Morocco: Camping de la Plage, Sale
Marooned, but the natives are friendly.
Truck Africa remains strictly hypothetical, but we've been adopted by the good people of Bukima Africa, another trans-African group. Hopefully tonight/tomorrow.
Chronological report: moonlit hustle thru Brixton to a Tube train's thankfully-reopened doors. 7AM passport chaos. Met Heidi, gave her her passport, recognized by Tony on embarkation.
Touchdown on Gibraltar, and the Rock rearing up into most of the sky from the doorway of the plane. Hike way across airport runway - red lights that are never run - to tiny downtown. Shopping and money-changing and roving up Main repeatedly. The more we wait, the more the truck doesn't appear. Sleep deprivation and heat lead to a miasmic ferry journey to Tangier. The Pillars of Hercules on either side. Woke and climbed decks - wind of the Atlantic in my hair, broken chains of light along both sides, ship surging through the dark water. A bolt of red wrapping paper, caught and tossed into the sky by the ship's wake.
Arrival in Tangier and shoving contest out of boat and through customs, no courtesy given to woman with infant and daughter, until reverse racism and bemused expressions jump us thru the line. Crowd of taxis outside. Off to Pension Palace with Khalil our guide. Moment of mutual suspicion over change for taxi. Dump things and Heidi heads straight for the shower; Khalil n' Tony n' I n'later Heidi sip and talk in the Petit Socco. And to bed.
Woke to hottish shower, mint tea, and marmaladed toast, plus Khalil's fake anger and demands for money. Tony's soft heart gives in. Rove through Tangier, up stairs and winding streets, past Naked Lunch's birthplace, a lookout past cannons and terraced streets to the waterfront cafes - Heidi, eye magnet and only woman in each establishment - and almost accidentally into the medina. Sheep grazing peacefully on a hillside in the middle of the city. Shoe shiners by the dozen. Decay, crumbling walls, pitted roads, like the city's been slowly collapsing for 40 years. Stairways and streets and tunnels and alleys branching at every angle and incline. The cool mottled majesty of the Pension's foyer and courtyards.
In the medina: "You are in a maze of twisting streets, all alike." Narrow, high-walled, lined by countless alcove-sized shops selling leather, ornaments, carpets, hats, daggers, tortoiseshell harps, every article imaginable. Kids playing soccer and shopkeepers hawking, hustlers attaching themselves like leeches to white faces. The ragged edge of the Kasbah's walls. The uttermost edge of Europe, seen through a salt-laden wind. Conditioned reflex suspicion.
Train to Rabat, Tony lugging his behemoth of a pack to the station. Friendly passenger becomes 5 Dh porter. Nice enough people on the train. Rolling green countryside. A black bull like a statue against the Atlantic. Paced by a flock of doves. Cactus hedges, surrounding and winding around and over the hills, some obviously deliberate, others not.
Change and 1-hour wait at Sidi-Kacem, "smells like Florida," orange trees on the platform, oil rig with its highest spire topped by an eternal flame. Talked with Heidi on leg to Rabat, surrounded by easily-amused green-clad women. Almost missed the train station and scrambled frantically out. Rabat big, clean, affluent. Overcharged taxi to medina, ate, youth hostel full but cheap hotel found, and a good restaurant with friendly no-hassle staff. Wandered through the deadness of 11PM Rabat and crashed.
Woke, ate, discovered 1st journal useless, roved through park - nifty trees, wide canopies of thick branches that put down arterial roots - and city, pretty bland. Walls OK. Down through medina and to vast graveyard, where apparently each generation is ploughed under the next. Perched on rise overlooking sea for a bit, then back to hotel, get stuff, haggled a still-rip-off price to Sale. Despair: no Big Yellow Truck(TM). Sat around, joshed with Bukimans, good bunch, who wound up feeding and sheltering (not to mention plying with alcohol & bongs) we three homeless waifs. Scott the goathunter, Phil the Man From Intrepid, Carmel the art teacher...fun bunch.
Today: woke, showered (brr), roved up beach and through city, bought this journal after almost settling on far inferior version, ate in restaurant, back here to the campground - and still no BYT. Looks like a bland couple of days ahead.
Truck Africa remains strictly hypothetical, but we've been adopted by the good people of Bukima Africa, another trans-African group. Hopefully tonight/tomorrow.
Chronological report: moonlit hustle thru Brixton to a Tube train's thankfully-reopened doors. 7AM passport chaos. Met Heidi, gave her her passport, recognized by Tony on embarkation.
Touchdown on Gibraltar, and the Rock rearing up into most of the sky from the doorway of the plane. Hike way across airport runway - red lights that are never run - to tiny downtown. Shopping and money-changing and roving up Main repeatedly. The more we wait, the more the truck doesn't appear. Sleep deprivation and heat lead to a miasmic ferry journey to Tangier. The Pillars of Hercules on either side. Woke and climbed decks - wind of the Atlantic in my hair, broken chains of light along both sides, ship surging through the dark water. A bolt of red wrapping paper, caught and tossed into the sky by the ship's wake.
Arrival in Tangier and shoving contest out of boat and through customs, no courtesy given to woman with infant and daughter, until reverse racism and bemused expressions jump us thru the line. Crowd of taxis outside. Off to Pension Palace with Khalil our guide. Moment of mutual suspicion over change for taxi. Dump things and Heidi heads straight for the shower; Khalil n' Tony n' I n'later Heidi sip and talk in the Petit Socco. And to bed.
Woke to hottish shower, mint tea, and marmaladed toast, plus Khalil's fake anger and demands for money. Tony's soft heart gives in. Rove through Tangier, up stairs and winding streets, past Naked Lunch's birthplace, a lookout past cannons and terraced streets to the waterfront cafes - Heidi, eye magnet and only woman in each establishment - and almost accidentally into the medina. Sheep grazing peacefully on a hillside in the middle of the city. Shoe shiners by the dozen. Decay, crumbling walls, pitted roads, like the city's been slowly collapsing for 40 years. Stairways and streets and tunnels and alleys branching at every angle and incline. The cool mottled majesty of the Pension's foyer and courtyards.
In the medina: "You are in a maze of twisting streets, all alike." Narrow, high-walled, lined by countless alcove-sized shops selling leather, ornaments, carpets, hats, daggers, tortoiseshell harps, every article imaginable. Kids playing soccer and shopkeepers hawking, hustlers attaching themselves like leeches to white faces. The ragged edge of the Kasbah's walls. The uttermost edge of Europe, seen through a salt-laden wind. Conditioned reflex suspicion.
Train to Rabat, Tony lugging his behemoth of a pack to the station. Friendly passenger becomes 5 Dh porter. Nice enough people on the train. Rolling green countryside. A black bull like a statue against the Atlantic. Paced by a flock of doves. Cactus hedges, surrounding and winding around and over the hills, some obviously deliberate, others not.
Change and 1-hour wait at Sidi-Kacem, "smells like Florida," orange trees on the platform, oil rig with its highest spire topped by an eternal flame. Talked with Heidi on leg to Rabat, surrounded by easily-amused green-clad women. Almost missed the train station and scrambled frantically out. Rabat big, clean, affluent. Overcharged taxi to medina, ate, youth hostel full but cheap hotel found, and a good restaurant with friendly no-hassle staff. Wandered through the deadness of 11PM Rabat and crashed.
Woke, ate, discovered 1st journal useless, roved through park - nifty trees, wide canopies of thick branches that put down arterial roots - and city, pretty bland. Walls OK. Down through medina and to vast graveyard, where apparently each generation is ploughed under the next. Perched on rise overlooking sea for a bit, then back to hotel, get stuff, haggled a still-rip-off price to Sale. Despair: no Big Yellow Truck(TM). Sat around, joshed with Bukimans, good bunch, who wound up feeding and sheltering (not to mention plying with alcohol & bongs) we three homeless waifs. Scott the goathunter, Phil the Man From Intrepid, Carmel the art teacher...fun bunch.
Today: woke, showered (brr), roved up beach and through city, bought this journal after almost settling on far inferior version, ate in restaurant, back here to the campground - and still no BYT. Looks like a bland couple of days ahead.
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