The Exhibitionist, the Studier and the Worker (Portugal)

We entered Portugal from Spain with zero fanfare. There was not even a sign to say we were in a different country, let alone immigration or customs. It was quite anticlimactic. Thanks EU.

There’s a saying Portuguese people have for the key places in their country; Lisbon shows off, Coimbra studies and Porto works. Our stay in Portugal took us to each of these towns.

1.       The Exhibitionist

Lisbon looked more like Sydney than anywhere else I had seen since leaving home. That was my first impression at least. I knew these big western European cities weren’t going to offer me anything too otherworldly, but it took me a little while to warm to Lisbon.

The city has two key faces; small winding alleys, stairs and archways, and picturesque apartment buildings, and alternatively the more modern grid set up, a comparatively boring consequence of Age of Reason town planning. We rented a great apartment in the former.

Lisbon was once the explorer’s capital of the world, and many explorers left from Lisbon’s port in the 14/15/1600’s to see what was at the furthest reaches of the world. What resulted was the colonisation of large parts of South America and even parts of Asia (such as Macau, where Rin and I went to see the Portuguese heritage last year, and even East Timor). That’s why Portuguese is the official language in 9 countries (such as Brazil) and the 7^th most common language in the world. Pretty crazy that the way people are speaking all over the world comes from a country that is so small.

 

In Lisbon we saw the famous monument to Portugal’s early explorers (up top). It was cool to see, but the funny thing about this was that Mum and Dad came here a few years ago and raved about the Christopher Columbus monument, so I was eager to see Chris in all his stone carved glory, but it turned out the monument is for a Portuguese man named Henry the Navigator. Absolutely nothing to do with Christopher Columbus, but a cool monument. (Oh those coach tours…Joke I heard is that Tour Guides lie more than Politicians or Lawyers put together.)

Here we took a ride on the trams which are iconic to the city, and visited the impressive Lisbon Cathedral. We also went to a bakery that has been making the custard tart, a Portuguese specialty, since the 1800’s. We ate custard tarts everyday in Portugal but these were by far the best.

Portugal is bankrupt. And maybe that’s why Lisbon is kinda grungy now. It isn’t the safest place, and I got offered drugs on the street as freely as in Morocco. There are homeless people sleeping on the street on subway ventilation grates.

Another thing that stood out in Portugal but especially Lisbon was the graffiti. And, it was actually pretty amazing, the best I’ve seen in the world. (Of course there was also a lot of uncreative blob letter stuff that nobody wants to look at.) Despite the grunge there was more than enough superficiality to match it, and despite the country being in debt the quality of life is still pretty dam good.

There seems to be a funny little irony in the world right now where there are poor rich countries and rich poor countries. For example, if China (Mexico, Korea, Brazil) wanted to build a super highway from one end of the country to another they could get it done quick. Probably not the case in Portugal (Greece, Spain, Ireland).

2.       The Studier

Coimbra was the antithesis to Lisbon. It is a cosy and quiet town on a river, with one of Europe’s oldest universities. The university had the old library, which was an ornate Cathedral dedicated to the faith of the written word. Very cool.

 

 

While in a supermarket here we came across piles and piles of salted cod, as you can see in the picture. This stuff stank out the whole supermarket. Salted cod is the national food of Portugal, and they can’t get enough of it (forget what you’ve heard about Peri Peri chicken ). The sad thing is, due to the stringent EU laws on food, fish in the salted and dried form is deemed unsafe for restaurant use. The supermarkets have piles of this salted fish because making it at home is the only way they can eat it.

We even managed to see The Hobbit 2 in Coimbra. We will see Hobbit 3 in the town it was filmed next year!

 

3.       The Worker

The Worker a.k.a Porto a.k.a Oporto a.k.a Port was the highlight of Portugal for both me and Erin (and Mum when she came). It’s the namesake of Portugal, and is where anything you’ve ever been unlucky enough to drink from a bottle labelled ‘Port’ comes from. The city feels more real than Lisbon probably because it’s not as touristy (there’s even a tour company called ‘We Hate Tourism Tours’) and there are still old, poor neighbourhoods perched is spectacular, central parts of the city hosting generation after generation of the same family. It had a great feel.

The dish that is the specialty of this town is called a Francechina, and is a meat, bread, egg, cheese and meat and chilli sauce dish that supposably makes the big make look healthy. Doctors say once a month absolute max. I had two in 24 hours.

 

The Portuguese, like most Europeans, are crazy about soccer. We went out to see the Porto Superdragons defeat another Portuguese team 4 – 0, nestled in amongst the blue and white of the local supporters.

The day after the soccer we got a bus headed for Spain, and once again passed over the border without even a hint of recognition.

 

 

Between a Rock and an Easy Place (Gibraltar & Spain)

By ferry we crossed the narrow stretch of water that is the choke point of the whole Mediterranean which separates the two continents of Africa and Europe. I’m not sure if I let out a breath of relief or the sigh of a sad goodbye as we cruised across Spain with Morocco in the rearviewmirror.

Our first stop in Spain was the extravagantly named  La Linea de la Concepcion, only because it accommodation was half the price of Gibraltar, a ten minute walk across the border, and the purpose of our visiting the area.

One of the best perks of world travel is the education in world politics and history. It’s not the reason I travel, but it’s certainly a welcome side effect. Gibraltar is a great example of this.

Here’s the deal real simple; Gibraltar is a small chunk of land on the southern coast of Spain. It is known as ‘The Rock’, but is actually a small mountain. It is a colony of Briton, and is under UK rule, because of its strategic location at the mouth of the Mediterranean. They have the pound, English pubs and British accents. Of course Spain says its theirs, and is a point of tension between the two nations. Because it is such a small parcel of land, with a population of just a few thousand, neither the UK or Spain consider it a big enough problem to risk diplomatic ties. Occasionally the tension will flare and the border will be closed, like earlier this year when the UK built an artificial reef which encroached Spanish waters. We spoke to a local and asked him about another recent event, a Spanish ship entering a small harbour of Gibraltar, and his reply was that it should have been shot at and sunk. Yep, the Gibraltar’s, especially the old folks, hate the Spanish since the days when there were siege attempts and the border was closed, leaving them cornered on their little rock for thirty years. Nowadays the people of Gibraltar want to be independent but neither the UK or Spain would ever allow it.

Maybe trivial from a distance, but not when your walking through tense immigration to get to such a tiny pocket of land. The only access to the town of Gibraltar is a road/footpath that crosses the airport tarmac, so when flights arrive the road and walkway is closed while the plane lands. Photo above is me the tarmac, pretty strange.

The limestone ‘rock’ is impressive, and at the top there are great views to be had of the Gibraltar straight, the Spanish coastline and mountains, the town of Gibraltar below basically next to the Spanish town of La Linea de la Concepcion, and on a clear day, Africa. Up the top of the rock are the famous apes which roam about unaware of their own political connotations; the popular legend on Gibraltar is that so long as the apes sit atop the rock, the English will remain (inspired by several siege attempts that were said to be thwarted by the apes alerting the Gibraltan defenders of the Spanish whereabouts and night time movements. )

We crossed back over into La Linea and explored the little Spanish town, having a great meal at the first of many tapas bars we were set to encounter. Tapas is a series of small dishes as opposed to a big meal of the one thing. It’s a great idea, and the food itself was amazing; chorizo sausage, goats cheese, ham (or prosciutto, really), paella, bulls tail, and much more. In most of these restaurants, as well as in supermarkets and butchers, ancient looking legs of ham are either hanging up on the wall or locked into place ready for carving.

 

 

 

 

 

Photos of legs of ham, and tapas of chorizo and bulls tail.

 

From La Linea we travelled to Seville, the capital of the Andalusia region.  If tapas wasn’t enough, it was here that we discovered the joys of the much loved ‘Churros con Chocolate’ – a Spanish addiction to churros dipped in lava thick hot chocolate. Rin was in heaven, and we found a great little bar packed with locals that we made our downtime hangout in Seville.

The parts of southern Spain we saw were nice, pleasant, pretty – all positive. It was just so easy compared to the previous month in Morocco. The crowds of people were never quite as crowded and bustling, my wallet and camera never felt so safe and secure in my zipped up pockets, and my mind wasn’t constantly monitoring my surroundings at the same time as being blown out my ears. So we stayed out late, wandered slowly around the quant streets, ate tapas dishes at several bars, saw the big cathedral (third biggest in the world), visited the bull fighting ring (oldest in Spain), and watched paper thin slices of mouth-watering ham being carved off hoofed pigs legs in deli’s.  Nothing earth shattering or life changing for me, but relaxing and interesting no less, and I didn’t take it for granted that I was there.

We would be returning into Spain again soon, but first we had to check out its bankrupt neighbour, Portugal, so we got on a bus and it drove us west.

Colors of Morocco (Morocco, Part 3)

After exploring the ancient cities of Fez and Marrakech, and following the trip out to the Sahara, there was still plenty of Morocco to get to.

From the desert, right on the eastern border (with Algeria), we went back through Marrakech and out to the Atlantic coastline. It felt a huge journey in itself to go from the sea of sand that was the Sahara to the sea itself within 48 hours.

 

 The town was called Essaouira. The city walls were right on the water’s edge as if to protect the city from a tsunami, and the medina was bustling, but it was far less frantic and tense than the previous cities. There was action like anywhere in Maroc, but after getting familiar with the town, after the cutting the dreads out of my hair (and thus ridding myself of fleas), and giving ourselves two more days than necessary, it ended up being somewhat relaxing – I never expected to be relaxed in Morocco.

Maybe because of the long hair, maybe because of the peace sign on my shirt, maybe because I looked ‘feral’, but I was offered drugs continuaously here. This town was where all the famous hippies came to escape back in the sixties so I guess some of those vibrations, and habits, still reverberate around the place. Most of the dealers were cool enough when I shook my my head, but one guy went nuts when I refused to buy his hashish. He called all the bad curses he knew in English, most bizarrely ‘Liar,’ and ‘Convict,’ and most memorably ‘Faggot Motherfucker,’ which Rin adopted as my nickname over the next few days.  

A highlight of Essaouira was heading over to the port on dusk as the fishing boat cruised back in filled with a boat load of fish,being trailed by clouds of sea gulls. The folks of the town waited on the docs to get the fresh fish straight off the boat. Dusk was a busy hour on that little port, and me and Rin just stood amongst it letting it all convulse and flow around us. The Sahara was extraordinary, and this was entirely ordinary, but no less important.

 

Casablanca was next. This city is famous because of the glory days of the French occupation, and the movie of the same name. Well the glory days are long gone, and all the people who remember Casablanca are dead or dying, so what left of this place? Not a whole heap really, except for being the economic and business capital of Morocco, having shantytowns amongst skyscrapers, having lots of coffee shops filled with men, and having the world’s tallest minaret. The minaret was immaculately detailed and shockingly huge, if you can see the ant sized people at its base in the photo. That was the ‘extraordinary.’ The ‘ordinary’ highlight was sitting in a dingy restaurant and having the staff come up behind the table, lay a carpet down in the direction of Mecca, and start the prayer song. When he was done, the guy hawking shirts on the sidewalk came in and used the little space himself while the restaurant staff looked after his gear.

 

A town called Meknes was a favourite for a few reasons. 1. Upon arrival the taxi driver didn’t rip us of – didn’t even try. 2. When we checked in we were upgraded to the Royale suite, far more than we hoped for the $16 each per night we paid. 3. We walked around for hours and hours and seemed to be the only foreigners who had found the town. 4. Great street food of lamb sausage and spice on plastic chairs in a litter ridden car park. Meknes had everything I love about Morocco – exotic looking city walls and gates, camels heads hanging up in alleyways, a sense of controlled chaos, and cheap everything.

If Meknes didn’t make me happy enough, next was Fez, which I had previously visited before Rin arrived. I was her tour guide and when I got back into the town it was a reassurance that this is my favourite place in Morocco, and one of my favourite places on this big, wide world. Rin had to go through the shock process again (didn’t help that just after we arrived some weirdo shopkeeper begged Erin to be careful about the men in the medina), but soon she understood what I love so much about it.

Heading north, we took a bus into the Rif mountains, home the most extensive marijuana cropping activity on earth – 42% of the world’s produce is grown here! We stayed in small town called Chefchaoun, which had a labyrinth of streets soaking a blue paint wash. Like every other town in Morocco, I was offered hashish at every turn, and the hotel we stayed even had some growing on the rooftop terrace. It was the town of blue and green.

 

 

The final stop of our grand tour of Morocco was Tangier. The seaside town sits right where the Mediterranean meets the Atlantic, and faces off across at Europe, the mountains of southern Spain standing out on the horizon. Tangier has interesting history, having been occupied by folks all over Europe. In the 60’s it was made into an ‘international zone’ where several countries had share, and this led to it becoming a base for artists, shoddy businessmen, cold war spies and international fugitives. Capote, Burroughs and Kerouac all did some writing here, and artists such as the Rolling Stones and Bob Dylan came for a getaway from the western world and some artist ‘inspiration.’ It must have been a hoot. Safe to say those times have passed, and it has since been returned to Morocco.

I had one last tagine and soaked in the energy of Morocco and its people, glad that I had been able to see so much, yet wishing I had bus tickets back south to some other dusty and wild town.

After a month in this crazy country it was time to leave and cross that narrow stretch of water into a whole other universe.

Sand and Stars (Morocco, Part 2)

I have always loved feeling like a tiny spec in an epic landscape. I never thought I would have the opportunity to go to the great sprawling sand dunes of the greatest desert in the world, the Sahara. There are few things that I have seen in the world that compare to it. But let’s start at the beginning.

We paid a ridiculously cheap price to be driven out to the desert in a minivan over the course of three days, and we saw some amazing things on the way.

 

 

The first day we drove up over the Atlas Mountains, taking a mountain pass that was very picturesque. Along the way we saw several small villages. These were made out of mud and hay blocks and very extremely basic, the inhabitants mostly sheep herders. Some were perched on mountainsides and looked like they had been there for thousands of years. These are the homes of the Berber people.

 

In Morocco there are two peoples. First, there are the ‘Berbers’, the natives to the land. The other are the Arabs, those who ventured across from the middle east preaching Islam. They now live together, pray to the same god and talk the same language, but there is no way a Berber is going to let you think he is an Arab.

From the mountains we came down to the outermost reaches of the Sahara, a rocky and gravelly plain that extends one way to the foothills of the snow-capped atlas, and the other to an oblivion of a moon like landscape. I couldn’t believe we could see such a contrast in scenery in just a matter of hours.

In the desert we saw more berber villages, usually built around a small oasis of palm tree’s. It was almost cartoonish in how cliché it looked.

We came across one large oasis that was unforgettable. The landscape surrounding was bone dry and rocky, an endless covering of brownish orange. But right there in a valleyed trough, a forest of palm trees was growing. There was even a small water course from a natural spring, and the locals had initated some cropping, which promoted the development of a small town. Here we saw women washing clothes in the stream water, wander through their cabbage and alfalfa plantations, and took in the bizzare scene of a forest sprouting out of a desert.

 

 

One town we came across happened to be the nicest and most ordered town I had seen in all Morocco. It was called Ourzazate, and I was surprised to learn that its wealth comes from Hollywood. Its natural desert beauty has been the backdrop for a bunch of movies, and there is a movie studio, a film museum and several nearby ‘locations.’  (Gladiator, Game of Thrones, Kingdom of Heaven, Lawrence of Arabia, etc). The town itself also had a nice old medina, or Kasbah, made out of mud blocks.

 

 

But the real reason we were out here was to see sand. Dunes and dunes of it.

 

The first hints came when we saw small rises of dunes no higher than me, spotted with camels (of course). Then suddenly, in the distance, we spotted the sharp rise of a giant sand dune, with several more behind it. As we drove into the town at the foot of the dunes, they loomed large behind it.

I’ve seen some epic landscapes in my day -  Mt Fuji, Grand Canyon, Uluru – and these sand dunes were every bit as awe inspiring.

We got on camels and rode for an hour and a half as the sun lowered casting shadows on the dune depression, and then finally set. The dusk washed over the landscape and soon we were riding in the dark with the first stars coming out above us. The endless dunes and the way they charnghed colour as the sun went down met my high expectations of the beauty of the desert. The whole time I was wide eyed, trying to breathe as much of the scene into my eyes as I could.

That night we slept in tents on dunes while the local berber men cooked us up a feast of targine – the best meal I’ve had in Morocco. After, we climbed our way to the top of a nearby sand dune and could see the headlights of the border patrol in the distance. The Algerian border was only 35 kms away and there are desert pirates all through that country (and it’s no secret Al Qaida is active in North Africa – there was a tourist targeted terrorist attack in Marrakech in 2010 which I thought about whoever I was in a busy area).

 

If the desert itself didn’t blow me away enough, the stars above sure did. I now agree with all the clichés about the desert having the best conditions for star gazing. The night sky out there was brighter than any sky I have ever seen. It was as in-your-face as objects millions of light years away can be.

It also happened to be Rins birthday, and the group of us sang happy birthday as we rode the camels in the dark.

 

That night Rin and I couldn’t take our eyes off the sky because we knew we would probably never see stars that bright again. It took us a while to get to bed because we kept telling each other ‘just one more minute.’

I will remember the desert and those stars for the rest of my life. That night I told the universe that I was sated, that I have had far more than one person deserves from it. 

Everything from here is a bonus.