Motril to Tangiers - Nov. 1-4

Motril to Tangiers (Nov. 1 – 4)

Never have I seen so many happy passengers. We made it to Motril, Spain, late on Thursday evening  and docked, firmly to a long pier. The boat stood still, and everyone’s mood picked up. 

To reward us for our good behavior (no one mutinied, or tied the cruise director to the mast), we had our next-day tours to Granada, and the Alhambra, extended from a few hours to the full day. So, bright and shiny and ready for land, we boarded on our bus and left the fairly industrial town of Motril, heading for Granada.  The Spanish landscape reminded me of Greece with olive groves, fruit trees, barren rocky landscapes and goats hopping about.  In the background the Sierra Nevada mountain chain had a small coating of snow, and we were assured by our local tour guide that skiing in the area was quite popular.  After about an hour we arrived at the Alhambra – the zenith of Moorish culture – high overlooking the town of Granada.  It was a crisp fall morning, with blue skies and the promise of future warmth, as we met the very local expert guide Daniel – an Italian gentleman who turned out to be our best guide to date.

Entry to the Alhambra is limited for crowd control and our entry time was to be 9:30 am. If you dawdle about or miss your entry, you’re out of luck, so we hustled our way to the entry, listening to Daniel give us salient facts through our ear pieces.  This type of tour is always the best: each small group is on a unique frequency tied to your specific tour guide (If my chance you changed frequencies you may be listening to a tour in Japanese).  If you stay within a certain distance of the guide, you can hear him perfectly, but it also allows you the freedom to wander a bit to take that perfect picture without missing out on the information being provided. Its other benefit is that it allows the guide to speak in a natural way not having to scream or to constantly demand that we chickens stay close at hand.

To describe the Alhambra is for me impossible. It reminded me of Topkapi , in Istanbul– acres of carefully laid out grounds inside enclosed walls, containing palaces, gardens, fountains, and simpler homes for the common people. It was built over a series of years by the Moors as palaces for the sultans and survived intact until the 1490’s when the Christian influence won out. The Moors were driven out of Spain, and the Alhambra became an empty bastion used for some of the worst excesses of the Inquisition. 

Each of the palaces consisted of a vast series of rooms usually focused around a garden or small pond. From all rooms one could look out into one of these courtyards. On all walls there was elaborate and ornate tile work, sculpture, or engraved Arabic sayings & poems,(some of which Daniel would read to us).  Because Islam does not allow one to portray any humans or animals, the designs were primarily floral or geometric in nature.  Every inch from the floors to the ceilings was elaborately laid out and one could only imagine a time when the individual colors of tiles and paint were vivid, and when the white coating on the walls glistened. If you came as a visitor at that time, you would have to have been in awe as your eyes were drawn to the intricate and ornate detail of each space.

With every turn I wanted to take pictures, and yet I knew that no pictures could begin to capture the beauty, so I finally gave up and bought a guide book which had professional photographs taken when the sunlight was perfectly aligned, and the detail stood out with precision. 

After a good three hours, we wended our way back to the bus, which took us through ‘pre-siesta’, mid-day traffic to a hotel restaurant in Granada, where we had an enormous dining room to ourselves with a delicious buffet large enough to feed a group four times our size.

Our next stop was a quick walking tour through the old part of Granada, which Bob and I chose to skip (along with quite a few other weary passengers) and then as the sun was setting, we headed back to Motril, and our ship. We learned that the tall-ship, Sea Cloud, had been at our pier briefly that afternoon, on its way to the Caribbean also. This was the last night for those passengers who were getting off in Malaga, so there was much exchanging of email addresses and contact data, and while some of us went to bed, others stayed up and closed the bar. (Names hidden to protect the guilty).

Saturday – Malaga

With overcast skies and rain, we arrived at the very new ship’s terminal in Malaga. The departing guests were asked to be off the ship by 10:00 am, so those of us staying on dilly-dallied about until mid-day staying out of the way of the departures.  Then Russ, Di, Bob and I headed into the town of Malaga.  While this used to be a sleepy port, it is now part of the very touristy Costa del Sol (though we had no Sol to speak of). We were in search of free WI-FI, some beer and then a nice tapas lunch.  And all this was accomplished.  Malaga reminded me a bit of Barcelona, with a lot of pedestrian shopping streets, many upscale shops and department stores, and tiny alley ways filled with all manner of out-door eating establishments.  Being Saturday, there were many families out and about, and a large open-air market enclosed within walls which reminded me of the place in Budapest where Gay and I had wandered. 

Having enjoyed a lovely lunch, protected from the dripping skies by an awning, we wandered down to a large department store/grocery store - El Corte Ingles- which is a well-known chain in Spain. Each of us picked up necessities of life, not available on the ship, and ambled back to our floating home to meet the newbies who were joining us.  We were 71 passengers on the last leg, we lost quite a few at this port, but with the new influx we’ve grown to a compliment of 101….except six people who missed the boat –literally – so we left port as a group of 95, setting sail for North Africa where the missing six will hopefully catch up with us.

I noticed how those of us who have been on-board for a while tended to group together at dinner, while the newbies find their way about. It’s like they haven’t yet learned the secret handshake, so they’re not yet considered ‘one of us’.  This will disappear quickly, I’m sure.  We had dinner with one of the newbies – the ship’s doctor. It seems that with any ocean crossing, where ports of call are non-existent, it is required to have a doctor on board.  Dr. Irene Preis is a lovely woman from Wurzburg, Germany – part of Franconia. She regaled us with tales about her unique training required to be a ship’s doctor.  (On land she’s an anesthesiologist). The principal problems on a crossing, for which one requires training are: sea sickness, broken bones, and smoke inhalation.  It seems to be the case that ship-board fires are quite a regular happening – not large conflagrations, but small fires in waste baskets, in the galley or in the engine room.  We were curious as to whether she was visited often by crew members, but she said that because of the physicals which they are required to pass, it is not them, but the passengers who become her focus.  She was delightful to speak with and we’re assuming that we’ll see her in social occasions only.

Sunday – The Straits of Gibraltar and Tangiers

Early in the morning we staggered out of bed, grabbed some coffee and headed up on deck to watch as our ship passed the Rock of Gibraltar, and went through the Pillars of Hercules.  I always thought of the Rock as modestly inhabited, but it has 30,000 citizens and more Barbary Apes than there are citizens in Peacham (our measure of all populations). 

The straits are a narrow body of water, separating Africa from Europe, with just 7+ nautical miles separating them.  It is the area where one leaves the Mediterranean Sea and enters the Atlantic Ocean, and of course the weather was over-cast, with waves, and the wind once more on our nose.  As a result we arrived late in Tangiers, docking at an industrial dockside where men in Jalabas, suits or track outfits were awaiting us – along with the six missing passengers, who had to take a hydrofoil ferry from Malaga.

We chose to stay on-board since the write-up on Tangiers did not make it sound appealing. Its major site is a souk, but to get to it one had to fight off all manner of touts, beggars and youngsters and one was warned not to carry anything of value, and women should not travel alone.  So we sent Di and Russ as our emissaries, and we stayed on board relaxing, chatting with fellow passengers, reading and blogging.

I’m sure we should show much more get-up-and-go since it is highly unlikely that we will return to this part of North Africa, but it holds little charm, and at this point  and we are both wishing for the crossing to begin.  But first we have the Moroccan ports of Casablanca & Safi (tour to Marrakech), and Arrecife & Las Palmas in the Canary Islands.  And may the winds and waves be calmer so we can enjoy it all.

Note: A ‘straw poll was taken today on the US election…Obama won by a 5-1 ratio…one can only pray.