches of myrtle and other greenery.
I say to Ed – let’s pass through it. I wont take photos.
You better not!
He is so emphatic that I’m surprised. Ed’s usually my biggest nudger to take risks with photos. Not here, not now.
I offer this -- it’s interesting – in the west, taking respectful photos of old tombstones is quite common.
We have no idea what the customs are here, Ed responds, but it’s not as if I need the reminder. And I have yet to see a single Tanger resident with a camera, a phone camera or any other recording device.

(After the noon hour)

At 12:30, school’s out. (For the afternoon? For the day? Is there a weekend?)






I have before me a parade of children and mothers and grandmothers. In Tanger (unlike in, say, Marrakech), all women over a certain age (what age?) are in long robes and veils. Men’s attire, on the other hand varies, though there, too, long robes are more common than not.






The children sometimes shout Hola and bonjour at us. Every once in a while one will ask for a Euro. We look like we're more likely to have Euros than the Moroccan Dirham.


 


As we navigate the streets, passing small clusters of men or groups of kids, it seems clear that in Tanger, we can expect to be stared at. If I see a group of people on a park bench at some distance in Europe, I can easily take a photo. They’ll be so engrossed in conversation that they wont even notice. But here, we are noticed, even from afar. There is friendly vibe to the stares, or at least a non threatening vibe to them, but they are unabashed and constant.

As Ed takes my hand I say – I wonder if it is common for men to touch women in public. Last night, in the restaurant, at the end of dinner, a couple – maybe Moroccan, maybe not, engaged in an obvious make-out session, right there, by the table. It’s as if they were flaunting a certain openness of feeling. But it was the exception.

We continue to meander, now through a mostly shuttered and less vibrant medina.











And then we take a pause at Dar 23.

(Late afternoon)

The chant can be heard again, signifying the end of prayer. It’s still light outside and I have a small errand to run.

It takes a strong man (and a stronger woman) to resist shopping in Morocco. (The typical temptations would include slippers – every man and most women wear these at some point, out on the street, inside a home, no matter – they’re the standard. And for foreign visitors, carpets, typically made by the Berber people in the Atlas Mountains fill the stores. My sights are for something much much smaller, but I like to admire these colorful handmade crafts anyway.)












Ed is a man who can resist any shopping anywhere. I can too these days, especially when I travel with him. It creates a sense of well being to move freely and lightly with half empty backpacks, especially when you use trains and buses and prefer hiking great distances to taking cabs.

But (and there is a but), it’s my little girl’s birthday the day after we get back to the Midwest and I know she would like some small gift from Morocco. She is the one who dragged me here in the first place a few years ago and her memories of that trip are as good as are mine.

So I ask Ed if he’s up for a shopper’s stroll through the medina. I know what I want. It’s a question of finding a good version of it and getting a good bargain. (The small item shall remain nameless as she reads Ocean and it would be inopportune to mention it here now, before her birthday.)

Ed agrees to go along. We enter one store. No, won't do. Another – wow, this is a big store, with a maze of rooms and an upstairs and then another upstairs. A handful of men work here. They’re not busy. They’re drinking mint tea by the doorway. There are no tourists now, no shoppers at all. I get too much attention, even as I want just the smallest of items.

Ed waits on a stool as I go inside. Immediately, I like the vibe of the place. Ed tells me that a good shopkeeper will have worked out splendidly every detail of pleasing the customer. Well, this shopkeeper knows his stuff. His praise for my French, my taste, my height weight and color of hair (I exaggerate here) is fluent and believable. And he leads me away from the small item that I could fit in a change purse to something slightly bigger. I protest, he’s understanding, working around the problem that I don’t want anything that wont glide into the side pocket of my backpack.

In the end, he wins. And, because he’s good at his job, he makes me feel great for going along.

I tell Ed – they don’t have any business, no tourists at all, no one is buying, so I got a real bargain.
Yes, I’m sure. He used all the right words.
But it’s true! I don’t quite have that amount (I only carry a few Euros with me, which work here if you want to be stupid and overpay for everything), but he’s willing to escort us to an ATM machine.
Ed’s laugh could be heard throughout the medina. I bet he is!

At the ATM, I encounter a guy who sells Moroccan sweets.





He gives me a sample, I like it and ask for a small packet to take home (I have come a long way with street food; there would have been a time when I would have refused to eat anything from someone who uses the same hand to cut his sweets as he does to handle money. Ed tells me that transmitting disease through money is far less common than through poor sanitation and I choose to believe him on that one).

But the entire one minute episode – there at the ATM, with the shop worker looking on (I have just bargained down ferociously something at his store and then spent effortlessly and frivolously a handful of coins on candy), the candy seller handing over the packet of sweets, and with the memory of the store owner, telling me to please give a small tip to the worker – maybe the equivalent of a couple of dollars, so that he could buy ice cream for his kids -- leaves me with the gloom that always comes when I ‘do business’ with someone who is much much poorer than I am.

Of course, the truth is that I wouldn’t have made the purchase at the asking price. Not because I couldn’t have, but because I wouldn’t choose to spend money in this way. (We’re talking very small dollars here). For a person who works at a Tanger shop, it’s a different sort of equation. The shopkeeper tells me – we need to pay our workers. We have too much stock and not enough cash. Offer us any price—chances are we’ll take it.

That’s a terrible bargaining position to be in. But that is the reality in Tanger.

We walk through the medina one last time without purpose, without destination. There was supposed to be a midday meal in there somewhere, but neither Ed nor I are hungry for it. He’s pensive and so am I. We retreat to Dar 23 and lose ourselves in our computers for a good period of time.

(Late evening)

We eat dinner at Agadir. A small place about a fifteen minute walk up and out of the medina. We had asked Peter for a very informal, low key place and he sends us here. A few tables, loosely scattered. Some oil cloth on top, a string of balloons, a very crookedly hung insignificant painting of a camel-riding Arab.

The way we are sitting, we can look straight into the kitchen. Not the stove and oven – the exciting part, but the chopping table and the kitchen sink. A cat comes in and waits. The cook, who is also the waiter and pretty much everything else, must like the cat because neither minds the other’s presence.





We order a zesty Moroccan salad to start with and our cook, waiter, restauranteur goes to the kitchen to chop veggies for it. None of this take-out-a-plate-with-a ready-salad-from-the-fridge stuff. The restaurant also serves Moroccan wine and I order a half bottle of rosé. Delicious.






Now comes the main course. It’s a perfect chicken tagine. All the good flavors of prunes, almonds, dried fruits and spices.






The whole dinner tab for us, wine included, hovers at around $20.

I have absolutely no complaints.


We walk back just as the last vendors are packing up. Tanger at night is a place of shadows. Lights are dim, long robes hide details, colors are lost, movement is hushed, hurried.





The medina is almost shut up for the night. We wont ever quite see it in its robust form. Tomorrow, immediately after breakfast, we’ll be taking the ferry back to Spain.

come to the Kazbah

Mohamed is waiting for us at the port. He smiles and waves and I am very glad to see him. It’s not easy to find the place where we’ll be spending the next two nights. Dar 23. Up an indifferent alley of the old medina, behind a formidable black door. A b&b? More like a private home with rooms. Exquisite, beautifully decorated rooms. The owner, Peter (a former fashion designer who hails from Hong Kong, but is French, with a mother living in Long Island), rents them at a fantastic winter rate of 70 Euros, with breakfast, all inclusive.

Mohamed, Peter’s assistant, speaks Arabic and French. As we walk from the ferry to Dar 23, he talks about the city of Tanger.
Close to two million, he says. But most of them come in for the work, from the south. When we have a holiday, the city empties. They go back to their families. Of the two million, maybe five thousand stay behind.

That’s a typical Nina/Ed exaggeration, but I get the point. People are here to earn cash as best as they can.


Both Ed and I wanted to come to Tanger, even as we have very different memories of Morocco. I was here with my daughter (though not in Tanger) some three years ago and it was an exciting and wonderful trip. Ed was here some forty years ago (in Tanger) on a quick half day jaunt from Spain and felt that this was plenty. Still, he agrees now to come back. Curious to compare it to his youthful impressions.

To me, the most troubling thing about the trip is the ferry crossing. I hate being on a boat in rough waters and the Straits of Gibraltar look choppy all the time. I cannot fathom now how it could be that I crossed the Atlantic three times as a kid on a ship. These days even a half hour out on wavy seas makes my stomach heave.

The ferry from Tarifa to Tanger is big. It’s a catamaran, with the word “jet” emblazoned on it, which to me signifies speed. That’s good. The faster the better.

The ticket agent does warn of winds (I know, I feel them – Tarifa winds) and she admits that the advertised amount of time for the crossing (35 minutes) is plain wrong (it’s closer to an hour), but it’s the ferry or skip Morocco, so after a bracing breakfast/lunch at our favorite café in Tarifa...





...we board. With a small number of Moroccans returning and a large group of Koreans with many very large suitcases visiting.

You know the saying – quit worrying because what’ll get you in the end is not the thing that triggers you worries – well, the crossing is just fine. I even enjoy it (the same cannot be said for a handful of Koreans, who, despite their counter motion sickness exercises, look utterly defeated by the end of the hour).

And as we alight in Tanger, there is Mohamed.


Tanger. I’ve read dismissive comments on the Internet from those who come for the day from Spain and by dusk are glad to be done with it. They say that it lacks tourist attractions, that it makes Morocco look bad. I am in our room at Peter’s and I listen to the chanted calls for prayer sounding over the city, I think about the mint tea we drank earlier and the Moroccan cakes we ate on the rooftop of some place in the Kasbah and I think -- Tanger is fascinating.





Dar 23 – the place Mohamed leads us to – hasn't a sign or any indication of what's inside. Just the street number of the house. Our stunning white room and tiled bathroom (there are only three in all) are up several flights of steps. Its windows open up onto a view of a ledge with potted plants.











On a lower level there is a small living room and Peter invites us there for a glass of mint tea with nuts and dates and Moroccan biscuits to munch on.





He gives us pointers on how to navigate the city (unlike in Marrakech, where shop keepers are after you to sell their stuff, here, it’s the people out on the street who try to ‘assist you’ in any way they can. Often for a coin. It is, in fact very hard to tell when someone is being friendly because they are pleased to see a foreign visitor or because they want something in return).

We lose our way very early on in our first walk through the old town. The map isn’t accurate, the streets are without any understandable to me logic.











Even though we start in the old medina, very quickly we find ourselves outside of it. That’s okay. We need to check dinner places. And get some Moroccan cash. Here, in the 'newer' Tanger, the streets are wider and the houses bear an uncanny resemblance to Andalusia. With a Moroccan twist and a Tanger entryway.










...and so long as we have the cash now, we need some more Moroccan cookies, because they are so extraordinarily excellent, what with the almonds and the walnuts and the pistachios...






Back in the medina (the oldest Arab quarter of a North African city), we try again to locate the Kasbah. You’d think this fortified navel of the old medina would be easy to get to. You’d think. We pass through dark alleys and shop filled alleys. On wider lanes there are cafés. Men only cafés. The men watch soccer, play cards, drink sweet mint tea. They’re places where I know a camera would not be welcome. Women are out on the streets, mostly in the company of one another, with their children. Or, they're home, attending to things there.












Finally, we reach a square with an added fortification protecting it from the rest of the city. The Kasbah. The walls are crumbling now, tilting toward the sea.

The views from here are to the sea and toward the eastern coast of Morocco.


 


We find a little place (at Peter's suggestion) – all in blue and white, waiters included)...


 













...that serves wonderful snacks – tomatoes, olives and cheese with the flatbreads that we see everywhere, cookies and strawberries...

From the terrace (or is it rooftop?), you can see the medina spill down to the water.


 


We sit at a table facing the square, so that we can watch people cut through, heading into the medina.Men in pointed hoods and Fez, women in colorful robes.











It’s not crowded here and I can tell that for Ed, for this reason alone it’s a good place to be. We linger until it becomes too cold for me to linger anymore. We rejoin the river of people in the old quarter.










As we walk again through the medina, I am taken in by the fast pace, the colors, by the enormous amount of “stuff” for sale here. Tanger may not draw crowds of tourists like Marrakech does, but it certainly does not lack the small shops of woven stuff, metal stuff, ceramic and leather stuff. And just stuff.



























Shops with embroidered robes and caftans sell things locally made. We pass shops where men weave and sew...






...and then, finally, a food market where women make cheese discs with palm leaves, others sell the ubiquitous flat breads, and olive vendors seem mildly bored with their assortments of olives, even as I can’t get enough of them.









The piled produce is tightly packed. Overflowing. How much will be sold before the closing hour?







It’s evening now. Dinner time. We step out of Peter's Dar 23 into the alley. Everything appears darker now.


 


And still, in and out of the medina, Tanger continues to be preoccupied with buying and selling.





We go to a place that serves a set menu. A friendly place, where the waiter moves from table to table, on good terms with everyone.


 


It’s not cheap by Tanger standards: about $20 per person for all five set courses and a bottomless glass of a home made drink of fruit juices. At 8:30 the place is nearly full. Initially, about half are from elsewhere. Not Morocco. But after 9 the balance shifts. Women, cloaked in long robes, escorted by men in more western clothing come in, sit down and begin to eat.

We munch on the dips and olives and then proceed to the fish soup. And the shrimp and squid with spinach. And the grilled fish. And the strawberries with raw honey and nuts and barley with honey as well. With glass after the glass of their delicious pulpy fruit (grape, strawberry and who knows what else) juice. Too much food we keep saying, but it comes nonetheless, dish after dish, fresh, honest, delicious.

















Night at the medina. I can see a star or two, but it’s hard. The alleys are narrow. The old, often crumbling buildings block much of the sky. No moon for me tonight. Shops are closed or closing, but the noise level along the wider passages remains high. Male voices. Greeting, selling. Food stands are still drawing crowds. Snails? Some egg dish? Sesame bars? These are guesses. Much of Tanger is a muddle of guesses for me. The city is like a tightly wrapped box that uses too much packing tape. You need special tools to get it off. A common language would help. French will get you places, but you need Moroccan Arabic, or for some -- Tarifit (a Berber language from the nearby Rif mountains) to start ripping at the layers.

In the meantime, we walk with our 'non, merci, non' as men and boys offer to lead us here, there, to the Kasbah. Up there, Go there, to the Kasbah.