We have been journeying for several months now, but our trip begins today. The ferry from Almeria to Nador is cavernous and empty. A cabin with bunkbeds is included in our ticket, which makes for a welcome two-hour nap on the top bunk. Otherwise, people pace the deck, smoke, sit, stand and pace again. It feels like people are struggling to pass the time between continents. I can't help but feel like this is where the cruise ships go to die. Like greyhounds that can't race anymore. Now they spend their days crossing the Mediterranean five hours at a time, twice a day.
For a while I watch five swallows darting in an out of the wind behind the ship. I wonder how they got to the middle of the sea, only to conclude that they live somewhere on the ship. And somehow they always find their way back to it, even when it is moving. I walk to the front of the ship a few times to see if I can see land. Nothing yet. Just another ferry that we seem to be gaining on.
Finally, on our port side, there are mountains. From a distance, the coast looks much like Cabo de Gato. I follow the coast line toward the front of the boat. Nothing. Just sea. So I find a perch on a box of life jackets in the wind. The land slowly emerges from nothing. Out of the blue of the sea, the land begins to distinguish itself before my eyes. Soon cranes and a breakwater - the port of Nador. "Finally," I think to myself, "Morocco."
As we pull into the port, Annette and I return to our cabin. I change shorts for pants. We disembark from the ship immediately to a passport control officer. As we wait behind seven or eight people, mostly Moroccan, I offer to Annette, "Welcome to Morocco!"
"Welcome to Africa!" she responds.
The uniformed passport control officer takes our passports and puts them in his pocket. He tells us and three other guys whose passports he also pocketed to wait on the side while he briefly glances at everybody else's passports before letting them through. We wait for ten minutes that seems like eternity. Meanwhile my mind starts to move through various scenarios about why he took our passports and how this scene will unfold.
Finally, he motions for us to follow him down a series of long corridors toward the "sortie" - exit. We end up in a large arrivals hall waiting outside an office. The passport control officer puts the stack of passports on a desk - two blue, two green, one red. He then walks off, leaving our fate to three men in an office. One by one, the man behind the desk looks at the passports and the arrival cards. He asks a question or two in French and then firmly stamps the arrival card and passport. One by one, the other passengers are sent on their way. Annette and I are the last two. The man looks at Annette's passport and reads her name aloud, calling her forward into the office. Then he smiles a huge "Welcome to Morocco." He asks where we are going in Morocco. Annette says, "Marrakech." I say, "Fes." The man smiles, firmly stamps the passports and arrival cards and wishes us well.
We go through the metal detector that doesn't beep, although I am certain I have metal on me. Of the four exit doors, only the far left one opens and we eventually make it through. We poorly negotiate a large white Mercedes diesel taxi to Hotel Mediteranee in Nador. The road is crowded. Air is dirty. Reminds me of India. But in ten minutes the taxi driver delivers us to our guidebook-recommended hotel and demands too much money (100 dirham = 10 Euros). I talk him down to 80 dirham ($10 U.S.) and pay mostly to end the negotiations.
We are greeted at Hotel Mediteranee by a quiet woman in a beige and black jalab. She informs us there are no rooms. Uh oh. Annette and I drop our packs and consult the guidebooks for suitable second and third options and a map. Fortunately, Nador is a grid. And we are downtown.
So, we walk, backpacks to the sea and Europe. A kebap stand on the right. Several beggars. A man with a deformed foot. A cute and persistent six year-old pulling at our pockets. A blind man. Market on the left. Mosque on the left. Fruit stand on the right. "We will explore all of this once we can drop our bags," I assure myself.
We eventually find our second hotel option. No rooms. I ask for a recommendation on where there might be rooms available. The gentleman at the hotel informs us there aren't any rooms in town because the king is coming. That explains the red and green Moroccan flags and billboard photos of his majesty plastered everywhere. The guidebook says this king has been making significant investments in Northern Morocco, which had been disregarded by generations before him. So, we decide to leave Nador to the king and his subjects and see if we can catch a bus to Fes tonight.
So, we find our way to the main bus station. With the bus station just in sight, we are greeted by a gentleman directing us to his bus company. Unclear of what time it is in Morocco (our clocks say 5:15 p.m.), we book two tickets on the next bus to Fes. We are told the bus leaves at 5 p.m., that it is 4 p.m. now and the ride will take four hours. We didn't look at the bus before buying the tickets. It is hot and the windows don't open. We put our bags under the bus on top of a huge old spare tire and go for kafta sandwiches.
We then take turns watching the bus to make sure it doesn't leave with our bags and not us, saying no to kids hawking candy and cologne, and watching WWF wrestling with Arabic subtitles in the bus station. The crowds go for both our bus and WWF, but the numbers watching wrestling far outnumber those claiming seats on our soon-to-be-full bus.
The bus finally leaves at 6:45 p.m., barely leaving the kids selling candy and cologne time to get off the bus. By 6:55 p.m., an older woman in jalab is standing and shouting at a man in front of her who apparently has taken her seat. Soon they are throwing things at each other. The bus stops. The fight goes into the street and stops traffic. Half of the passengers on the bus follow. Half an hour later, we are back on the road to Fes.
There are a few observations I have made on bus travel in countries where I am told not to drink the water. First, there is always one or two hype men, helpers or assistants that ride alongside the bus driver. Second, the bus makes any number of unscheduled stops, in which people hop on and off, including the bus driver. He seems to take frequent breaks for coffee, tea, pee, snacks, conversations with friends, and god knows what else. Third, time is flexible. This is true for departures, arrivals, travel times and length of stops. Fourth, there is rarely air conditioning. Fortunately, it is dark soon after our departure.
We finally are greeted by miles of lit stone walls announcing our arrival in the imperial city of Fes. After midnight, we find our way to a budget hotel and sleep off a long day of travel, dreaming of the Fes medina (old city).
"Welcome to Africa!" she responds.
The uniformed passport control officer takes our passports and puts them in his pocket. He tells us and three other guys whose passports he also pocketed to wait on the side while he briefly glances at everybody else's passports before letting them through. We wait for ten minutes that seems like eternity. Meanwhile my mind starts to move through various scenarios about why he took our passports and how this scene will unfold.
Finally, he motions for us to follow him down a series of long corridors toward the "sortie" - exit. We end up in a large arrivals hall waiting outside an office. The passport control officer puts the stack of passports on a desk - two blue, two green, one red. He then walks off, leaving our fate to three men in an office. One by one, the man behind the desk looks at the passports and the arrival cards. He asks a question or two in French and then firmly stamps the arrival card and passport. One by one, the other passengers are sent on their way. Annette and I are the last two. The man looks at Annette's passport and reads her name aloud, calling her forward into the office. Then he smiles a huge "Welcome to Morocco." He asks where we are going in Morocco. Annette says, "Marrakech." I say, "Fes." The man smiles, firmly stamps the passports and arrival cards and wishes us well.
We go through the metal detector that doesn't beep, although I am certain I have metal on me. Of the four exit doors, only the far left one opens and we eventually make it through. We poorly negotiate a large white Mercedes diesel taxi to Hotel Mediteranee in Nador. The road is crowded. Air is dirty. Reminds me of India. But in ten minutes the taxi driver delivers us to our guidebook-recommended hotel and demands too much money (100 dirham = 10 Euros). I talk him down to 80 dirham ($10 U.S.) and pay mostly to end the negotiations.
We are greeted at Hotel Mediteranee by a quiet woman in a beige and black jalab. She informs us there are no rooms. Uh oh. Annette and I drop our packs and consult the guidebooks for suitable second and third options and a map. Fortunately, Nador is a grid. And we are downtown.
So, we walk, backpacks to the sea and Europe. A kebap stand on the right. Several beggars. A man with a deformed foot. A cute and persistent six year-old pulling at our pockets. A blind man. Market on the left. Mosque on the left. Fruit stand on the right. "We will explore all of this once we can drop our bags," I assure myself.
We eventually find our second hotel option. No rooms. I ask for a recommendation on where there might be rooms available. The gentleman at the hotel informs us there aren't any rooms in town because the king is coming. That explains the red and green Moroccan flags and billboard photos of his majesty plastered everywhere. The guidebook says this king has been making significant investments in Northern Morocco, which had been disregarded by generations before him. So, we decide to leave Nador to the king and his subjects and see if we can catch a bus to Fes tonight.
So, we find our way to the main bus station. With the bus station just in sight, we are greeted by a gentleman directing us to his bus company. Unclear of what time it is in Morocco (our clocks say 5:15 p.m.), we book two tickets on the next bus to Fes. We are told the bus leaves at 5 p.m., that it is 4 p.m. now and the ride will take four hours. We didn't look at the bus before buying the tickets. It is hot and the windows don't open. We put our bags under the bus on top of a huge old spare tire and go for kafta sandwiches.
We then take turns watching the bus to make sure it doesn't leave with our bags and not us, saying no to kids hawking candy and cologne, and watching WWF wrestling with Arabic subtitles in the bus station. The crowds go for both our bus and WWF, but the numbers watching wrestling far outnumber those claiming seats on our soon-to-be-full bus.
The bus finally leaves at 6:45 p.m., barely leaving the kids selling candy and cologne time to get off the bus. By 6:55 p.m., an older woman in jalab is standing and shouting at a man in front of her who apparently has taken her seat. Soon they are throwing things at each other. The bus stops. The fight goes into the street and stops traffic. Half of the passengers on the bus follow. Half an hour later, we are back on the road to Fes.
There are a few observations I have made on bus travel in countries where I am told not to drink the water. First, there is always one or two hype men, helpers or assistants that ride alongside the bus driver. Second, the bus makes any number of unscheduled stops, in which people hop on and off, including the bus driver. He seems to take frequent breaks for coffee, tea, pee, snacks, conversations with friends, and god knows what else. Third, time is flexible. This is true for departures, arrivals, travel times and length of stops. Fourth, there is rarely air conditioning. Fortunately, it is dark soon after our departure.
We finally are greeted by miles of lit stone walls announcing our arrival in the imperial city of Fes. After midnight, we find our way to a budget hotel and sleep off a long day of travel, dreaming of the Fes medina (old city).
I have made on bus travel in countries where I am told not to drink the water. ferry almeria nador
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