Yet another similarity between southern Spain and southern
California, aside from the weather, the Mediterranean climate, the laid-back
lifestyle, and the proximity of the ocean, is the lure of the exotic
frontier. I have always loved
Tijuana, gritty though she may be; we can see the Tijuana bullring and the
lights of this Mexican border city from our house in California. While it is not quite so close, the frontier city of Tanger (or Tangiers in English) beckons, and the
African coast is quite visible across the Strait of Gibraltar from the Spanish
port city of Tarifa. So, one
day, my visiting friend Dede and I ditched the kids and plunged into a whole
new continent...
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| Spanish coast seen from Tanger, Morocco, Africa |
Tanger has a reputation as the “Tijuana of Africa” and not
the best place to see Morocco, but we had only one short day to see whatever we
could fit in. I asked around the Rota naval community and found a wonderful
guide, Jamal Chatt, (find him here) to help us take advantage of our time
in Africa. For 90 Euros each
(about $112), Jamal was our personal guide and travel agent, arranging boat
fare, lunch, shopping, a visit to the snake charmers, and even a camel ride…
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| Jamal Chatt, guide extraordinaire |
Morocco is a Muslim country, although according to Jamal, a
very modern one. We did not need
head coverings or skirts, but from the moment we got off the boat it was clear
we were in a very different culture.
Men strode around in long robes, small taqiyah (skullcaps) on their heads, and
nearly every woman had her head covered.
There are over 50 mosques in this port city, calling the faithful to
prayer six times a day (4 am, 6 am, 1:30 pm, 5 pm, 8:30 pm, and 10:30 pm). We visited the outside of Tanger’s
Grand Mosque, built in the 1950s; there are separate entrances for men and
women, no non-Muslims allowed.
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| Grand Mosque's Men's Entrance |
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| Neighborhood Mosque |
We toured through Tanger first by car, stopping at
viewpoints and important buildings and driving up to the Casbah (although we
did not rock it). At the top of this old fortress, built by the
Portuguese in the 16th century over old Roman ruins, we found
snake charmers, men willing to take their cobra out of its bag to make it flair
its hood for the tourists, all for a couple Euros. The show lasted only a few minutes, the snake-charmer’s
partner beating on a tambourine-like instrument while the charmer himself wove
back and forth across from the five-foot cobra. Clearly against any US regulations!
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| Modern-day snake charmers |
Morocco has 900 kilometers of gorgeous, mostly untouched
beaches with (apparently) good surf.
We headed out to Cape Spartel, the mouth of the Mediterranean and the
closest point between Europe and Africa, the Spanish coast clearly visible a
mere 13 kilometers (8 miles) away.
History whispers here: the
Phoenicians crossed this straight from Africa to first settle the Spanish coast
some 3000 years ago, followed by the Romans, and the tempting site of the
Spanish hillsides made it easy to imagine the Berbers and other Arabic tribes
sailing across in a Moorish invasion to conquer the entire Iberian peninsula
around 780 A.D. Morocco,
incidentally, has a Catholic cathedral but very few Catholics, all of them
foreign-born. There is, however, a
significant native Jewish population, as many Spanish Jews crossed this straight after the expulsion of all non-Catholics from Spain in 1492.
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| Moroccan Beach Scene |
It was here we found the camels. Lining the road for the tourist buses that came through, the
camels lay kneeling in the hot Moroccan sun patiently chewing their cud. Dede and I clambered aboard two smiling
steeds, and with a few Arabic shouts and a thwack with a stick, each camel
lurched to its feet, hind legs rising first and the front legs following. They are a LOT taller than horses, but the
comfortable padding of the saddle-like collection of cloths felt secure. I had no idea how to make a camel go
and no stick of my own; the camel owner led us for a five-minute walk
across the cliffs fronting a lovely little beach, stopping regularly for photo
ops. These desert beasts of
burden, with their rolling gait and long-lashed gentle brown eyes, helped us
feel like we were definitely exotic!
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| Camel Jockeys: no spitting allowed |
Lunchtime found us in a beautiful, if touristy restaurant
(our own fault, as Jamal had offered us a choice of three: “where the locals
eat,”, a charcoal seafood restaurant, or this fresco-and-tile-covered,
cushion-filled, foreigners-only haven, complete with musicians for your dining
pleasure). It was delicious,
chicken pie and a couscous tangine, olives, bread and olive oil, and delightful
tiny cookies for dessert.
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| Moroccan musicians |
Our final stop before heading home on the 6 pm boat was the
Medina, a maze of tiny streets filled with various shops hawking everything
from the ubiquitous Berber carpets to jewelry to Nike knock-offs to cheap
clothes from China. It was as to
be expected, and just like Tijuana: three times as expensive as anything
inland, and mostly junk at exorbitant prices. Even after very aggressive bargaining and a vow to pay less
than half the asking price, I only managed to match the prices I had found in
an earlier trip to Granada, Spain!
I did, however, find some lovely tea glasses to complement the Moroccan
tea pot my sister Suzanne had brought me from her own 25-hour trip to this
fascinating country. And the kids got some fun
new costumes.
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| Still Life with Teapot |
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| Charming Belly Dancers |
In sum, our trip was a great introduction to this accessible
culture, and left me with the desire to follow my German grandmother (a painter
who traveled here extensively) and venture more deeply into Morocco. Fez and Marrakech, here we come!
