Tangiers, and Spain

William Burroughs, Allen Ginsberg, Jack Kerouac, Tennessee Williams and Paul Bowles, Tangiers was the haunt of many famous writers.  Naked Lunch was written at the Hotel El-Muniria, and we sipped coffee in the early morning at Burrough's old haunt Le Cafe de Paris.  Tangiers has always been very high on my to-do list.  

Before bed we received some calls from the Moroccan authorities informing us that there were some issues with the dates on our flight permits that had to be sorted before we could depart, and their Civil Aviation offices don't open before nine, so early the next morning I called the Uncle of our beautiful and perpetually smiling handler at the airport, and he honoured me with a personal walking tour of the old Medina before the others were up for breakfast.  We strolled the back alleys of the old town well ahead of the infamous hawkers who just don't understand that they'd get far more sales if they just backed off.  Tangiers and zero tourists.  What more could one ask for?  A refuge for many cultures, a town full of Jews and Muslims living side by side, the old port city of Northern Morocco, at the Western entrance to the Straits of Gibraltar, enjoyed a period of escape from the McCarthy era conservatism of the United States in the fifties, thus drawing in artists from the world over, as well as spies.  "Casablanca" actually took place here, or so I'm told.

It was all too rushed to truly absorb much of this North African literary hovel, but I was happy that I got to explore in the early morning sans tourists and aggressive shopkeepers barking at my heels.  Flight permits sorted before lunch, we prepped the birds and headed off into the Straits of Gibraltar, between the twin peaks of the opposing shores of Europe and Africa.  The white cliffs of Gibraltar facing the black crest of Jebel Musa of Morocco were called the Pillars of Hercules by the Greeks and Romans, the end of the known world, beyond which lay outer darkness.  Pretty much where we just came from.  Flying our Pumas up the impossibly narrow gap between Africa and Europe, only nine miles separating the First and Third world, we turned North East over the deep blue seas towards Southern Spain, watching the heavy sea traffic below, ever onwards to eventually Poland, and probable lay off.

We eventually flew into Almeria, Spain, low over the massive greenhouses that provides the majority of tomatoes that we eat in North America, to the most modern airport anyone had seen in months.

 Clearing customs with nary a fraction of the bullshit we had to deal with in Morocco, and while most were relieved to finally be in Europe, I was already missing the dark continent.  I'm sure the Almeria area has plenty to offer, but hungry at 6 pm, we soon discovered nothing opened before 8:30 pm, so we walked to a crowded modern mall near our generic hotel, all absorbing the culture shock at our own pace, and ended up hungry and sad at Burger King in the food court.  We could have been in Anytown, Europe and it was all so generic, so pristine, so normal, and after all the exotic places we'd been through this past month, a bit of a disappointment.  I imagine Southern Spain could be beautiful, but our evening was anything but.  I'm missing Africa already.