Moving Down to Marrakech

When I arrived at my hotel in Tangier, Morocco, on the night of March 5th, I discovered that it was right on the beach, though otherwise pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  I went to the hotel restaurant for dinner since there didn't seem to be anywhere else to get food and then called it an early night.

The next morning, I planned to take the train down to Marrakech.  I knew there was one at 11:30am that got in just after 8:00pm.  That gave me time to eat breakfast, pack and then take a quick dip in the sea before catching a cab to the train station.  It was actually a bit cold to swim, but I really just wanted to say that I had been in the Mediterranean on this trip.  I never got my act together while I was in Tel Aviv (where it also wasn't all that warm, maybe topping out at 75 on the warmest day) so I sucked it up and waded out into the water, waited for a break in the waves and then plunged under the surf before rushing back to shore.  I was really afraid of offending/sending the wrong message to the local populace that was strolling on the beach so I wore a baggy T-shirt over my bathing suit that I had to quickly strip off and replace with a towel once I got out of the water since the shirt was dripping wet and making me colder.  In communicating later with my father, there was a bit of discrepancy as to whether I was actually in the Atlantic Ocean and not the Mediterranean (thus completely wasting my time), but since Wikipedia states that Tangier is located where the two bodies of water meet, I am going to say that it counts.

After my quick dip, I made it to station with minutes to spare before my train left and found a comfy single window seat where I was able to hunker down for the long haul.  Of course, I ended up being on the opposite side of the train as the coastline, but I was still able to get enjoy the view.  I had to transfer trains once I got to Casablanca and then fight for a seat on the next train, but eventually I was able to sit down.

By the time I got to Marrakech it was already dark, and since I didn't have any idea where my hostel was, I decided to take a cab.  I'm pretty sure that I got ripped off, but I didn't have the energy to haggle (haggling over cab fares is possibly one of my least favorite things to do while traveling.)  When we got close to the right place, the driver told me he couldn't go any farther since the hostel was located off of a big pedestrian square.  He wrangled up a guy with a cart who he said would show me the way and though I had a map pulled up on my phone I decided to just go along with it.  We walked through the square where tons of tourists were milling about around food stalls, snake charmers and fortune tellers and then went down a narrow alleyway. 

When we got to the riad guesthouse, the porter brought my bags inside and I pulled out some money to give him a tip.  Since all he had done was cart my bags  for about five minutes, I figured I was just supposed to give him a small amount of money.  Instead he started demanding that I pay him nearly the same amount I had given the cab driver! (who himself had ripped me off)  I argued back that I hadn't asked him to bring me (the cabbie had recruited him) and that I could very well have carried my own things that short distance without his help.  I gave him a bit more money, but refused to give him everything he asked.  Luckily the manager of the hostel intervened and they started going back and forth in Arabic.  While all this was going on, three Austrian girls who were sitting in the courtyard called me over and told me not to worry, that I was safe now that I was at the hostel and that the same exact thing had happened to one of them the day before.  Finally, the porter slunk off in a huff and I was able to relax and organize my things.  I spoke a bit with the three girls, Teresa and Lara, who were traveling together, and a second Teresa whom they had met there, but happened to be from the same part of Austria, and then went to bed in the dorm room we were all sharing.  As they had warned me, the mattress was hard as rocks, but I was so tired that I was still able to sleep soundly.

The following morning, everyone seemed to have their own plans (perhaps they didn't want to get stuck speaking English all day) so I didn't try to invite myself along and instead went off on my own.  The first thing I had to do was mail a package and as per usual that ended up taking a good part of the morning between the crowds and all the paperwork.  The previous day I had been so excited to be in Morocco and on a brand new continent, but today for some reason I was in a completely cranky mood.  After leaving the post office, I got some lunch at a local cafe and then decided just to wander around using the map on my phone. 

I was able to find one of the old palaces, but I guess since I'm blind, I didn't see the entrance and ended up walking all the way around through a residential neighborhood (where I stuck out like a sore thumb) until I got to the front of the current royal palace.  As I was walking through the park outside the palace walls, I stopped to take a picture from afar and all of a sudden a security guard was calling me over.  At first I thought he was telling me I had to walk along the main road so I made an indication that I was walking that direction, but then I realized he actually wanted to speak with me.  Apparently I was in trouble for taking the picture since I guess you can't take pictures of the royal palaces in Morocco even though there was no sign.  I had my phone out with the map pulled up so I played dumb and showed him the map claiming I had been looking at that and not taking a photo.  After confirming several times, "No picture?" he seemed to buy my answer and let me walk off without taking out my camera.

As I walked toward the exit, a young Moroccan guy who had been walking in front of me slowed down and asked me what the guards had wanted.  I told them they said "No photos" and then he tried to engage me in conversation as we walked away from the palace.  I was trying to find the entrance to a big park that was supposed to be close by, but I didn't see any openings in the wall.  They guy was still trying to get me to walk with him, but I finally veered off and he started walking away, but not before asking me for a "Bijou?"  I laughed nervously and said "No" and luckily he took the hint.  Just because I'm American, why would he think that I would give some random stranger I just met a kiss?  How annoying.

I never figured out how to get into the park and since it was nearing dinnertime, I decided to walk back toward the main Jemaa el Fna square where my hostel was located.  On the way I walked past the pink and blue tower of the Koutoubia Mosque and through the surrounding gardens.  Once I got back to the hostel, Teresa and Lara asked if I wanted to go watch the sun set over the square from one of the balcony cafes that surround it.  We ordered Arabic tea and watch the sun go down before heading back home.  I hadn't eaten dinner so I asked the hostel manager, Ali, if he had any quick and cheap suggestions nearby.  He said the little stand right outside had good beef sandwiches, though the beef was mixed with everything, including the cow's liver and brains.  For some reason, this didn't stop me and I waited with all the locals for them to make me a sandwich with egg, onions, ground beef and sauce.  I have to tell you--it was delicious and I barely even though about the brains and liver.

I'm pretty exhausted and I have to wake up early to catch a bus so I will continue my Morocco tale tomorrow.  I will also proofread this post so apologies in the meantime for any errors!

Across the Mediterranean to Morocco

Shortly after I boarded the ferry boat in Genoa we set sail across the Mediterranean Sea toward Barcelona.  The boat was unlike any ferry I had ever been on and was actually more like a small cruise ship than anything else.  That’s probably because the journey took nearly 48 hours from the time we left Italy until we arrived in Morocco.  There were nine decks, though the first five were mainly set aside for passengers' cars.  When I first got on board, I had to take an escalator up from the bottom level to the reception area on Deck 6 where I could take the stairs or an elevator to Deck 9 where the rooms with the reclining seats were located.  Instead of springing for a shared cabin, I had decided to save 50 bucks and get a seat rather than a bunk so one of these rooms was my home for the next two days.


Each room contained probably about 75 to 100 reclining seats, though luckily since the rooms generally weren’t even half full, most of us passengers could reserve nearly a whole row and lie across the seats rather than simply back against them.  It was almost like sleeping on a couch (except for the slight gaps between each seat) so it wasn’t all that uncomfortable.  The second night, the room was a bit more crowded so I had to settle for a row with only two seats, which was a little more cramped.  Some people even just laid down a bunch of blankets and slept right on the floor.  I did notice that of the 40 or so other people staying in the room, I was assuredly the only woman, most certainly the only American and quite possibly one of the few non-Moroccans.  I was obviously quite a novelty for my co-passengers and as a result I was asked for coffee more times within a span of 48 hours than ever before in my life.  By the end of the voyage, I felt like there were more people I was trying to avoid (so as not to get involved in yet another awkward “Arablish” conversation) than that I was pleased to run into.  I did have a nice exchange by means of Google Translate with a young Moroccan-Italian guy who was traveling from Italy to Morocco to visit family.

In spite of all this, the main problem with the arrangement of the room was that there was no place to lock up all my belongings.  There were a few closets in the back of the room set aside for left luggage, but there was nothing to secure the bags to.  The best solution I came up with was to padlock my big backpack to my smaller one so that it would be quite awkward and conspicuous for someone to try to walk off with both bags.  I also used smaller locks to lock all the zippers and secure the pockets on the small backpack. My video camera bag I just carried around with me everywhere since it was relatively small.  It was a bit of a pain in the neck to get into my stuff this way, but it was preferable to leaving it totally exposed.  My biggest issue came on the morning of the first full day when I couldn’t find the wallet that had all the keys attached to it anywhere.  I normally kept it in a small over-the-neck bag, but all that was in there was my camera.  I was at the point of trying to devise possible methods to free my bags so that I could access my belongings without totally destroying the luggage.  I was just about to go downstairs to see if anyone had turned the wallet in to reception when I checked my (thicker-than-usual) waist wallet and fortunately found it safe in there.  Crisis averted.

While we were at sea, there wasn’t much to do but read, write postcards, watch TV in Italian and wander aimlessly around the ship.  Normally more shops and lounges would have been open, but as it was still wintertime and thus the off-season, a lot of areas of the ship were closed off.  That left even less places than usual to go exploring.  On the first night after dinner, for lack of better entertainment options, I camped out at the one bar that was open in the central area of the main deck.  I made friends with an older Italian bartender named Massimo, who spoke barely any English, and a younger Sicilian cashier named Vittor, who spoke decent English.  The main benefit of this friendship (aside from quelling my boredom) was that after a while I stopped having to pay for any alcohol, tea, juice or pastries that I ordered while either one of them was working.  The only food they served at the bar was the pastries so I did have to go buy all my meals other than breakfast in the cafeteria.  Still, I’m quite certain they saved me at least $75 to $100 on what I would have spent on beer and prosecco cocktails alone.  Plus, I got in some really good Spantalian practice.  On the second night, after Vittor got off work, we went to go hang out in the crew area, which made me feel like I was getting a backstage pass to the boat.

On the afternoon of the second day at sea, we arrived at the port in Barcelona.  I was really hoping that I would get to go ashore for a few hours, but the crew member I spoke to told me that the port officials wouldn’t let those of us continuing on to Morocco disembark.  I did get to go out on deck once we had docked and I could see the city from afar, including the statue of Christopher Columbus in the main square and what I think was the top of the Sagrada Familia Cathedral.  Closer examination of my zoomed in photos could probably confirm this for sure.  It was nice to be out on deck when we were docked at the pier because when we were at sea it was too windy and cold to stay outside for too long.  After about three or four hours, we pulled away from the dock, looped around the harbor closer to downtown and then headed back to toward the open sea.

In the early afternoon of the second full day I was hanging out at the central bar with Massimo and Vittor as per usual when they asked if I had gone down to immigration.  I had heard them making announcements about going to the discoteque, but I thought that they were just referring to picking up the arrival cards that we needed to fill out.  Vittor told me that, no, I actually had to go down there to get my passport stamped.  It was the weirdest arrangement ever, going through immigration in a shutdown dance club.  When I walked in the door, I saw a well-dressed Moroccan guy sitting on a velvet couch with another guy smoking a cigarette.  A few other guys were gathered around another table across the way.  I was nearly convinced that I was in the wrong place, but when I asked the guy about the "policia," he pointed to a table with a computer and a bunch of arrival cards on it.  There was no one manning the table at the time so I went over and sat down until a few minutes later, the well-dressed guy came over and stamped my passport.  It turns out he WAS the policia in plainclothes.  I remarked to the guys how strange this was when I went back upstairs, but they just said it was normal in Morocco for the immigration officer not to wear a uniform.  Whatever.... as long as it was legal.

A few hours later, we arrived at the port in Tangier Med.  It was a relatively new terminal pretty much in the middle of nowhere.  I went up to an information desk to ask about taking a taxi, but the guy who was working there said I should actually take the free shuttle bus into the city of Tangier where I could get a cab to my hotel.  When we arrived in the city about half an hour later, I shared a taxi with an American college student who was studying for a semester in Morocco and had to catch a bus back to her school.  We had an interesting discussion about her experiences in the country thus far and she made me feel a bit reassured about traveling there alone as a woman.

Overall, I did much better on the ferry boat than on the cargo ship as far as dealing with seasickness so I'm pretty sure I would also do okay on a cruise ship, which is even larger than the ferry.  By the way, I found out why most of the trails in the Cinque Terre National Park were closed: Italy's Cinque Terre Region Readies for Spring Tourists.  Glad I could throw some tourism dollars (or euros) their way.

Two-Day Italian Tour

I told you about the first day of my two-day trip to Italy, which involved crossing from coast to coast on a total of three different trains, in my previous post.  In this post, I’ll tell you about my trek down to the Cinque Terre region on the second day of my stay.

Cinque Terre is a coastal region on the western side of Italy just south of Genoa.  It is known for its high cliffs that plunge into a protected marine reserve and its terraced winemaking.  First thing in the morning, I took a bus down to the other train station in Genoa (as opposed to the one I had arrived at the day before) and then caught a train leaving just after 8:00am for the town of Riomaggiore.  The two-hour ride down along the side of the sea was a perfectly pleasant way to begin the day.

When we arrived at Riomaggiore, I learned that most of the cliff trail was closed, except for a small 1.5 kilometer stretch between Riomaggiore and the next village of Manarola. That ended up suiting me just fine as I was a bit pressed for time.  Even though it wasn’t that far of a distance I meandered along the trail for over an hour, at times venturing down steep staircases to the rocks where waves were crashing down below.  It was an incredibly picturesque area, especially once I approached the village of Manarola where colorful houses were perched on the top of the high cliffs overlooking the water.

For much of the hike, I kept running into three rather loud American college students.  I was trying to avoid them, but at one point I ended up on the same rock outcropping as them just before we got to Manarola.  They asked me if I would take their picture and then seemed quite surprised when I spoke back to them in English.  I talked with them for a little while and it turned out they were studying abroad in Verona for a semester.  In the end, they weren’t all that bad and I suppose their noisy exuberance was just an expression of their youthful excitement about being in such a cool place so far from home.  I can’t fault them for that because I was probably just like them when I was their age.

Once I got to Manarola, I walked through the quaint little seaside village and then continued a short distance farther down the path until I reached a locked gate where I had to turn around.  I knew that the next train was departing in about 20 minutes so I decided I should probably head back to Genoa so I would have a little time to look around the city a bit before I had to go board the ferry to Morocco.  On the way back to the train station, I stopped at a shop where I bought some farinata to eat for lunch.  Farinata is a savory pancake made with a base of chickpea flour and topped with cheese.  Apparently it is a local speciality, but to be quite honest I didn’t really care for it.  It was okay, but not something I’d feel compelled to eat again.  I guess it’s good I gave it a shot while I was in Manarola, because it’s always nice to try the local flavor.

I arrived back at the train station and bought my ticket with just minutes to spare before the next train departed.  Since this train didn’t go all the way back to Genoa, I had to get off at the next big town of Monterosso and transfer to another train there.  I only had about 20 minutes in Monterosso, but in that time I managed to walk down to the beach to take some pictures, buy postcards and try the local Cinque Terre wine in a cafe attached to the train station.  I think that was a pretty efficient use of my "layover."  Fortunately I didn’t miss the next train and two hours later, just after 2:30pm, we were rolling back into Genoa.

In retrospect, I think I should have gotten off at the second Genoa station since I wanted to go to the Old Port, but instead I got off at the one where I had boarded in the morning.  I asked a woman at the station how to get down to the port and she said I should take Bus 13 (or 30) on the lefthand side of the neighboring park.  I tried to confirm whether she had said “13” or “30,” but I was still a bit confused a so I wandered into the park where there was an event going under some tents in connection with a local soccer match.  I finally found Bus 30, but it appeared to be the end of the line.  Then a bit later I found the stop for Bus 13, but when I looked at the stops, I didn’t seem to see the one that I wanted.  I did see a street sign pointing to the direction of the port so I decided I would just try to walk all the way there.

After about 20 minutes of walking down a busy street past banks and car dealerships, I finally made it to the waterfront.  However, it was clearly not the part of the port that I wanted.  It turns out Genoa is a lot larger than I thought.  There was a big building with a sign reading “Genoa Feria” and I wondered if that was where I was supposed to get the ferry later, but then I realized “feria” meant “fair” and that it was actually a big convention center.  I walked toward the water where I saw some small (and some large) yachts, but there didn’t seem to be any way to go farther along the harbor by foot.  Set back a bit from the water was a major freeway so I couldn’t even walk along that to get where I wanted to go.  By this point, it was after 3:30pm and I realized I should get back to my hostel to pick up my bags so I could head down to the ferry.  Since I just missed the bus I needed, I ended up having to walk all the way back to the train station where I took a bus back up the hill.

I accidentally spent longer than anticipated at the hostel, between trying to send some e-mails and get directions from the staff member there.  I had planned to leave by 4:30pm, but by the time I left it was nearly 5:00pm.  I had still assured myself that I would have plenty of time to catch the boat.  The bus came fairly quickly, but I had to change buses once I got to the center of town in order to get to the port.  I figured out where I was supposed to get off to transfer, but as I was waiting at the stop, I didn't see the bus I needed on the electronic timetable.  I walked over to the list of bus times and realized the bus I was supposed to take didn’t run on Saturdays.  I now had no idea how to get to the port so I hopped on the first bus going to the train station where I knew I could at least get in a cab.  I had really wanted to get gelato one last time before leaving Italy, but I realized there just wasn’t time as it was nearly 5:30pm by the time I got to the station.

Once I was in a taxi, it didn’t take too long to get to the port.  However, after we arrived the driver had to circle around once because he realized he couldn't drop me off right at the entrance.  He brought me to the outside of a terminal where I saw an automated machine to check in for the ferry.  By now it was 5:45pm and the boat was leaving in 15 minutes.  The machine didn't appear to be working so I just went out to the dock with my printed ticket, but the security guard told me I needed to go upstairs to the Grandi Navi Veloci desk.  I ran back inside and up the escalator where I got my boarding pass with about ten minutes to spare.  Once I was back outside, it was still another five-minute walk along the pier to where my ferry was docked.  I raced along ramps and down stairways until I got to the passenger entrance of the ferry just before 6:00pm.  I gave the security officer my passport and ticket, but then of course he asked me whether or not I had gone through immigration.  I obviously had not and had no idea where it even was.  I was about to hit panic mode, but then he told me to follow him to a car live parked nearby.  I was assuming the car was going to drive me to immigration, but instead an officer just got out and stamped my passport, finally clearing me to board.  I got on the boat just in time, but learned my lesson that boarding a ferry boat is more like boarding an airplane than a train.  You can’t just show up ten minutes ahead of time and expect it's going to be completely smooth sailing (no pun intended.)