sorry, this post may be q total mess. i’m writing from a moroccan keyboard and
half the letters are in a different place.
10/9/04
so, the trip from spain to morocco was quite an adventure to say the least. we
had a 11 to 13 hour drive to do that would last all night long. we absolutely
*had* to get the car returned in the rental place at the south ti^p of spain by
closing ti,e (2pm) since the car rental place wasn’t open on sundays and we’d
end up stuck w/ the car for an extra day and a half and not be able to get into
morocco till we returned it.
to make things interesting, our map didnt show half the freeways that were in
our directions, and a lot of freeways had different names in real life than on
our map. most of the time we were utterly confused and had to keep stopping
over and over. most of the street and freeway signs were undecipherable and
confusing and honestly, i’m still kinda shocked that we found our way. by
around 11am, we rolled into algecirac, the most southern point in spain,
slightly delirious (we all only napped slightly on the way). though most of
the route was at night, the part of spain that we saw in the morning was
extremely beautiful: rolling hills, some weird houses carved into cliffs, etc.
oh yeah, one crazy thing about the car. it had no key. instead, it had this
little card that you put into a slot and then you push a button to start the
car. weird eh?
after getting to algeciras, we took the ferry over to morocco. we braced
ourselves for the chaos ahead of us. we’d all heard that morocco is very
intense, but tangier (the part of morocco we took the ferry to) was supposedly
even more crazy… it’s considered the tijuana of morocco. we basically
expected to be accosted fro, all sides by touts, beggars, have people grab at
us, etc etc. we’d heard stories of girls being kidnapped and put into
harems… basically, all sorts of crazy shit…. but it really wasn’t like
that. it was relatively chill, we took a taxi to get to the train station and
then killed some time there until we got to take the train to fez. heh, oh
yeah, one funny thing from the train station… when we were buying our
tickets, the guy told us that the men and women had to go separately in morroco
and we couldnt sit in the samz compartment… but then it turned out that he
was totally just kidding.
so the train ride wasn’t too crazy, but at one stop, the train hardly stopped at
all… it kinda just paused…. but this large family wanted to get off… so
they all just went for it!!! seriously, it was just like in the movies…
they threw the luggage off the slowly moving train one thing at a time and then
started jumping off one by one… but the train was going faster and faster!!!
one girl jumped off and hit her feet on the ground so hard, that it flung her
over backwards and she smacked her head on the ground. yikes!!
so anyways, we finally got into fez and went to our hotel. this place only
costs 140 dirham (14$) for a double room… way cheap… and then we saw our
rooms. to start, i dont think they wash the sheets betyween customers, our bed
sqgged like crazy, and we found the hugest cockroach ever in yan’s room. we’re
definitely roughing it here!!
*v