I leave Granada on a sunny afternoon, bound for Algeciras, on the southern tip of Spain. I change buses in Malaga, and end up sitting next to a pair of travelers, Hamish and Lilu, from Canada and Russia, respectively. Hamish is a proper hippy, with a beard, tied-up dreads, and the well-worn shoes of two years (and counting) on the road. He wears a shalwar khemiz, and has been to Morocco several times before; he’s quite a connoisseur, he says, of hashish, and the Moroccan variety is some of the best. Lilu is young and Russian; she met Hamish at a commune north along the coast, and thought Morocco sounded interesting, so came along.
We talk as the sun sets and the bus rolls south. In the early evening the Rock of Gibraltar rises through the hills, striking in the gold light, and I’m surprised at how impressive it is among its lower, softer surroundings. It looks as if a giant has split a hill in two with a wedge and hammer, and thrown one half into the sea.
The ferry offices in Algeciras are only a few blocks from the bus station, and Hamish, Lilu and I decide to join forces for the night. We manage to find tickets to Morocco for just over ten euro, and spend the next few hours waiting in a dockside cafe, crowded with Moroccans waiting for their ride home. The air is full of cigarette smoke and Arabic.
The crossing, when it comes, is quick and easy. Hamish lets us in on the fact that we can process our passports at the ferry’s desk, so when we dock, there’s no paperwork waiting between me and my new continent.
But it’s dark, of course, and as our shuttle takes us from the port at Tangier Med to the Tangier city center, only silhouettes of jagged mountains show above the horizon. Tangiers is a modern city, and the streets of the center are well lit, wide, and at right angles. It’s not until we pass through the gates into the medina that they gain the narrow, twisting, dimly lit nature of Arabic city-planning I remember from Syria.
Our hotel, when we find one, is a bit dilapidated, but a bit grand, too, in that dilapidated kind of way, and we manage to pay 50 Moroccan dirham each for a room; a little less than five euro a piece. Hamish has already found one of his favorite hash dealers from his last visit, a friendly local named Chino — “because of my eyes,” he says, pointing at the way they slant down at the corners.
Chino, it turns out, spent most of his adolescence in Spain, culminating with an arrest for unspecified reasons that put him in prison for three and a half years. “But it’s okay,” he says, “Spanish prison, like Moroccan hotel!” He further elaborates on his plan to buy a jet ski to cross the straits, sneak past the Spanish coast guard, and return to visit his family in Granada.
By the next morning, I have word that my friends Adam and Shreya have arrived in Fes on a week-long visit, so I don’t stay in Tangier for a second night, and don’t have much time for pictures. My impression is of a city in the throes of modernization, pushed forward by King and people, where the medieval quarters of the city, once so charming, are now a little lost, and a little out of place.
As for me, I head for the train station, and buy a ticket to Fez.
