Blogs coming, I promise

1) Getting stranded at 5 AM in Madrid airport with no plane ticket to South Africa.
2) Having the door slam open while negotiating the toilet on a high-speed train (the caboose of "luxury class" whatever that is) to Fes where there was a) no toilet paper b) the water pump was on one side of the bathroom and the flush pump was on the other, both of which had to be operated with your feet while trying to get some water to clean up only to see c) three guys smoking outside and yelling loudly "Sorry, sorry, sorry!"
3) The young, fearless woman who jumped the crap of a taxi-driver who was trying to jack us at the train station and who launched into a harangue of an entire group of half a dozen taxi-drivers in Arabic to the sheer bemusement of both J. and I, who now have come to understand how bargaining is in the soul of Arabic trading. One must fight goodnaturedly--even over the price of meals. It's a cultural ritual and is only considered polite. They need this the way we need to hear, 'Hello' when the phone is picked up before a conversation ensues.
4) Not escaping Morocco without buying a carpet. How could I? It was impossible.
5) Tired, really tired, gratified, happy, full...oh traveling. Can work be far behind? I will make it to South Africa in November. I owe blogs, many numerous blogs, but they don't write themselves. The pic above is from a rest area, somewhere in the United States, out of 100s I have taken over the past months.

Tangier

From now on, I shall think of my travel fantasies as having the possibility of being pipe dreams. Morocco so far has been trying, fascinating, and exhausting. I chose to stay in the old town market of Tangier called the medina for the first three days. What a lot of characters and incidents I have to write about when I have time, but I do not right now. I will mention the smells of this city--the aroma of spices and meat cooking, the perfumes of musk and sandalwood--the sounds of it when the islamic call to prayer echoes in a haunting reminder call and response over the rooftops and the melange of tongues--Spanish, French, , Arabic, Portugese, English--the sights--1000 year old labyrinthian paths up and down the steep streets were an overwhelming experience,

Today it is on to Fes. The pic above was taken during the evening call to prayer. Our riad looked out over the mosque and the harbor. 20 dollars a night for such riches as these.

Morning Train - Algeciras

The 6 hour train from Madrid through Andalusia down to the busy port of Algeciras where northern Africa becomes accessible via a 2 hour sail across the Strait of Gibraltar winds through mountainous gorges, and past Spanish olive, grape, and sheep farms that look as though they've been operating the same way for 100s of years, if not thousands. The colors of the landscape until one reaches the Mediterannean are ochre and brooding, olive green, and the mountain vistas are forbidding and hot, if one must pick only a couple adjectives.

But they're fascinating, the journey revealing small towns in the back of nowhere in the Spanish countryside that appeared as though they've only the train station and around 100 inhabitants, if that. Twenty times today I wished I could emerge from the train to photograph this or that sleepy, isolated village. The houses with their red-tiled roofs and whitewashed, open walls look exactly the way one would expect them to were they transplanted into Daggett, California for example. Overall, I had a day of astonishingly unfamiliar sensations, buses crowded full of people arguing in numerous languages--mostly Spanish--accented by Tom Jones' music played loud, and then an entire school of British Catholic young girls piling on, cramming the port bus so full, I doubt another person could fit on, the driver shouting at us as we reached our hotel, so we could get off, then climbing a steep road to reach it...bus stops where horses and chickens gathered around the waiting kiosks and views of granite hills spilling over with row after row after row of whitewashed boxes that look as though they are about to fall into the blue sea. Everyone is so brown and so astonishingly "cosmopolitan" to pick another term. Languages seem to be interchangeable and come easily to the tongue, nationalities unimportant, and mostly good natured attitudes abound. The UK passport control folks didn't even bother to examine the passports of most people I saw, but only boredly waved us on. J., who is shockingly proficient in Spanish, fits in amazingly well here, floating from language to language with an ease that is barely recognizable in the person I've known who I've never seen in these situations before. He also exhibits an amazing street sense, navigating odd situations with an ease and sophistication that is surprising.

As I type this, I realize how exhausted I am, from the heat, and from the crowds, and from the unfamiliar languages and from the adventures still ahead. But I'm having the most wonderful time--the time of my life. It's all wonderful and so unfamiliar. The picture here was taken earlier from our balcony, which is far from being the Madrid dive, now. This hotel is first rate. You can see the coast of Africa, so very close now.

Segovia in the Rain

I am not much of a happy crier. Really. I´m a pretty emotional person, but happiness does not make me cry, and I can recall only once or twice this has ever happened to me. It did yesterday, however. J. and I were sitting in a park outside the Prado, having spent the morning looking at the Goya and Velasquez inside. The temperature was perfect, the leaves were falling, he was laying on the park bench with his head in my lap where I was sitting.

He was holding forth, as he is wont to do, about the real Goya. The Prado is full of Goyas and other wonderful things, and we had just seen his favorite painting, The Third of May--the one which is his background on his cell phone and the one which it doesn´t take much of a leap to understand gave him strength while he was in Iraq. We were drinking perfect iced lattes, and everything felt so wonderful. He seemed so happy, so healthy, so whole...he´d gone running earlier that morning getting ready for Soweto, and his leg hardly pains him at all now. It was such a beautiful day. I did cry.

Today we went to Segovia, which is another beautiful Castillian town with steep, narrow streets and built on a 1000 years of history. I got pictures of the cathedral and quite a bit of the architecture. The picture above is J. in a gazebo at Pl. Mayor we ducked in to avoid the rain. I highly recommend Segovia...and iced lattes and Madrid in October outside the Prado with someone you love. Tomorrow we leave for Morocco.

De Madrid al cielo

Little context is present for where I am or what I´ve been doing, but my itinerary is currently Spain-Morocco-South Africa, and I´m into it. I´ve been in Spain for a week now, staying at a bit of a dive in Madrid, and I love it. I love the dive itself--a crazy hostal called Villar on busy, narrow Principe where the youth from every capital in Europe seems to party. The hostal is loud, godawful loud, and abuts a small square of buildings where one can hear the water in every pipe, every kid screaming for leche, every drunken 3 am song by partiers from Santa Ana. At around 4 AM two nights ago, I was treated to a midnight gospel-reading by some guy at an open window across the square after listening to the couple in the next room have sex for almost two hours. Then, after J. arrived, the next night an entire street sang in the moonlight, hundreds of people who just launched into song. It sounds corny, but being around such goodnatured individuals is so infectious it makes the heart glad.

I love the Spanish--happy, jovial, tolerant, kind is how I´d describe them, and I have come--already--to love Madrid. I do not share, however, the Spanish passion for bullfighting. I went to the corrida at the Pl. de Toros, and I had to drink my dinner afterwards. The only thing I can figure is that the sport resembles the inexplicable American passion for wrestling, except the bulls are a little stupider than American wrestlers, and they die in the end. I had got an impression that this sport was at least a little--well, sporty, but it isn´t. It´s pageant, but one could not call it sport. The bulls are blooded and tired by various tormentors, piccadors and other matadors, before the main matador takes over to make the dramatic and macho poses with the cape and the bull. This guy´s goal seems to be almost to dance with the bull, tiring it out, and well-nigh hypnotising it with fulitily before he kills it. If the guy does this with style--which only happened once out of six fights with the tough madrilenos crowd--the whole corrida, particular the females, flip out, and the dude collects everything from flowers to silken panties thrown at him while he marches around the arena and selects the graceful flower of Spanish luciousness who will get the poor bull´s ear. If the bull is a cool bull, then everyone will cheer the toro as he´s dragged off--deader than hell and puking blood sometimes--from the arena. It´s tough to tell which bulls will please the crowd. One guy came out and obviously--probably alerted by the smell of blood in the sand, which is cleaned after every fight--knew some crap was up. He was more suspicious than anything and would just stare at the various matadors after making a few halfhearted passes at the capes. He was so reticent, they finally ran some cows in to see what he´d do, and he happily fell in line with them to get the hell out of the arena. The sexism was obvious, yet this cowardice on his part was enjoyed greatly and cheered happily by the crowd, who seemed to approve of his intelligence, if nothing else. His successor lacked his common sense and died just like the others. Ugh. The entire experience evoked a lot of feelings I have yet to process.

And oh, the Prado. And Goya. And Toledo. And Segovia. And...I leave for Morocco via Gibraltar later this week. More to come.


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