Moroccouscous

After leaving my parents on a bus to the airport, hoping they'd somehow make it to Madrid, I came home to unpack and repack yet again for my weekend in MOROCCO.

I went to Africa. This invokes so many different stuck-in-your-head tunes from Shakira to that song about the rain down in Africa. As I sung them the entire 8 hour trek there, my enthusiasm waned and quivered a bit...

First, the bus was cool and whatever. Spanish countryside is kind of like driving through Nebraska. Then, we showed up at the port of Algeciras (which is pronounced like the Islamic TV network, basically). It. was. beautiful. Breathtaking mountains, a stretch of oceans, and a perfect sunset. As we sailed off on a ferry, we were warned about drinking the water and joked about being sold for camels.

The clouds at the port in Algeciras.
Warning of the seastorm about to destroy me on the ferry?

Twenty minutes later, I felt like I was drunk of infected water while sloppily riding a camel. That's as closely as I can describe the feeling of seasickness that washed over me in the hour from Europe to Africa. I just put my head down and tried to sleep it off.

Land was the only cure. We got off in Ceuta, a Spanish port essentially like a Guatemala Bay of Morocco, but with fewer hard feelings and militaristic functions. Then customs took a casual three hours, stuck on a bus. Not that we wanted to get off the bus. We were scared, mystified, and overwhelmed. The clothes were different. The language was different. And we'd given up our passports to a man we just met, wearing a black cape with a pointed hood.

No identity. Nowhere to go. No one we knew. I would've felt helpless if I hadn't been listening to uplifting Spanish versions of American Top 40s, feeling like I was on Spring Break! Wooo!

Eventually, the unmarked policemen led us through a series of barricades and checked our passports for the fourth time. The people outside, from old men in jeans to young girls in hijab, crossed the border or hovered anxiously on either side - camping around, staring at us.

We passed through - I felt like I was intruding on their lives, a human museum I had paid the entry fee for, but never asked the performers if they wanted to be watched.

The next two days were absurd, challenging, incredible, shocking, educational, silly, and unlike anything I imagined or previously knew of.

Also, the couscous I had in a tagine the size of three basketball hoops, when we finally arrived at our hotel at midnight - it was delicious, and made up for a total of 8 hours in transit.

And then they served us each 5 scoops of ice cream. With whipped cream and chocolate syrup.


We were Morokings and queens. And very ready for bed.

Door to the next two days. Intricate, decrepit, plastered.., all these words apply to what lies ahead...