June 21

June 21, 2007 Africa

Five AM came really early. We dressed and heading down to the breakfast room for a quick breakfast before a 2 hour drive to the Port where we are to catch a fast ferry across the straits of Gibraltar and onto Morocco Africa.

We all took the opportunity to sleep on the bus before our arrival at the port. We got there a little early so we had time for a coffee and donut. We board the fast ferry at 8:45 for a 9:00 am departure.

The ferry is actually a small well appointed ship. The layout was one deck with open air deck in front and rear with a club room for first class passengers. The vessel has comfortable reclining chairs, good to sleep in, tables, and restaurant. There are windows for viewing and very clean bathrooms. All in all an excellent vessel.

About one third of the way across the strait I see a group of young high school students all sitting in the center of the vessel. Strange but they looked familiar. I looked closer and asked one of the girls where they were from. “Notre Dame HS in Toledo Ohio” came the reply. Small world. They were on tour of Spain and France and were heading to Morocco for a day in Africa. We chatted a while and it turns out several were in the St. Francis Band. I told them Chris was with us and soon Chris was surrounded!

It seems several of the girls know Chris from St Francis and know Cathy from her time teaching at ND. The rest of the trip Chris was surrounded and Cathy spoke with her acquaintance from ND. Note to Lilly, Chris kept his distance and remained fully faithful.

The vessel passed the famous Rock of Gibraltar on our way to Africa. We will be on the Rock tomorrow. Soon the vessel arrived in Spanish Africa where we left the vessel and met our local guide for the trip out of Spain and into Africa.

Since we were leaving Spain we needed our passports to go through passport control. This is a Moslem country and so it is very controlled. We are assured we are safe but are told to be careful. They kept our passports at the border until we returned.

We were in a lush section of Africa. Morocco is an ancient city as well as a modern city. We were heading to the Midas (ancient part of the city). On the bus ride we saw camels, tent cities, and much modern construction. We passed the summer compound of King Faed, and many wealthy estates. Soon, however, as we approached the Midas things changed rapidly and for the worse.

The central city, an area that has been the same for 1400 years, was crowded, dirty, foul smelling and poor, dirt poor. We enter the Midas and our guide picks up tow additional guides to “help” us. More like to protect us.

The old city is just that, old. The streets are narrow about 4 feet wide, and are filled with turns and noise and smells. The shops and stalls are ancient, dirty about 10 feet wide and 5 feet deep. All the food is outside the shop making the narrow street even narrower. People are coming and going, chickens are clucking, sellers are barking and wagons are running you over. It can only be described as mass confusion controlled by generations of knowing what to do.

The shops sell everything. Each section has a specialty. We saw fruits, vegetables, nuts, breads, meats and fish. All are fresh and come in each day where they are sold to the locals who live in the Midas. Food is very cheap. You can buy fresh almonds at 2.2 pounds for 2 Euro ($2.60). Fish comes in every day and is shown in baskets with no ice or covering. It looks confusing and unsanitary but this is a third world country and you really get the idea of what it is like to be poor.

This area is Moslem and as such there are several Mosques for prayer. They pray 5 times each day. They begin at 5 AM, sunrise, again at Noon, again at sunset. Each prayer time is proceeded by ablations or ritual washing of the hands, feet, midbody, face, mouth and inside the nose. Each washing is done three times as the head priest calls from the Minaret to signal the time for prayer. It is all fascinating.

As we go deeper and deeper into the ancient city, some of our troops are getting more uncomfortable with all the smells, commotion and people. Our guide continues to tell us we are safe but “he doth protest too much” and we are not feeling safer.

Soon we are taken to a typical home turned into a shop. It is amazing. Outside is filthy, water in the streets, crowed and small. Inside is huge, brightly lit, smelling of incense and beautiful. We learn that the residence do not want anyone to know how much money they have so they keep the outsides shabby and have a palace inside. Not all are well of but most are not as poor as they pretend.

Any way we are in a carpet shop where all the carpets are hand made in the mountains and are sold as art as well as practical use. We learn a little of how the carpets are made and they then display them with a flourish.

One man explains about the carpet while another unrolls the carpet by throwing it in the air and pulling the other end. The carpets are beautiful and range from a few hundred Euros to 25,000 Euros. Our tour buys two carpets, one for 850 and one for 1300 Euros.

Buying a rung or anything in Morocco involves a process. The process includes much conversation and traditional bargaining. Americans are not very good at this part of the transaction but it was fun to watch. One couple wanted an 8 X 10 carpet. They were taken into the sale room and sat down. After a few minutes they were told the rung was 2900 USD. They did not know what to do so the seller had to tell them! Make an offer and I will counter then you will counter and we will come to a bargain, the chicken was lead to the slaughter. A few minutes later $850 was agreed upon and off to lunch we went.

Lunch was an affair to remember. Fist back out onto the streets for a short walk to the restaurant. We enter a small door into a wide hall filled with light and music from around the bend. We walk along and there we come to the Whirling Dervish. This is a group in traditional costume playing cymbals, drums and whirling in a circle so that a pom pom on a string (dervish) is set to whirling around.

We enter into a lavish restaurant intricately decorated in traditional art. We go to our table to enjoy a traditional Arab meal. We begin with a Tandori coos coos. This is a meal made of flour and rolled by hand for hours in water and salt until it is small and like pastina or rice. This is put into a Tandori pot a traditional cooking pot that is shaped like a triangle with a flat dish at the bottom. The coos coos is added with chicken, potato, carrot, cabbage and other vegetables and slow cooked for hours over an open flame.

The food is then put into the center of the table and each person serves them self a portion. You then add the hot sauce and a sprinkle of sea salt from the Dead Sea. Mix it together, delicious.

Next comes a course of kabobs of meat. These are small tender spiced meat served on a skewer. You are given two skewers but can have as many as you like. This is followed by a salad and is finished off with mint tea to help the digestion. Mint tea is green tea which is brewed with mint leaves in addition to the tea. It is poured into your cup, returned to the pot and returned to the cup. This is done three times to honor Allah.

We leave the Midas and head back to the bus for the trip to the port and return across the straights back to Torremolino and our beachfront hotel.

We are not done yet. We get back to the hotel at 8:00 and we are on our own for dinner.
As we get ready for dinner we run into a little adventure. It seems when we left in the morning Cathy changed her purse into her back pack and believes she left the purse on the unmade bed. When we returned the beds were of course made but the purse was gone. It was essentially empty but we were concerned where it could be. We looked everywhere but nothing. I went downstairs to report it to the Hotel Manager.

He was more concerned then I was. It seems it was possible the purse was accidentally wrapped up into the bed sheets and sent off to the laundry. The laundry opens at 9:00 am and we depart at 8:00 am. I give him my cell number and hope if they find it they can send it back to Toledo. The good news now is Cathy gets to buy a new purse!

We head out to dinner and walk along the beach to a beach front hotel. We are tired of huge meals and looking for something small and not fish! Pizza answers the call. We spy a pizzeria with a beach front table and we sit down with friends, pitchers of Sangria are served and pizza is enjoyed.

As we are sitting there we watch the people promenade along the Playa. Soon some young pretty girls come walking by and glance in our direction. One takes a double take and walks up and says “Chris?”

It turns out this is another group from Notre Dame HS in Toledo. They did not go to Africa and did not know Chris was in Spain. Again Chris was surrounded and spent much time talking about college and his travels to Greece later this month. Some of these girls will see Chris later this year at Band Camp. Note to Lilly, you may want to have a “talking to” with Chris before band camp!

Finally it is 10:00 PM exhaustion sets in and we walk back to the hotel. The weather is still beautiful and the pleasant walk gets us truly ready for sleep. Tomorrow the wake up is 6:30 am. Wow we get to sleep in!