Clouds of mist along the road, traffic lights, fast motion, surreal, hyperrealistic clarity of the surroundings as if it's a computer game. Race of crazy lories, the traffic slides down, submerging into the mist crawling on the road.
It's strange - when you do something in a hurry, something always tends to get stuck, things that fit before refuse to fit and so on.
This route feels strangely long, past curves of intersections, gradually replaced by groves of trees, clearing that get deeper and deeper filled with thick mist. The consciousness is balancing on the brink of fatigue, the brain used to slide into sleep approximately at that time, invigorated by fast motion and quickly changing scenery. Scenes replace each other, and there's no end - it keeps going on and on indefinitely. I begin to wonder if we drive in the right direction. Then the taxi gradually begins to switch to lanes closer and closer to the right side, meaning that we are going to leave this highway and leap to the road heading right. In other words, it's apparently a part of some plan. We turn right and drive through the forest - now it's wild - spruces and pines and deep morning fog slithering around and crawling toward the road, making the silhouettes of cars ahead enigmatic and otherworldly. Then it's a town - bearing the same name as the airport.
The DME airport doesn't have smoking areas, so I attached a piece of nicotine plaster to survive a long period of five plus hours without inhaling.
The following highlights included three questions I was asked at the passport control - two of them normal: what's the purpose of my travel (tourism) and why I changed my passport (due to the expiration of the previous one) Those two normal questions were preceded by a strange one - "are you a sailor?"
I wonder how the girl at the passport control came up with this idea, and then it just dawned on me: it's just I'm so big and muscular and stuff - of course, I must be a sailor, why not? )
I promised myself not to buy anything at the airport, to keep the trip budget-level - no more no less - like, why I would bother to scroll through numerous booking and plane ticket options - select the cheapest and most inconvenient (like, with this 11 hour layover in Lisbon) and then just spend $10 on a sandwich. It kinda defeats the whole purpose. At the same time, I, for some reason, get hungry at the airports, maybe because I'm slightly nervous and slightly bored. So, if at first, I tried to keep it modest, within the limit of vending machine prices, then it suddenly occurred to me - what if the plane falls down, and I have a bunch of banknotes in my pocket, which in this case will be wasted. So I thought this and bought a chicken roll for $5. What can I say? I felt guilt and pleasure eating it, plus, I felt that I broke some boundary of excessive financial vigilance within myself, which may be not a bad thing, after all. So yes - chicken sandwich.
Speaking of low-costers. Well, I don't know exactly, should I consider this flight a low-coster or not, I would like to mention another alluring feature of the flights that probably are not wildly popular, and, as a result, a lot of seats remains unoccupied. As a matter of fact, the whole aisles are unoccupied, which immediately sparks in my mind a picture of me prostrated throughout the whole aisle and sleeping like a civilized person. Which eventually I did. After the meal, which was also an unexpected surprise, and I realize that when I'm on the eating spree my capacity is actually boundless. Nevertheless, the next four or five hours I slept like a civilized person, in a horizontal position, with my knitted jacket serving as a pillow. (You can never predict all the possible applications of clothes, for example, it can also serve as a backpack for free luggage - but it's a different story) Speaking of luggage, my backpack turned out to be a non-standard type of luggage, so I had to check it in through some special place with a strange cargo lift. (I just hope I will find it when I arrive. There are some clothes in and useful things.)
Anyway, speaking of airline rules, I was nervous at first because I actually had to relocate to a different aisle, which wasn't my place at all, like, I heard about various penalties and fines for various transgressions done by passengers - but I got only a wink n smile from the flight attendant - who was clad in all red - the color of merriment and good luck - as a matter of fact, most of this airline's stuff was red - so I decided I'm safe - those are apparently nice people.
Once during the flight, I had been woken up because we had to sit up, fasten our seatbelts, like, there was going to be some turbulence or something. I pulled up the window blinder - there was the bright sunshine outside - and we floated above an infinite field of white foam. I thought it looked like that movie - Solaris - about the planet that actually was one enormous brain. Then the layer of cloudy veil ended abruptly, and I saw the misty ground below, and swiftly moving feathers and whiffs of clouds - a different kind of clouds. (Probably they have scientific names)
I study the Lisbon airport, after all, I'm to spend a lot of time here - the whole day. When I exited the plane my priorities were in the following order - to have a smoke, to get some coffee in order to dispel this dazed and groggy state of my brain, after the flight sleep, to visit a toilet, maybe get more food, and so on. I found a smoking room at the other end of the terminal, probably a kilometer away. It means, probably, I need to stay close to this place for as long as possible.
Several things in the Lisbon airport struck me as strange. First, there are no prices on display, like, there was this English bakery and pub, with a lot of baked stuff - cakes and all - pretty alluring - but no prices. A guy I asked just smiled, like, "point at what you like and I will tell you," Interesting. So, I pointed, and it turned out like 1 € 50 - much cheaper than in DME at least, which was something I counted upon. 1 €+ for a cup of coffee is not particularly cheap, but I need coffee to survive, so I broke a €100 and went on a spending spree. Mostly, buying coffee and snacks from vending machines, which cost ridiculously high. Like M&Ms for 2€ wtf. Actually, I did it only once. And, once again - no prices on display.
The second interesting thing is mini-cars the personnel roll around the terminal in - they are equipped with signals, and supposedly, intended for cleaning or something. Or maybe it's just so the personnel wouldn't get tired walking around. The third interesting thing is a lot of rabbis. The fourth - everything is manual - I had to actually press a button to summon a stream of water from the tap; I had to pull out a paper towel using my own hands - no sensors. It was somewhat refreshing. Also, everything is immaculately clean. There are not many people around, maybe, cuz it's morning.
So, speaking of impressions, we landed very slowly into the foam. Like, it was an enormous bath - from the horizon to the horizon - filled with foam. And we landed in it, very slowly. At some point, I felt that we just stopped in the air, and then we slid down, and everything started moving really fast. Incredibly fast.
It's a turning point, with the plane. For a while, it's just leisurely crawling through the labyrinth of concrete paths; the infinite grass outside the window barely moves, the engines murmur contentedly, and you can imagine that you are on a bus, but there's a point when engines switch to a different tune, producing a wild roar muffled by the cabin soundproof material - but it's still clear that it's wild and powerful. If before the bumps of the runway reverberated in rhythmic thuds like some gentle rock music from 80th, now these thuds coalesce into ever accelerating trills. The airfield outside, remote trees, start moving with incredible speed. Now, the tame vehicle - like a bus, really, - has turned into a wild feral animal - a dragon - and then you feel you are not connected to the earth anymore, and the wing outside the window goes up and down, while the plane makes a turn, and the earth below tilts sharply, and you wonder - how this wild and extreme situation can be considered a normal means of transportation. Something like that.
So we slid into this foam, which was actually a layer of clouds above Lisbon, and we sliced through it, and for a while, there was nothing except the incredibly wild speedy motion of white swirls, curls, and gauzes. Then we suddenly were below, and I saw the coast - ships sailing through the emerald water, and the infinity of red roofs. It's like, shows that the city is, indeed, old and authentic. Red roofs of old buildings occasionally interspersed with glass and concrete towers of modern housing projects and business districts. A wide area covered by forest. A wide channel swiftly passes under the wing.
At this point, the scenery below looks like an immaculately done toy-model of the city - with moving cars, highways, buildings, stretches of forest, water and ships - but still a toy model. I wouldn't be able to believe that we possibly can crash into it and die - like how can you die crashing into a toy-model of the city. It felt somewhat surreal. I noticed a long deep ravine overgrown by forest, then another steel and glass business district towering among authentic red roofs, an ancient aqueduct over a highway. Ffs, there was actually an ancient aqueduct over the highway - that was impressive.
I somewhat regret that I actually won't be allowed to leave the airport this time. It's a nice place -Lisbon - tempting to stroll and take a look around. Also, beaches - from the sky they look vast and alluring. It's a bit of overcast. We strafe low over the city, tilting from side to side. We are so low that I wonder if everything is okay and we are not going to crash into one of the neighborhoods, whizzing past below. I clearly distinguish moving cars, and it feels that roofs of the buildings are way too close to our wings. Then roofs disappear, and there's a runway, and we land.
Airports are different worlds - sometimes it feels a bit surreal there - like, everything is a bit not like a normal world. You always kinda pass through the portals - your passport checked - an invisible door behind opens, and you find yourself in a different picture of this quest. Now you need to solve the puzzle of plastic trays, conveyor belts, x-ray machines, then you pass through another invisible door, and you, once again, in a different world - glitzy and sparkling - with the gloss of duty-free shops and cafes. Through the window, you can see the planes, hear their murmur.
So, speaking of the surrealism of airports - there was one particular surreal installation at the passport control at Lisbon - an infinite maze with a line of passengers moving in one direction, then swerving in the opposite direction, and again, and so on, and so forth. I eventually memorized passengers from my flight, seeing them moving in the direction opposite to mine so many times. (In the end, it turned out I just wasted my time, like, I wasn't supposed to go through passport control here at all, but I was dazed and dumb, and I needed to find a smoking room)
When we rode on a bus to the terminal - and I cannot not to note a strange thing - both Moscow and Portuguese people clustered near the doors, although the bus had actual seats, nevertheless, people clustered in the aisle, instead, making life uncomfortable for themselves- cannot understand that.
We pass through the technical areas, feeling a whiff of diesel fuel exhaust from trucks and kerosene. I note again that airports are different from the normal conventional world - the machinery is different and strange, different road signs and traffic lights, the markup on the concrete is huge and enigmatic. I see Portuguese planes with red and green tails - like storks.
First Impressions. A taxi ride from the airport - it would be apparently hard to find something here in the darkness - the place is like a maze, and groups of teenagers - hanging out on the streets this deep at night - look a bit scary, at first, cuz it's an unfamiliar city, Africa, and all that. So, yep, it's possible to spend a long time navigating this labyrinth of narrow alleys, unless of course, you have a keen perception of altitude because it can be a way to determine your current position, and location, and all that. It's also possible to use GPS but the actual reality of passages of Old Medina is much more complicated than that, what is visible on the map. A good approach is to memorize some small landmarks, like a sign, a barbershop, a skinny cat walking around the corner, (there are lots of them) a makeshift street food joint. (though they appear and disappear sporadically) The path leads up, surrounded by walls painted blue in harmony with the blue sky and the sea that appears later on the horizon. A slope covered in yellow flowers giving the sharp and spicy tropical fragrance reminiscent of and mixing with fragrances of incenses, saturating the streets, passages, and lanes - aromatic candles or something like that. This fragrance is everywhere, occasionally replaced by the subtle note of flowers - bright scarlet and orange, suddenly appearing on the corners.
An exit through the ancient arch - a gate in the wall - its centuries-old masonry circling the place. A street lined with tangerine trees. There's a bit of confusion with local time here - technically it should've been the same time as in Lisbon - two hours behind Moscow - but during the Ramadan, the time is turned back one hour more, so it matches the Greenwich time. Then a month later the time is turned one hour forward again. Smart algorithms in the smartphones catch all those nuances, leaving me baffled and realizing once again that machines are smarter and they are probably bound to take over the world or something like that.
The events of the previous night feel a bit strange now, like through the prism of a different reality, a different world. Because it does feel different now, with the slight breeze and powerful and gentle sunshine erasing my worries about everything I left behind for a while.
The night plane from Lisbon - small and restless like a dragonfly - after a number of rapid and confident turns among the airfield paths, takes off, and I see a vast sprawl of golden and silver garlands below. Like everything below turned into one big Christmas tree, with strings of festive lights stretching everywhere, including dark patches of the forest. The Christmas lights become denser, meaning that we are gaining altitude. Then it feels like a layer of condensate fogs the illuminator; I try unsuccessfully to sweep it off, then I realize that the mist is between us and the earth below. We are passing through the layer of clouds; the orange lights are still visible through a gauze of translucent mist, but they gradually disappear behind, and there remains only the darkness of the night sky and the eerie blanket of clouds below.
Landing. Warm and slightly humid night air, a walk to the empty and serene terminal, fat palms on the streets - yep, now it feels real - a different reality of a different world. My brain is drowned among conversations in Portuguese and French I hear around me and cannot understand.
There's a lot of cats here - on the roof terraces, crossing narrow passages of the Old Town - basically, everywhere. Bright colored blankets and linen fluttering on the rooftops like flags. The serenity of the sea, a block away. Houses climbing the hill look offhand and chaotic, occasionally, with the bricks visible through the hasty layer of plaster - a watercolor worthy range of hues (like traces left by rains) - and, at the same time, it's like an arthouse installation - the glory of colorful cubism, with a rapid mix of lines and pastel tones.
Evening light on the west side. The most recent idea is that crappy photos are worse than no photos, so prob I wouldn't try to capture this passage through the mountains on our way from Marrakech to Agadir. You'll have to believe me - it's beautiful. It's just I don't have the proper equipment - like, DSLR and a drone would suffice for starters, I guess. It's a long route from Rabat, and the scenery has changed so many times, and the mountains, looming on the horizon for five or more hours, became close and then surrounded us. The sun gushes through my window at the right side, which means that we move straight south. The road is snaking among orange slopes.
A bearded guy wearing a business suit and glasses, standing in the bus aisle and reciting something in Arabic, which at first gives an impression of a sermon or something like that, until I recognize some words related to mobile phones, like, GSM or something. Then I realize that he is actually advertising some prepaid cell phone packages - nevertheless, the speech in Arabic sounds impressive.
The road slides into a sort of a vast canyon - we've crossed one ridge of the mountains - probably it's the ocean, or is it just a mist on the horizon. The GPS shows that we are getting close. Arabic song - an endless soporific chanting - is flowing through the bus for hours, creating a serene and drowsy atmosphere, providing a contrast to the shouting at the bus stations in so many towns left behind.
Shortly before departure from every station, the bus is populated by merchants. They offer headphones, perfume, jewelry, watches, pocket Qurans - all except food, which would be handy since it's already half a day without food. Due to Ramadan, all the shops are closed till 12 am, so we face a choice of eating tangerines from the trees on the streets. The tangerines turn out to be extremely sour with a bitter aftertaste - probably they accumulated in them traffic fumes, for a very long time.
Mostly, it's just the wrong time to hunt for food. It's not like there's the lack of food - quite to the contrary, it's an endless chain of temptations stretching for several blocks along the main street - stalls after stall with sweet and baked stuff - honey, nuts, spices, cream. Each one is addictive, after the first try. And trays after trays of dates that seem to be the thing here - like, a dozen variations of them at least.
Boarding a bus is a vigorous process, with many local passengers catching up at the last moment. And the conductor is shouting something in a desperate voice, again and again. The luggage compartment door is lowered, then lifted again, after the bus has eventually managed to move several meters and stopped. It's like somebody forgot to take out a blanket or something. Once again, someone is jumping in, at the last moment. It takes a very long time for the bus to eventually pull out from the station and start maneuvering through the streets, among cars, trams, and scooters.
Sometimes you think that everything is going to happen in some orderly manner - some organized stream of impressions or something like that. So they can be written down one by one as chapters of a story. In reality, it's different because everything that's going on is going on in parallel and really fast. Like, when you are captured by an ocean wave and it rolls you toward the shore, creating an impression of being in a washing machine while it's spinning.
There's a beauty in the sequence of wild ocean waves turning into foamy turbulence, as the chain of events when it's balancing on the brink of losing control and letting go. And the sun that provides the ultimate meaning to this all. A whiff of sweat smoke that helps to clear the mind from trifles that keep accumulating in it like barnacles on the hull of a ship - allowing to think clearly and think ahead, brushing off all the small things like beach sand that stuck to the body when it's dry.
Quick notes - part 1
We flew with my friend but we had different flights because he wanted to spend on ticket as little as possible, so he invented a cunning scheme, in which he flew to Naples, spent there a day or so, and then took the second flight to Tangier. He picked the day when the tickets Moscow-Naples were the cheapest, and the tickets from Europe to Africa are very-very cheap by definition. So he did this trick and it cost him about $300 tickets and all, roundtrip. But he had the Schengen visa. And since I decided on the trip at the last possible moment - a week in advance or so - I didn't have time to get Schengen, so I found the second cheapest option of flying with the connection in Lisbon - well, it was an 11 hours connection, which is a separate story - eventually we both arrived at Tangier, approximately at the same time.
So basically, I flew from Lisbon at night and when I arrived at Tangier the first thing I saw was, like, palms, and no public buses from the airport. It was kinda a really small airport with a road and a few taxis waiting outside. I tried to find something maybe cheaper, like, I read, there was something like a public taxi-minibus going from the airport to the city, but it was about an hour after midnight, and there wasn't much going on anyway - only palms and a few taxis waiting outside.
Also, there I first encountered the problem that not everyone spoke English - like, taxi drivers, for example - the commonly spoken lingua franca was French - so I had to somehow establish communication using a mix of gestures, numbers, and similar sounding words. Nevertheless, since I just arrived there I didn't yet realize one important rule applying to money matters in Morocco - that you always have to haggle cuz prices they tell you are always much higher than you actually can come down to - like, I eventually paid 200 mad (20€) to get from the airport to the hotel, although the upside of that was that I didn't need to look for my hotel at the Medina at night, which would be really difficult since the Medina (the old town) was a sort of incomprehensible maze. This was what happened to my friend (more on that later) So, yes, and I had different plans, like, I paid only for one night, which was the next night following my arrival, and I planned just to walk around the town, and check in properly around 7 am or something. But when I rode in a taxi through the night Tangier I sorta changed my mind because when you just get there at night it looks a bit scary - like, it's dark and there are groups of teenagers hanging out, some smoking hash - so I decided I kinda didn't want to wander there at night, with my money and all. So my host offered me to pay for the additional night, and I agreed, which I think was a smart decision because I got enough sleep and the next morning I was as fresh as a daisy, which was a good thing since I had an opportunity to explore the town and all. In the hindsight, we always had little time to properly explore the places we were passing through - but that first day was kinda really when I started feeling good about everything.
So the next morning I woke up in Tangier, appreciated the view from the roof - they have verandahs on the roofs everywhere, where for example you can chill in the evening, have a tea - it's a pretty relaxing spot. Also, people who stay in these kinds of hostels hang laundry there on top to dry - there are clotheslines and stuff - but mostly it always has a magnificent view - and I'd say Medina is something to look at, especially from the roof. It's like a maze, and all the buildings have unique shapes and colors - it looks like an art installation of sorts. People say that Medinas are really old - built several centuries ago or something - and these hostels are similarly really interesting. There are several storeys with really narrow passages and stairs between them - like in a castle - narrow corridors with stairs, twisting like spirals, leading from one store to the next. And it's all somewhat like clay or limestone - the walls - in other words, the place looks ancient, even on the inside. And our first host was really something - he somewhat reminded me of that French actor Jean Reno - and like, he was really hospitable and cool.
So, yup, basically, the only problem the first day was like, I woke up, and I was just relishing the morning and stuff, but I was wondering where my mate was cuz he didn't show up in the morning. Like, I asked my host if he arrived (and he was expected to arrive somewhat during that night as well, according to his flight schedule and stuff) and my host said that he hadn't yet. Like, I wasn't worried much because the guy was an experienced traveler and hitchhiker - much more experienced than I was - so I just assumed that he likely just gave up trying to find the hotel at night and camped somewhere on the shore - something he would do.
So, basically, somewhat closer to noon he arrived - all exhausted and worn down and stuff. The story was that he took a bus from the airport - actually there was a public bus for 2 € - and the bus took him to the main city square. So from that point, he tried to find the hostel we booked and that took him the whole night. So the whole previous night he was wandering in that labyrinth. I can tell it'd be hard to find anything there especially at night cuz it's all mazelike, and there are few signs, and hostel doors are closed at night. And, btw, I remember when I arrived it impressed me that our hostel had a really massive metal outer door with somewhat of a padlock, which made me worried about the street crime and stuff, generally, why I was so reluctant to get off wandering the city at night. So, yes, the guy finally arrived and asked not to wake him up until the midday and I went out to explore the city.
So, yup, speaking of Tangier, it has maybe the nicest Medina among all I saw in Morocco - it's really calm - when you walk through it - and it's really hard to remember your route because of the multiple turns and narrow alleys that are not at all perpendicular to each other - there are wide angles between them - also they go up and down since the Medina is sprawling over the slope of a hill. But it also helps you to orient yourself - when the path is going up you know it is heading toward the old wall on the hill and the terrace overlooking the ocean from the hill, its slope covered with yellow flowers exuding somewhat unusual spicy fragrance. Speaking of which, one of the things I remember clearly is that fragrance, which is present almost everywhere - it's a mix of spices, flowers, local sweets probably, incense sticks, candles.
Another thing is that it seems like people are really fond of sesame paste and honey-like, most of the meals are accompanied by it, and it's consistently present in the grocery stores. Actually, even on my flight there from Lisbon the food on the plane consisted of sesame paste and some dried bread. Another omnipresent thing regarding food is dates (all sorts of dates - like, idk, there were trays with a dozen of different varieties) and yogurt. I bet locals must be really fond of yogurts, they are more common than juices or anything.
So, I went to that terrace on the hill overlooking the ocean, and another thing, one needs to be careful about is that locals are very keen on various tricks - tricking you into hiring them as your guide, or they try to lure you into their shops, where they try to sell you something. Basically, I was on the terrace looking at the ocean, and the guy basically came up to me and started telling about the history of the place and stuff, and I got a bit distracted and only several minutes later it occurred to me that he was probably going to ask some money for the excursion. So, I spent some time trying to get rid of him, and he stubbornly tried to take me to his shop. So it took a bit of persuasion to shake off the guy. Then there was always somebody offering to buy hash - I don't even know if it's legal there - but people offering hash were, like, every fifty meters or so. So, in the end, I kinda managed to convince everybody to leave me at peace and went down through the Medina toward the shore. It was not a high hill, but for some reason, it felt hotter below than on the top. Or it was just a bit windier up there. In general, it wasn't so hot in Tangier, mostly the air had the usual tinge of the ocean, like in most seaside towns.
So I went down from the Medina to the street - all the streets in Tangier go up and down also, it's really easy to understand where you are going just by the direction of the slope - if you go down you go toward the beach - if you go up, you go to the opposite side of the town or toward Medina. So I was on that street, and the thing that struck me - the street was lined with tangerine trees, with a mass of tangerines on each of them. Never seen such a thing before. And it looked pretty cool. And the street was somewhat calm with occasional cars, but most of the noise was mainly produced by schoolchildren - there was kind of a school on one of those streets or something. And the architecture outside of Medina still looked quaint and old. It was a pretty relaxing atmosphere there I would say. So it was hot and I felt a bit hungry but mostly thirsty, so as I read before that Morocco was famous for its fresh juices, I found a place to check it out.
So, basically, I found a small cafe where they squeezed fresh juices - it was pretty cool with ice cubes and all. A glass (a huge one, about a liter or something) of fresh orange juice cost me about 7 mad (it's about half a EUR) and I thought like, if I had an opportunity to stay in Morocco for a while, I would make fresh juices an essential part of my diet. For such a price, I would basically drink them from dawn to sunset, non-stop. Btw, later I learned that the orange juice was probably the most simple treat - like, in Marrakech they squeezed juices from everything and made amazing mixes, including pineapples, melons, peaches, strawberries, watermelons, apricots, some exotic stuff (I don't remember how it's called) basically they had full fruit stands and everything there could be mixed into a juice - like, you could also order a special mix of your own choosing, but more on that later.
There was also one thing that baffled me and seemed mysterious at first. Like, I remembered that time in Morocco was two hours behind Moscow time, same as in Lisbon, so I adjusted my clock during the connection, but when my friend arrived he showed me that the time on his smartphone (which adjusted to timezones automatically) was one hour earlier. It was kind of strange - I thought at first that it was some glitch with his phone or something. Eventually, when I was in that juice place I asked a woman - the owner of that shop - about the time, and she said that it actually was an hour earlier. Then she explained that it was because of the Ramadan. During the Ramadan, they switch the time an hour earlier than the official time, and it continues for a month, then they turn the clock an hour forward again. Thus the mystery was solved. Speaking of Ramadan, it's a really interesting period, and something to take into consideration - as a matter of fact, this occurrence messed with us multiple times, like, including the fact that the departure time on my return tickets turned out to be an hour later than the actual departure time, but more on that later. Yup, Ramadan, tangerine trees, the ocean, yellow flowers with a spicy fragrance, the sunshine, ocean breeze - my first impressions of Morocco and it felt pretty cool - like, my stress quickly dissolved, and I was able to enjoy life and stuff.
My friend woke up somewhat in the midday, and we started exploring Tangier following a different direction - starting with the street along the shore, port, city beach, and stuff. Also, we had to find the bus station so we could buy tickets for the next day, as we planned to head to Rabat, somewhat in the morning. So we also had to go through the business part of the city.
In a sense, Tangier is more of an urban center than a resort town. It's clear when you walk along the beach because there's actually an automobile road going along the beach. And there are no open cafes, as it's usual in a resort town - there are restaurants, but they are inside the buildings. And the urban part of the city looks, well, urban. An interesting thing is that they have light markers embedded in the road, for example, on the crosswalks there are lights right under your feet, indicating whether it's okay to cross the road at the moment or not. In addition to the traffic lights. But another thing about the traffic lights - somewhat a bit unusual - like, it can be green indicating that pedestrians can cross the road, but there still can be some traffic coming, say, from a side road, and it's perfectly legit. It took me some time to get used to it. On a bright side, there is an unspoken priority the pedestrians have over the motorists and all the drivers follow it. Like, when you cross the road or make an intention to cross the road, the approaching cars slow down, no matter what the traffic light shows. Which is pretty cool.
Also, another thing I noticed the streets were clean (something I didn't expect much) but also there were almost no trash cans on the streets. Like, I wondered how locals dealt with that situation because I always had to carry some trash with me for a long time before I could find any trash can.
So we went up one of the central streets and found the bus station. Speaking of which, my friend advised me to use Map-me app that allowed to store offline maps and I did that plus, I downloaded some google maps for offline use, with my markers on them. I marked the hostels we made reservations in, bus stations, some places of interest, etc. Sometimes though when I opened the map it switched all the markers off, so I needed to reopen it. Nevertheless, combined with GPS and the compass it was pretty convenient - I always could figure out where exactly I was and where I was going.
So yup, we reached the bus station, and it was a bit of a shock at first, like, there was a number of people shouting loudly all the time - as I learned later, they were announcing departing buses or something. Also, there was like, the usual bustle of a bus station, but I sorta expected something like that. Probably, the most problematic thing was that few people there spoke English - as a matter of fact, the guy who sold tickets didn't - and I would've probably gotten stuck, at that point, thanks to my companion who knew a bit of French an could explain what we needed. The problem with him was that he haggled beyond all the commonsense boundaries, like, he tried to lower the ticket price - which was fixed - or find the cheapest tickets possible or something. At that point, I lost track of what was going on because it was all in French. The only thing I understood, there were several options - buses departing at different times - and we tried to decide when exactly we wanted to leave Tangier, considering that we didn't have much time yet to explore the city in depth, and so on. Also, my friend was obsessed with some place, some fifty kilometers away from Tangier - a picturesque one, blue city or something - but he also didn't want to pay for the taxi, so it was complicated. I would assume that he should've taken time to explore the Medina in Tangier instead of all that hustle - like, I have a hard time understanding people who refuse to live in the present moment, enjoy the present moment, always thinking of some different places and events, but anyway.
Speaking of which, we actually had a couple of options, regarding buses. There is a CTM bus network in Morocco with very comfortable buses, fitted with air conditioners, WiFi and stuff, but we thought and decided to choose a public bus instead because it was like, 3 € cheaper - 7 € vs 10 € at CTM, as I said, the guy was obsessed with minimizing spendings, and I just decided to play along. Also, I felt a bit embarrassed that I spent 20 € just to get to the hotel from the airport - like, they basically took advantage of my naivete. And before that, I spent 40 € on snacks alone in the Lisbon airport transfer zone, which was sort of outrageous to my companion, but anyway. So eventually we bought tickets to Rabat for the following day, and since we failed to find any means to get to the blue town and it was getting closer to the evening we decided to just take a look at the beach and some parks I bookmarked on the map.
So speaking of Tangier in the evening, it's pretty cool, the city beach is vast - at least it's bigger than anything I've seen before. The only thing, the water is calm and there's not much of surf because the coastline of Tangier is not actually the Atlantic Ocean but a strait between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic Ocean. In good weather, it's actually possible to see the outlines of the Spanish coast on the opposite side. I wondered why there were so few people on the beach, maybe because it was a bit cold already - the temperature in the evening somehow was perceptibly colder than during the day.
I'd say Tangier is not a touristy city, after all, maybe because it's pretty urban, and there's a big port in it and stuff. Although, in the hostel where we stayed we met a bunch of French people who said that they came there regularly - specifically, to Tangier. For some reason, this place is popular among French who don't surf, so they just go there and chill on the rooftop verandas - as I noted, the Medina there is the most beautiful and calm among all the others I've seen in Morocco, and the view from the top is magnificent.
While we explored the city in the evening and tried to catch a glimpse of some local, exotic, and authentic cuisine, we noticed that the menus in all the cafes we visited were identical, basically, it was the same menu. Also, apart from sweets, there was not much of authentic cuisine in Tangier - it was more like something French - crepes and pancakes, plus multiple variations of omelets, stuff like that. We also got a glimpse of the park somewhat in the center of the beachline, which also was an agreed meeting point in case we wouldn't be able to get in touch upon arrival and wouldn't be able to access any Internet. So it looked cute but mostly consisted of a scattering of tall palms. On the farthest part of the beach, there was a long pier - one of a group separating the city beach from the port - which also hosted a bunch of restaurants that looked fancier than the cafes in the city but with the same menus offering espresso, crepes, and omelets. Basically, I wondered if they printed that menu once and then distributed it among all the cafes and restaurants in the city. There also - according to my map - was some museum, but either it was closed or, maybe, I'd been eventually confused about my location.
So, the next day we took off to Rabat on a bus. There wasn't much time to see anything more of the city in the morning - I tried to show my friend more of a Medina, but we had about twenty minutes for that, and we also carried our backpacks. And we had to walk several kilometers to the bus station along the beach and then away from it along the main city street. The latter was a difficult part because the street was actually leading upward. So we had to walk several kilometers upward, in the end. Also, there was another complication I created for myself, like, in the evening, when I felt I was still hungry, I bought some roasted fish in one of the street cafes. But later I caught something else to eat - some sweets, ice-cream, more sweets (the sweets there were irresistible with honey, nuts, spices in them, so I never was able to endure the temptation) - and, eventually, I was full and didn't know what to do with the fish. So we left it in the fridge, and the next day I actually carried it to the bus, in addition to my backpack and all. The trip to Rabat was supposed to take about four or five hours so we planned to arrive there several hours after noon.
So, on the second day, we were on the bus to Rabat. I remember another couple of details, btw, like the previous evening, we were sitting in some cafe, drinking coffee, and rethinking our plans. Like, it was an underlying theme throughout our whole travel - we reconsidered our plans and initial itinerary numerous times. Like, at the beginning we planned to go to Casablanca from Rabat then decided that it would be too much sightseeing and we wanted to get to the ocean already and start surfing. Also, it was getting harder and harder to keep in mind everything because we booked hostels, canceled previous bookings, also taking into consideration various policies different hostels had regarding cancellations and changing arrival and departure dates and so on. I saw also an additional option, regarding moving from city to city. There was a network of speed trains, particularly, it would be viable to take a speed train to get from Rabat to Agadir (or as we initially planned Casablanca)
Also, there was another small detail that stuck in my memory. As it was Ramadan, there was always a sound of prayer coming in the evening from the local mosque - the same repeated late at night. And like, during the second night, I remember, I tried to sleep, but there was obviously something strange going on outside all night - like, a prayer, then people singing, then something like the sound of some musical instruments, including drums. Then it was like people were marching on the streets or something like that. In other words, it was a strange night, and I didn't get much sleep and hoped to make up for it during the bus trip the following morning. Also, another detail I remember, there were many bars in Tangier, where it seemed like most of the local men gathered in the evening and watched TV, which broadcasted some football match, and they vigorously supported some team with shouting and stuff, and at the same time, it was that prayer time, so it felt a bit strange and ironic - like, so much for religious zeal and stuff. Another small observation, I remember - I saw a couple of girls on the streets who - according to the manner and clothes and style of conversation - were going to something like a nightclub, and, at the same time, they wore headscarves. Felt kinda strange. So, yup, returning to the following day - so, after a very unhurried process of moving out from the bus station (picking last moment passengers and stuff), our bus was on the road to Rabat. Actually, it stopped another couple of times in the suburbs, picking up people waiting there, so if initially, the bus seemed half empty, the driver made everything in his power to improve that situation )
One of the tricks I learned, was with the towel. It was very simple - I took the towel everywhere with me when I was riding something or waiting somewhere, and the towel, without taking much room in the bag, was a handy way to get me comfortable. On the bus, the technique was simple and straightforward - for example, if I sat near the window - if I placed the towel between my head and the glass, I could lean on it, and it was comfortable enough to sleep on the bus. Which I did. I'd say, although it was a public bus, it was comfortable enough, with curtains and ventilation and stuff. And half of the way the seat near me was unoccupied so I could make myself even more comfortable. And, I almost forgot, I carried roasted fish with me from the previous day. So it was a bag with the fish in a plastic tray wrapped in foil (I didn't even have a chance to see how it looked yet) and it was also supplied with two naans (local bread) Plus, I had a bottle or a couple of bottles of yogurt with me (as I said it's really popular and really cheap actually like, French brands went for like 3-4 mad or something) So it was handy, like, somewhat in the middle, when I eventually got hungry, I started on my naans, and then I got a lot of disapproving glances from a woman who at that moment sat next to me, and suddenly I remembered that it was Ramadan, and nobody was supposed to eat or drink anything, and I felt really embarrassed. But anyway. I remember how the sight outside the window was changing while we were riding. There was somewhat of a forest outside, and it struck me as something I would never expect to see in Morocco - a forest - it was interesting. There were trees that I would otherwise think were pines, if not for the fact that their crowns were shaped somewhat like umbrellas on the top. And there was no grass, and the groves sometimes were separated from the road by hedges. There were wide paths in the groves, probably for sheep - trudged clean by sheep. I remember now and then I saw small herds. So it was how the northern part of Morocco looked outside of urban centers - forests, bushes, and flowers. Actually, it was another detail that somewhat stuck in my memory - there were persistent rows of flower bushes - like wild roses or something - along the road, or on the line separating lanes. I remember while I leaned on the glass I saw a wild kaleidoscope of colors flashing before my eyes. Flowers. A couple of times, I saw the railroad running in parallel to the freeway we were traveling on, and I wondered about that we could have actually taken a train.
Like, I thought about various things on that bus, and they surface in my memory like a chain of staples connected to each other with scraps of some small details. Like, it's probably a good way to train memory or recall something - by attaching recollections to some small objects or facts or details. Like, I remember how brands of the cars gradually changed as we were getting closer to Rabat, and I thought it remarkable for some reason. Like, in Tangier and on the part of the road while we were close to it, there was a proliferation of old Mercedeses, like, all the taxi drivers drove old Mercedeses - like, from the nineties - and those were still pretty cool cars. Closer to Rabat we saw mostly French cars - Renaults etc, - which caused me and my friend starting an argument about the history of the place. Like, I somehow had an impression that Morocco was a French colony; he insisted that it was a Portuguese colony (or maybe vice versa, I don't remember) In the end, it turned out that both of us were correct, regarding different historical periods. He dug into Wiki and started researching the subject in depth, peppering me with various facts in the process. What I found interesting was that there were actually very few Europeans living in Morocco - for some reason I thought that there might be many French people living there, maybe, from observing French cars or something like that. I remember there was another stop in the middle, at some gas station-convenience store-cafe, and what was interesting, they had an open WiFi hot spot there, so I checked in. Then, at some point, the scenery outside the window started getting less foresty and more like the actual African Savannah, and we started descending into a sort of a canyon, among all those French cars driving along with us. And at some point, I got a glimpse of the ocean (which was the actual Atlantic, not a strait like in Tangier), and our maps and GPS showed that we were approaching Rabat. There were several stops in the suburbs, among bright flower bushes and palms - the palms got significantly taller as we were moving to the South - where part of our bus companions left, and at last, we arrived at the Rabat central bus station.
So, yup, it was Rabat. We left the bus, which then proceeded to its next destination - Casablanca - and I deliberately forgot my parcel with fried fish on the bus. (I just got tired of carrying it everywhere with me for the second consecutive day, and it tended to leave greasy smears whenever possible) So we were in Rabat and the fish proceeded on its way to Casablanca, so it became an inside joke between us for a while. We were at the Rabat's central bus station located on the central street in the center of the city, and our hostel was in Medina, which was adjacent to the central street in the eastern part of the city. In other words, it was fairly easy to find it, although the downside was that we had to walk five or seven kilometers along that central street with our backpacks. I wouldn't say it was hard, it's just we walked several hours, and if initially, we arrived not long after noon when we got to our hostel it was getting a bit closer to six or something. Somewhat in the middle of our route, we saw a magnificent and huge arthouse building made of glass, which turned out to be a central railway station and CTM station. So my mate decided to check my claims about train tickets, like, I enthusiastically promoted an idea that we could take a speed train from Rabat instead of a bus and save some time traveling to Agadir because, well, speed train is quicker than a bus. Or so I thought. So, after a bit of a struggle with a ticket-selling French-language terminal, it turned out that trains weren't actually quicker. Also, it was more expensive so we decided to discard the idea. So we marveled a bit on this building, which was huge, like a gigantic shopping mall, all made of glass with three levels connected by escalators. On the third (top) layer were various restaurants, pizza, noodles, and sushi places scarcely distributed across the vast area - so we took another shot at finding some authentic cuisine, which wasn't particularly successful because there was proliferation of French, Japanese, and whatever place pizza and noodles come from, in other words, it felt somewhat familiar. On the bright side, we found an absolutely awesome ice-cream place where they assembled a concoction of ice-cream, dozen varieties of fresh fruits (including melons and pineapples, which was unforgettable), juices, chocolate crumbs, cinnamon, and marmalade. So it was a piece of art, for the pretty modest price like, a couple of Eur and my following passage along that straight big road toward the Medina was dappled in sensory delight. But anyway.
So we were walking along this long very main avenue of Rabat among trees with massive canopies and exquisite vines hanging among branches. Also, I mentioned flowers, there, as well, was a decent amount of flower bushes overgrowing fences and whatever, and hot spicy fragrance hung in the air. So we were heading toward the east side of the city, Medina and our hostel, regretting in the process that we had a really limited amount of time for whatever we could explore and find at that place.
Rabat is the capital of Morocco so it's even more urban than Tangier although it has a bit more different feel - a spirit of the capital city or something. On the opposite side of the city (Also adjacent to the main avenue, as everything of interest there was somewhat adjacent to the main avenue) was the most remarkable spot in my opinion - a zoo, and we wondered if there was any possible way we could get there in the time remaining, after we'd check in and stuff. Probably it would require to take a taxi at least or something. I consulted a map and pointed out two other remarkable places located closer to Medina - those were two parks - one with the intriguing name hinting at something really interesting. Meanwhile, we passed some facilities - a fence overgrown by bushes with barbed wire on the top, and we wondered whether those were some prison facilities or a military unit or something. At some point, the sidewalk stretched under the arc of some endless building, with an infinite sequence of small shops, cafes, repair centers on its first floor, and a bustle of street vendors outside. So it was an endless row of trays of various sweets, like maybe dozens of variations of local pastries (with honey, and nuts, and sesame, paste, and cream), fruit stands, including separately the stands featuring all possible variations of dates. Or just fruits for outrageously low prices - peaches, melons, watermelons, papaya, avocados, mangos, etc. But we carried our backpacks, plus, my friend, being a crazy fan of watermelons, eventually picked one in addition to all the luggage we carried on ourselves. Plus, I managed to quickly snatch some pastry or two - something like baklava with pistachios and honey, so I could maintain my energy level and stuff. So, at some point, far in the future, this balustrade of street trade and culinary insanity ended, and we somewhat entered Medina
So the Medina in Rabat is quite different from Tangier. Somewhat radically. The main difference is that while the latter is a serene and quiet place, the former is a bustle and crowd and a lot of street vendors, and souvenirs, and food. Speaking of local authentic cuisine. It was the place. I'd say, most of all it reminded a wild oriental bazaar and it was hard to get through the crowds, and I couldn't imagine that our hostel was actually somewhere at that place among all the bustle. It seemed impossible. Although for any connoisseur of authentic cuisine it would be a paradise, like, among all the remarkable things I'd like to point out the stewed French snails, which they sold en masse, like, there was a cart with a steaming mound of stewed snails. Also, local natural yogurt, with pieces of fruit in it and stuff, like, it was something quite different from packaged yogurt - the flavor and taste were so much superior and divine it's hard to describe. But, nevertheless, there it was.
So, after elbowing through all this bazaar and the crowd, and getting confused by GPS, with the help of some emotional bearded locals we eventually found our hostel called Dar Amin, named after our host Amin who turned out to be a boy about twelve years old or something. So he and his mother owned that hostel, but the boy was like, the main host because he spoke English and knew the Wifi password and his mother only spoke French and didn't know the Wifi password. Anyway, it was a nice place, (despite all the complaints of my mate) which I picked out myself, and as usual, it had a veranda on the roof overlooking the city, and narrow spiral staircases, and all that. So what remained at that point was to figure out what we could do during the time that left (as the time was already approaching evening, with all our running through the city and stuff) More on that later.
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