That Country Across the Sea

There is a certain vanity that comes with being well-traveled. What experienced traveler hasn't, at one time or another, felt the urge to enumerate the countries he or she has visited, boast a passport full of visa stamps, or to ask that always-simmering question, "Did you go to the __________ while you were in __________?" (e.g. Louvre; Paris). At the heart of this vanity lies a search for validation, the hope that someone outside of ourselves might recognize how worldly we have become through our travels, although a full passport is more often an indicator of socio-economic class than it is a badge of honor.

A friend of mine takes pride in the fact that she has now visited six of the seven continents, and I see no reason to deflate her feeling of accomplishment, especially since I can picture myself doing the same (I've hit only five). It was in this spirit, travel for the sake of travel one might call it, that my brother David and I set our sights across the Straits of Gibraltar and fixed them resolutely on Morocco.

Instead of booking a tour through a travel agent -- fifty-four euros ($73) would have got us ground transportation, ferry passage, a tour guide, and lunch -- we decided to go it alone, in spite of the expert advice we had received to the contrary (our source being a 1977 edition of Frommer's Spain and Morocco in Under $10 a Day). We headed west in our trusty Opel Corsa (I know, I'm obsessed) toward Tarifa, a coastal town well-known for its nightlife and "niñas lindas" (pretty girls); as host of the World Championship of Windsurfing, it's also a destination for windsurfers from across the globe. No wonder; as we followed the meandering highway up to the top of a narrow, mountain ridge, wind farms revealed themselves on every promontory. These modern windmills -- unimaginable, I think, to Cervantes -- stretched like a forest of tiny boomerangs into the horizon.

Upon entering Tarifa we noted its lazy, hidden-jewel allure, but didn't have the time to explore; our ferry was scheduled to leave in 20 minutes. We parked the car on a windy side street, bounded our way down the hill to the port, and frantically purchased two round-trip tickets to Tangiers. At around 1:06 pm we finally boarded the ship via the car deck and, upon entering, caught glimpse of a large Volkswagen van packed so tightly that its cargo blocked all the rear windows, overflowing on to a large rectangular roof rack. The driver was a leathery Arab with a long gray beard and typical head covering; in between the bucket seats poked the heads of two or three young children, as if the contents of the van were gradually squeezing them out of the backseat. This family of migrants, likely Moroccans living and working in France, were headed home for the summer holiday, in what I could only imagine must be one hell of a road trip. Later, seated on the upper-deck, surrounded by blue sky and bluer ocean, I imagined the joy of their homecoming as the ill-defined rocky coastline of Morocco came gradually into focus.

With the Hispanic world behind us, we stepped off the ship and into the Middle East, our ears abuzz with Arabic and French, and to a lesser extent English, Spanish, and Japanese. We were clueless in the truest sense: in a country where we understood neither the language nor the culture, we had no map, no guide, no book, and essentially no plan as to how to survive until it was time to return; in fact, we didn't even know what time the last ferry was scheduled to leave. One of the men crowding the gangplank offered, in English, his services as a tour guide, brandishing what he claimed was a license from the Moroccan tourist board. In what was perhaps not one of my brightest moments, I replied, "We're not ready yet!" which David found to be quite humorous. Instead, we checked out the tourist information booth, where a friendly girl in a headscarf handed us a city map, and, sensing our cluelessness, summoned her friend who she claimed was a tour guide.

And so Mohammed barged into our lives, babbling half-intelligibly in English about the return ferry and "Morocco time," which we learned was two hours behind Spain. Of medium-sized height and stocky build, Mohammed was frenetic in his movements, and, we later learned, unable to sit still. Although he provided no credentials, and couldn't sufficiently answer my question of how long he'd been a tour guide (to this he replied only that he was born in Tangiers), David and I accepted his assistance after bargaining him down to 30 €, about $40.

We set off from the port and entered the Medina, the old city, with narrow streets like we had seen before in Granada, but this time teeming with life -- a mix of sights, sounds, and smells, the latter of which seemed especially pungent. Children, which David observed appeared to love it in Morocco, ran in and out of tight corridors and bounded down the stairs; one girl playfully taunted an unsuspecting vendor with a fake plastic snake.

Our first stop was "Casbah Restaurant," named after Tangiers' main tourist attraction. We ate a typical Moroccan meal, which consisted of soup, cous-cous, and something called tajin (we never did find out exactly what it was). Mohammed sat down with us initially but soon wandered off to talk to some people outside. Feeling a little jilted, and perhaps noticing how other guides were sitting with their tour groups, David went out to fetch Mohammed, whom we peppered with questions until he wandered off again. After lunch we headed off to see the great Casbah, still having no clue as to what it actually was, but ready to rock it nonetheless. It turned out to be the ruins of the old Muslim citadel ("Casbah" being the French transliteration of the Arabic "Qasbah," or "قصب" if that makes it any easier for you; the Spanish version is "Alcazaba"), but more decrepit that anything we had seen in Spain, the good view being just about the only positive.

The next part of our tour consisted of visiting a number of shops which belonged, coincidentally, to Mohammed's cronies, who at every step tried to guilt us into buying something. We eventually passed on the rugs, even when brought upstairs for special treatment, but were unable to weasel our way out of the herbal pharmacy, run by a French-educated Moroccan who claimed a PhD. in American Literature. Partly impressed by his story, and sympathetic to a man so obviously well-educated but unable to find befitting work in his native country, we purchased a small bottle of oil which, made from a tree found only in Morocco, boasted innumerable beneficial properties, none of which presently come to mind.

As we passed a slew of bloody goat heads in the Medina's main market, David and I started to realize that we might actually prefer to take an earlier ferry back to Tarifa, and thus have time to spend there before heading back to the Costa del Cemento for the night. Mohammed needed little convincing on this point; in fact, he urged us to get back to the port as soon as possible, since, according to him, ferries had been known to leave as much as an hour ahead of schedule if they filled up (I doubted his motives here). We descended to the port, stopping on the way to enjoy some local pastries. These, it turned out, would be crucial in helping us to pay our guide Mohammed for his minimal yet sufficient services. We had only 20 €, and beyond that could offer only an American twenty-dollar bill; since this would add up to roughly 35 €, and we didn't want to overpay, Mohammed bought us two more pastries and we called it a deal.

At the port we had time to relax and collect our thoughts; I drank cafe con leche and wondered if it wasn't ludicrous to attempt to absorb an entire country in one afternoon. It turned out to be less than an afternoon -- a mere three hours -- though looking back it seems even shorter. What stands out the most to me are those intense contrasts: between first- and third-world, European and Middle Eastern culture, and, especially, between the memory of a land once ruled by Arabs, and today's Arab lands. Spain's past is Morocco's present; an empty Medina where tourists search for five-star restaurants stands in stark opposition to one filled with souks and bazaars, beggars and children, stench and goat heads.

Now that I think about it, I didn't feel particularly comfortable in either, but at least I got my passport stamped.