Stinging in the Rain

At about 8:30 in the morning, the train stops among fields of straggly wheat. There is a distant road, telegraph poles and lots of prickly pear cactus. It's raining. After about fifteen minutes, the rain eases and stops; passengers begin to get out to wander up and down along the track beside the train. No-one, including the train crew, is absolutely sure what's wrong. Half an hour into the stop, a small band of angry businees-types decide to head across fields to the road, where occasional cars and lorries were passing. The ticket collector tries to reason with them, but they shout him down and march off. It begins to rain again, heavily now. We all clamber up the high steps back into the train and chat. A hyper-active yoga teacher from Camden, is travelling to Marrakech to find his space, and then on to the ocean to be cleansed. He's lived in Barcelona and Paris; likes living in London, but the energy gets to him, and every now and then he has to escape. Surprisingly, one of the travellers is a character we last saw sitting on the Terrace of the Cafe Tingis in Tangier. He looks like Oscar Wilde, or Augustus Carp, depending on your point of view (he's in the photo, immediately behind and to the left of the gentleman in the djellaba). He speaks Spanish very rapidly and he's swapping information about where you can get to from Casablanca with Nick and another passenger. It seems that you can fly cheaply to Zaire from there, if I understood him right. Eventually things start to happen. The train crew take the wooden chocks from behind the wheels and we see a locomotive speeding towards us from the direction of Marrakech. In a few minutes there's a jolt, and we begin to move ... slowly. There's mild pandemonium at the station. The train is an hour and a half late and there's nowhere for taxis to wait that long, so as the passengers crowd out of the station, they're pounced on by frazzled taxi-drivers. We hang back, not because we're wise, but because I decide that I have to have a pee before I can go anywhere! By the time we leave the station, the rush is over and get a petit taxi to take us to the Djema al-Fna, the central square in the old city. We haven't booked an hotel, but when the talkative driver asks us about this, and if we know anywhere, Faith jumps in quickly with, "We've made a reservation at Hotel Ali."! This blatant untruth, delivered with alarming sincerity, gets a nod and the reply, "Ahhh. Yes, everyone knows Ali's." And so we're dropped outside the hotel after having all the location of all the main 'must sees' pointed out by the driver. He's horrified that we're here for only a day and a half and warns us that we'll have to come back.Why Hotel Ali? No other reason than that it cropped up in the guide books as popular with backpackers, and Faith remembered the name. It looks promising, though. The dark hotel hallway opens onto the street where people are drinking soft drinks or tea, and there's a busy, open plan reception desk inside. It's surrounded by travellers, staff, locals exchanging handsful of Euros for Dirhams, piles of rucsacks and cases and the pedestrians who are using the lobby as a short-cut to the parallel street behing the hotel. There is room for us. Aziz, who seems to be the manager and maitre d'hotel, looks through his ledger book and a pile of keys, and eventually gives us Room 116. It's a triple, but he'll charge us the demi-pension rate of 170dH each (that's about 34 Euros in total for dinner, bed and breakfast, with use of the hammam thrown in). We don't argue. Once again it's a typical Moorish building. There are outside open spaces - terraces - and inside open spaces - cushioned communal eating and sitting areas. The whole thing is built around a central open quadrangle and goes up three floor to two further roof terraces where visitors can eat and, in the summer, sleep in the open air. Nobody'll be doing that today. There's water everywhere. It's still raining, and last night's storm obviously took people by surprise. Outdoor furniture is piled in covered corners under plastic sheets (does this mean that it's no longer outdoor furniture?), the cleaning women are busy mopping up puddles and there are basins and buckets all around, catching the water that's found its way from the outside to the inside of the hotel. In our room there are three single beds, a bathroom and toilet (WITH PAPER!), and that smell that causes parents to ask, "When did you last clean the rabbit's hutch?". Faith isn't concerned, but I am; I don't want to find any nasty surprises in dark
corners. The smell is stronger when I open the window and the door to try to blow it through, and I soon find out why. Two floors below us a miserably wet donkey, hitched to a flatbed cart, is steaming under a sheet of plastic.An umbrella is our only significant purchase in Marrakech! We buy it from the umbrella-dude (as seen in Lisbon, among other places) who appears from nowhere once the rain begins to fall. We bargain him down to 20dH from 30dH but he looks very happy, so he's certainly made a good profit on us. With the help of the umbrella, we avoid further umbrella-dudes and explore the twisty warren of streets and squares around the medina. A visit to a merchant's house, now a a museum, gives us an insight into the ubiquitous use of wood in Moroccan construction, and we see an interesting collection of "woollen tools", that is, tools for making wool, and not crocheted scewdrivers and the like. The rain continues to fall and it becomes hazardous avoiding speeding, wet donkey carts in the medina! Sheltering under stall awnings and communicating mutual surprise is a good way to get smiles from the locals. As evening falls, the traders begin to set up in the Djema al-Fna, though they're thin on the ground. There are snake charmers, a few musicians and lots of stands selling cooked food - tagine, brochettes, sausages, sheeps' heads, brains and snails. Unfortunately, we've already eaten a huge and delicious help-yourself-Moroccan-supper at Ali's, but we try some spiced tea and cake. It's very good. The tea contains cardamom, nutmeg and masses of ginger. The cake is very sweet, but delicious with the tea. There are a lot of locals drinking at the stall and there's constant patter bewteen the owner and his customers. A tourist couple, just finishing their tea as we arrive are teased with, "The virtue of the tea is that now you will be able to satisfy three wives!". The wife looks shocked; the man looks worried. There's lot of giggling among the other customers. We have two cups each, and sleep like babies.On our second day, the sun is shining and it's hot. We leave our luggage at Ali's and set off for the square ...
The Sting: I am taking a general photograph of the square, artfully including a group of snake charmers in the middle distance for effect. In a moment, Faith has a snake draped around her neck and we are being drawn into their midst. There's drumming, more snakes, "Arab luck!" You bet. One of the group smiles widely, takes the camera and photographs us, all be-serpented, and a growing group of onlookers watches appreciatively. The camera's returned with more smiles. Now we must pay. It's no good saying no - we've already taken part and have the photos in the camera. There's a crowd, too, and who wants to look as stupid and mean as they feel? So, we bargain the price down from 200dH to nearer 100dH, and we're allowed to go. A measure of their happiness with the deal is that we're allowed to take some more pictures for free and wished huge amounts of Arab luck. Ignominy! It was an uncomfortable and unexpected experience, but it teaches that, where photos are concerned, it is sometimes necessary to buy a small piece of someone's soul rather than to attempt to take it by stealth. We have two maps. They quickly help us to get lost. There are no road signs in the souks, they've all been taken down or painted out. This way, you have to stop to look at your map and this gives little boys the chance to offer to guide you, or men the opportunity to suggest that you'd do well to follow them to the very special display of Berber goods that, fortunately for you, is held today only! As in Tangier, women don't get involved in this business, though often there are women begging charity. All this aside, the whole thing is stupendously fascinating. We've seen these narrow streets in cities like Cordoba, Malaga and Avila, which used to have Moorish communities, but there, they're sanitised and regulated. Marrakech brings them to life. Here, in streets just wide enough for laden donkeys to pass, where you can't see the sky because of the high walls and the reed-mat awnings, trade is taking place at a hectic pace all around, woven into the life of the people living in the medina. In some parts of the souk, much of what's being sold is for tourists, of course, but wool and leather dyeing are still happening, and you find the skeins and skins hung or laid to dry in the sun; there are precarious piles of fresh vegetables, a stinking live-poultry souk and men carrying sacks of fresh flatbread. An old man, sitting on a box and holding out a bowl with a few coins inside, has his grey djellaba raised above his waist to show his grossly deformed and swollen stomach, like a huge pink cauliflower, over his trousers; children are coming home from school; cats prowl for scraps and kittens run for their lives from Mobilettes; a group of locals berates and pushes-about a man whose thin and mangy donkey, pulling a cart piled with wooden pallets, has ground to a halt, blocking their square.Three buildings stand out in our wanderings today: the Madrasa ben Youssef, because it demonstrates that student life in 16th century Marrakech would have been recognisable to students studying in Oxford or Cambridge colleges at the same time - even down to lodging-rooms arranged in staircases and opening onto a quadrangle; the 12th century Quobba al-ba'Adiyn, because it's the protoype for almost all of the Arab-Andalucie architecture that we've seen repeated time and again throughout Spain; and the Koutoubia mosque that dominates the Djema al-Fna, whose towering minaret has sisters in Rabat and Seville, and in whose shady, evening rose gardens locals court discreetly, one couple to a bench.It's almost time for us to collect our luggage and make our way back to the station, but we pay a last visit to the square as the sun sets behing the mosque. The western sky is the colour of brass and the air above the square is smoky and loud with the sound of drumming, bells shawms and fiddles. The food stalls have begun to do brisk business. Last night there was room to walk about between groups of people in the damp evening. Not tonight. Every inch is filling up. there are musicians, acrobats, stotytellers, card sharps, fortune tellers, snake charmers, dancing "girls", women who henna hands, a fishing-for-bottles man, men with apes, sweet sellers, tea sellers, water-men, dancers, jewellery sellers, soothsayers, beggars and many, many cats. We look and wonder a bit more, buy some fresh orange juice and a big bag of dates and make our way back to Hotel Ali, the train to Tangier and, tomorrow morning, the fast boat to Algeciras.

You despise me don't you, Rick?

I've never worked out whether that line from Casablanca is a plea or a statement of fact. The important thing for the moment is that Peter Lorre says it to Humphrey Bogart in "Rick's Cafe Americaine". We are on the terrace of the Cafe Tingis in the Petit Socco, drinking mint teas served by a waiter who looks disturbingly like him (Peter Lorre). He knows everyone local who passes by, and greets them; those he doesn't know, he invites in. He didn't know us. Now he does, and he's offered to take our photograph. The Petit Socco is a crossroads within the Tangier souks, and just across the road is the Cafe Central where William Burroughs found inspiration for "The Naked Lunch". As we sit drinking our tea, a group of people files past. They are led by a travel guide and look quite
frightened as they pass by, beset by a swarm of men and boys hawking everything from plastic camels to red fez hats, from watches to miniature derboukahs.
They disappear down the Rue el Mouahadine, following their guide's upraised brochure, and the buzzing swarm follows. The Petit Socco is definitely not beautiful; the cafe fronts are crumbling, the street is being dug up and the smell of drains and diesel fuel is strong, but it's every Grahame Greene story you've ever read! Better informed and more confident than yesterday, we spend the late morning exploring the tangled streets inside the medina. Jibali tribewomen have come in from the surrounding countryside because it's a Sunday market. They sell fresh vegetables, especially parsley and mint, and definitely don't want to be photographed. Africans are selling fish, and local Moroccans are doing everything from mending Mobilettes on the roadside to polishing shoes and cooking brochettes that smell deliciously through the whole street. We had breakfast at the hotel - finding it after negotiating a maze of stairs and corridors where bric a brac was stacked high - carved doors, lamps, ornate furniture - but by now we we're feeling hungry again and try Restaurant Hammadi in the kasbah, where we get live Berber music thrown in with our lunch because a tourist group is eating there, too. The rest of the day passes with us exploring or watching; the chaotic traffic is directed by a smartly dressed, armed, policeman who blows a whistle to signal who can move and who must wait. On a roundabout, he holds up traffic so that a group of pretty girls can photograph each other against the fountain that's in the middle. When things begin to move again he blows frantically at a driver who has accidentally turned left at the roundabout in his truck instead of going straight ahead. The driver stops and there is a lot of form-filling. Money changes hands and he drives on. A few moments later a smart car does the same illegal manoeuvre; there are smiles, a handshake, and no action is taken. Welcome to Tangier, it seems.Our train leaves Tangier at 9:30 pm, and we head to the station in plenty of time. Our way takes us along the beach, where new hotels are springing up. It's become showery by now, but there are still scattered groups of people here, playing football, eating picnics, courting. A tired man in a suit and cracked shoes walks up to us, "Wallet? Very soft, like a camel.(I swear this is what he said!) One Euro." We said no, and walked on; he followed. "A very good wallet. Two Euros. One Mark." He looked done in, but I don't need a wallet. We've seen so much of this kind of effort today. Men (usually) putting a huge amount of work into raising a tiny amount of money in a deal of some kind or other. How much do they need to make before they can say, "Enough!" and go home? Where's the line between a successful day and a failure?
The rain begins to fall hard and we hurry on to the station, shining brightly with its new promise in the distance. We're early, but it gives time to write some impressions down. Tangier has been fascinating, confusing and attractive, in spite of its ugliness and decay. There's far more happening here, at many levels, than we can hope to fathom in only 36 hours!
At 9:30 pm precisely we're allowed onto the platform and hurried into our coach by the conductor. It's separated from second class by a door that's chained shut. We're discover that we're sharing a compartment of 4 berths with a local woman and her daughter. They're both dressed in hybrid Moroccan/European style. It doesn't take us long to settle down, and we fall asleep to the sound of the rain pattering on the windows as we go.

Evening in Tangier

There's a sandy bay about two miles west of Tangier . It's enclosed by steep rocky headlands and approached by a broad, flat-bottomed valley that opens out of the last tumbles of houses clinging to the steep hillsides that are the edge of city. A few thin cows and some nervous sheep graze among the dwarf palms, weeds and debris. You can't see the port or the city from the bay; it's just the place you'd choose to load contraband, or drop off a spy, if you wanted to avoid the port authorities and prying eyes. It was here that we found ourselves as dusk fell. This was a surprise. An hour or two earlier, we'd left the taxi at Place de France which is just at the point where the old city (mediaeval) begins to blend into the new (19th century) city.
We decided that we'd save the medina and the souk for the next day, but would skirt the medina walls and cut down northwards to our hotel for an early shower, supper and bed. Well, we'd been on the road since early morning, and Morocco-time is two hours behind Spanish time. We got lost ever so easily, but recognised that we were lost with much more difficulty. The broad avenue quickly gave way to steep, narrow streets, just wide enough to walk through, though we had to step aside pretty quickly when the ubiquitous Mobilettes clattered by. These may be loaded with anything from bundles of mint to two passengers, a microwave oven and a box of live hens and they negotiatethe twisting narrow alleys at surprising speed. The buildings are tall and narrow, so it's impossible to get any idea of where you are in relation to anywhere else you've already been. Every new street seems familiar, time after time! At one point we passed the same discarded sofa in a narrow street twice within half an hour.It was fascinating, though; all around we saw the same pattern of behaviour. Women, dressed very smartly in either western, hybrid or traditional style, going about their business purposefully, often in chattering groups, sometimes in dogged silence; men, unless they were stallholders or shopkeepers, seemed usually to be drifting, and at a loss as to what to do next. We got lots of eye contact, many smiles, some waves and only a very few unwanted approaches. We were, though, very obviously, off the tourist trail. Shops were dark rooms opening onto the street, their wooden shelves piled high with assorted stacks of goods, or stalls where fish lay in rows on a slab while their guts lay in mounds on the floor. But back to the bay ... "If we find the sea," Faith said, "we can follow the beach around to the port."
Leila was sitting alone on a rock, and said hello to us as we walked past her out onto the sand. She was about 9 years old and proudly showed us her newly henna'd hands. We agreed that they waere beautiful; they were. She was still there when we retraced our steps, having decided that we weren't good enough climbers to cross the rocky headland and follow Faith's plan. She walked with us along the valley back towards the houses. She was amused by our French, but we managed to chatter with her as we went. She was interested that we were such a long way from the city centre, and thought we must be camping. We found out that she's in Grade 5 at school, and lived nearby. She waved to some of her friends playing amongst the buildings, and we talked about the grazing animals, the beautiful plants and a group of children playing derboukahs (drums) high up on one the valley sides. We walked on together until we came to the bottom of the steep street where we had to turn left to begin to find our way back. Leila wanted us to go home with her, but we explained that we were bushed and really had to find our way back to our hotel. And so we all smiled, said goodbye to one another and, waving, set off on our separate ways.A surprised man under a makeshift shelter at the bottom of the hill pointed us in the right direction for Place de France; further on, a group of women added detail. They were very amused at where we'd been and said that we'd have to keep straight on, but had a climb, and then a descent and then another climb ahead of us. With their help, we passed the sofa a third time and, eventually, found ourselves back on the map.
By the time we reached the hotel, Faith was exhausted, and we'd walked about 5 miles since leaving the taxi. We showered, changed our clothes and went down to the hotel's restaurant for supper. Once again, it was high Moorish - arches, stucco, coloured glass and tiles everywhere. We ate chicken tagine and drank water (no alcohol for sale anywhere we'd seen all day), followed by soothing mint tea. We fell asleep to the sounds of the street and the port.

Sometime in the small hours, we heard the (very loud) call to prayer from the minaret just outside the window, but I'm afraid it didn't rouse us completely enough to compel us to rise up and join the devout of the city.

The Road to Morocco

We weren't allowed into Tangier on our first try. At the douane, they stopped us and told us we'd need to get our passports franked with a numbered entry stamp. "Where?" we asked. "On the ship," they replied helpfully. We waited. Others joined us. We all waited. Passengers began to board for the crossing back to Algeciras. We feigned nonchalance. Time passed. Would the boat sail, with us, poor pressed sailors, trapped aboard to be sold to Barbary corsairs. Faith
was quite taken with that idea. The important man with the stamp appeared, though, and we presented ourselves for identification. In a few moments we were legitimate entrants.
Tangier! The Avenue d'Espagne. It's a big, dusty boulevard lined with colonial buildings, many of them now converted into cafes, where all manner of men sat drinking mint tea or small cups of black coffee. On the broken pavements and the crumbling steps more men, in greasy suits and grubby shirts, lounged or walked about in little animated groups. Deals were being done all around, bargains struck, compromises made. Into all of this walked Mel and Faith, eyes wide
and innocent as lambs. We had booked a room at the Continental Hotel before leaving Spain (used by Morocco newbies and ageing hippies, the guide said), and we knew vaguely how to find it. "Leave Avenue d'Espagne and bear right around the CTM building. Follow the edge of the medina and the frequent signs." We plunged in. Once we were out of the main Avenue d'Espagne we'd travelled back in time. A narrow street, tiny shops, dark inside, the smell of open drains mingling with the aroma of meat being cooked on charcoal, men and women in djellabas, craftsmen carving wood and cutting tiles for mosaics. The medina wall was on our right and we walked under an arch to a fork in the street. We couldn't see anything to our left or right but there, above our heads was an old sign that pointed to the right fork and read, "Hotel Continental 50 m". At a turn in the street a doorway appeared on the left and a gate on the right. From the doorway a man smiled. His invitation was warm and sincere in spite of his slightly distant gaze, "You want to buy a smoke?". On the right was a gateway. We chose the
gateway. Across a patio looking out over the port, we entered the Hotel Continental. The reception area was dark, cool and quiet. The Moroccan receptionist's French accent and his suit were impeccable, but both were of an earlier era. We looked around us at the mosaic walls and the Moorish arches. Ornate glass light fittings hung over the wide staircase and the corridors were lined wth cedarwood furniture, chests and paintings of the city as it might have been under French colonial control. The first thing we were asked for was the entry number on our passports. Only then were we allowed to book in.
Our room was furnished with an ornate wardrobe and bed, both with carved decoration and mirrors. The bathroom was enormous, and reached via a corridor in the room. All of this, though, was gloriously faded. The floor tiles were cracked, the furniture, though grand, was battered, rust was beginning to show through the bath enamel and the bedsheets, though clean and crisp, were well patched. Our window looked out over the port and the tumble of houses and roof terraces that cling to the edge of the medina. What a place! If you have a copy of "Casablanca", now is a good time to refer to it. We had two things to attend to immediately. Firstly, we needed cash to pay the hotel bill because they didn't accept cards; secondly, we needed to book our ticket for the overnight train to Marrakech next day. The Hotel couldn't help us with the train, and the receptionist wasn't sure where to find the station; we decided to find the Office de Tourisme and set off. A passing man asked us where we wanted, and we told him. "Follow me." He marched on ahead and , well, we followed. He led us by the most direct route (this included a brisk walk through some semi-derelict flat blocks where, once again, groups of men stood talking or waiting for something to develop). The Office de Tourisme was closed, but the man held out his hand and got a couple of Euros, which, we discovered later, he'd probably sell to someone leaving the country in exchange for their Dirhams. Because you're not allowed to take ANY dirhams out of Morocco. We found an ATM soon after this, and hailed a petit taxi to the railway station, which is about 3km from the city centre.
The station is impressive. It's brand new, all marble and chrome, floodlit and stands totally alone on a piece of wasteland where there's building rubble, discarded household goods, sheep and goats, shepherds and goatherds and a river whose grey water is almost solid enough to walk on. It was at the station that we discovered that no-one in Morocco accepts cards or anything but cash. We did a quick calculation and got enough money out of the ATM at the station (ATMs are everywhere;an interesting paradox) to buy First class sleeper returns from Tangier to Marrakech. These cost a total of 1114dH (about 111 Euros); rail travel is cheap in Morocco. We encountered a bustling local market on the way back into town. It was packed with people, all local, all wearing traditional dress. No visitors that we could see apart from us. We looked, mingled, bought icecream, felt confident we were getting to know Tangier, and set off to explore the medina like seasoned travellers. Somewhere out in the desert, laughter was heard as the djinns giggled at the credulity of these two presumptuous foreigners.

Un chien andalou

There's a place just below the alcazar in Antequerra, where you can stand and look out over the river valley that's just alongside the town. There's obviously been some sort of industrial development there in the past; the remains of a water wheel and some attractively ruinous stone factory buildings that litter the place romantically. There are some edgy-looking streets and small-holdings down there. too. The day before yesterday, we were looking over the railings, watching what was happening below. By a triangular swimming pool in the gardens of a neglected villa, a terrier was wondering whether to end it all in the green, scum-filled water, or just to drown its sorrows in the puddles of beer from the spilt bottles on the side; a pale horse was running to and fro in a worried kind of way in a bone-dry makeshift paddock next door. Down at the bottom of the valley we could see activity around a small iron footbridge across the stream. A man in blue overalls was trying to clamber down the bank towards SOMETHING in the water. A hen-shaped woman and a few other voters were watching, and discussing, the events. We watched for quite a long time, too. Eventually man another joined them, from a house with a big garden full of dogs and desolation. He argued with the man in the blue overalls and, though we couldn't hear what was being said, he obviously considered himself an expert. Eventually the man in the blue overalls dragged a big golden retriever from the river by a rope around its neck. It was obvious that the dog was not well; its hind end was black with
mud and no longer worked, and it tried to pull itself along with its front legs only. For a good half hour, while the rescued dog sat and waited stoically, there was animated discussion among the people about what could be the next step. At one point the 'expert' returned and tried to convince the dog that, given a kick up the backside, all was possible. The dog was having none of it and at this point, the 'expert' gave up and went off in a huff to his own rowdy dogs, barking around his backyard. He'd obviously told the little crowd that if they kept their dog safe inside their own property. like he did, this sort of sorry affair wouldn't happen. In the fullness of time, the poor beast's owners brought a wheelbarrow and manhandled the helpless dog into it. It got out quickly, turning the wheel barrow over, and sat on the road as forlonly as before. Their second attempt worked and they all scooted off down the road, at which point we lost sight of them. Is this a metaphor for our condition; is a swift, debilitating dunk in the muddy brook of life, followed by a comical ride in the wheelbarrow of oblivion, the best that we
should hope for?
Well no, at least not if the Cordobans have anything to say in the matter.
Cordoba is a city that's been governed by the Visigoths, Romans, Moors, Christians and Mammon in quick succession. It seems to have made a good job of assimilating them all to produce a glorious dog's breakfast of a place that somehow, really works. The epicentre is the Mesquita, a mosque, built over a Roman villa, with a Christian cathedral grafted into its middle. When you walk around inside, you get the disorientating effect of seeing cherubs carved onto Muslim pillars and a staggeringly ornate Mirhab (where the Immam stands to say prayers) looking out over a row of chapels to various catholic saints. It's not just in the Mesquita that this happens, either; out in the Juderia, the Jewish quarter, we found a lttle, ruined synagogue where there was a menorah at one end and a crucifix at the other. The guide explained that, probably, the Jews had used the building on Saturdays and the Christians on Sundays! The woman who ran the Jewish craft centre next door was bemused. She'd lived here all her life, she said, and had never been into the synagogue. At the top end of the town, beyond the winding old streets and churches, is a huge, arcaded square (see Almagro!). The Christian rulers of Cordoba used to hold jolly affairs like inquisitions, book-burnings and executions here, but now it's home to cafes, children's games, showing off the results of your latest shopping-trip and the occasional rock concert.
We ate in the Comedor Andalus-Arabie in a little back street, where we squatted on low stools and ate maq'luba - rice with chicken and veal - and drank sangria followed by arabic coffee (with lots of cinnamon-tasting spice);if my eyes turn blue within blue over the next few days, I'll know why!
Tomorrow, we are planning to head for Morroco. The idea is to make for Algeciras by train, then cross to Tangier and get the next sleeper train to Marrakech, there to look for a sheltering sky, or at least a likely hostel!

Quite a lot of references to teeth!

La Joya village isn't far off 700m above sea level, so it gets mountain weather. We experienced this the day before yesterday, when we left a breezy and slightly overcast La Joya to explore Malaga, down on the coast. It was hot down there!
We spent most of the day inside the Alcazaba, the Moorish fort and palaces that are built on a rising slope, above the remains of a 1st century A.D. Roman theatre, overlooking the estuary of the Guadalmedina river. This was the first time that Faith and I have visited Arabic buildings, and it was fascinating. As well as the moorish arches and decorations, all through the fort there are patios, fountains and ornamental water-courses, so even on a hot day like this, you could hear running water and smell orange blossom. Because it's on the Costa del Sol, I'd expected Malaga to be brash and loud, with high rise glass and steel offices and hotels, but it's quite different; a muddle of 18th and 19th century streets, like decaying teeth, gradually being renovated or demolished, newer suburban development and historical buildings. As well as the Alcazabar, there's second fort - the Gibralfaro, a neo-Moorish indoor market (like Cardiff Market a la Wilson, Keppel and Betty!), the bullring and an enormous 16th century cathedral. We'll need to go back to see more, including the Picasso collection.
There's quite a wind blowing outside, I can hear our bedroom window-shutter knocking against the wall, and the weather's turned cold this afternoon. Tom-Tom, the little black cortijo cat has curled herself up on the sofa and she's asleep with her head against Faith's canvas shoulder bag. A few minutes ago, I went up the road to the bottle bank and the bus was picking up the children for afternoon school, and so now the village is quieter than it's been almost since we got here. As long as the sun is shining, or the wind isn't up, people congregate in all sorts of places outside - on corners, in the square, in doorways or on the pavement - to talk together or just to watch things happening. Yesterday, on a walk just outside the village we saw an old man walking along the farm road next to our track; we said, "Buena, Signor," and got a huge, "Ho-o-o-la-a!" back in return. He then began talking to us delightedly, with lots of smiles and eloquent hand gestures. Unfortunately we couldn't understand a word. It wasn't just our Spanish this time, though; he had an enormous dearth of teeth, and the few that he did have were held together with bits of wire that kept them in his mouth, but didn't stop them moving about. Still, nobody seemed to mind. He seemed to be saying that everything was growing well, what with the sunny weather and the Spring showers and everything, and wasn't it marvellous that the swallows were back. On the other hand, he could have been complaining about his dentist. We (Faith and me, not the dental gentleman) carried on down our grassy track, turning over stones to look under them. We found that there are very many ants hereabouts, and some of the biggest woodlice I've ever seen. We found a Smooth Snake, too (harmless).
Perhaps the most surprising discovery was Scolopendra cingulatus, an enormous yellow and brown striped centipede. The book says they grow to 9cm, and I can vouch for it (that's my fingertip at the top of the pic.). The photo's not very good; Faith wasn't quick enough with the camera and I was too squeamish to grab at the beast as it scuttled - a good use of the word - off. Just as well, really, because we discovered later that it "possesses large fangs [and] its bite is painful and potentially dangerous".

The landscape here is very rugged. It's limestone, and so the mountains themselves are very jagged and dramatic, with steep faces or outcrops backed by long, sweeping saddles and big hanging plateaus. The villages are on the saddles and the plateaus, with fields around them as far as possible, growing cereal, peas and beans and olives; what can't be cultivated is grazed by flocks of goats that are driven out to nibble on different hillsides on different days. This may be why the wild flowers are so good, because the vegetation gets a chance to recover between goat-attacks.

Bitter tears of the Virgin

The day before yesterday was Good Friday, and we went into Antequera in the evening to see the climax of the religious processions, when the images from three of the churches would be paraded through the dark, narrow streets. It was a cloudy evening, threatening rain, and as we walked into the Plaza del Portochuello, we felt the first drops ...

In this year, of all years, each day of the Semana Santa brought new heights of passion. There had never been more people in the streets. Many were strangers. They came to pretend that they, too, understood. They watched the Hermanacos sweating under the weight of the Trono. What did they know of the sorrow and the pride? But little Paco knew. His father would be the Hermano Mayor on Holy Friday; the leading man. Every other man of the district, trembling beneath the Tronos, the throne of the Virgen de los Dolores, would look to him for the word. His voice would raise the image to their shoulders. This thought alone caused Paco's chest to burn. It always did. He was small, but his father was strong, and he wanted to be like him. One day he, Paco, would be Hermano Mayor. But for now he would watch from the crowd. Being Good Friday, the Salida, the moment of carrying the Virgen from the church and out into the world, would happen late. Maybe not until darkness had fallen. Each church, each Cofrade guild, took its turn. Not until the Desfile des Armadilla arrived could the Hermano Mayor gather his disciples. All listened for their cornets and the muffled drums. There were always cornets and drums. At first the air in the narrow street vibrated only. But the Desfile approached and now stomachs and chests felt the throb of the drums. Paco looked up at his father. He felt his father's firm grip tighten on his small hand. "It's time now," his father said. "I must leave you with your mother, the others are ready." Above the church a sudden flash. Heavy drops of rain. A moan rose from the street; not this, not at this last moment! Paco watched his father across the square. A man among men, his father fought to hold his Cofrade to its task. Ignore the rain. All faces turned to the sky and then to the street. The cobbles glistened, and the moan became a silence. Paco's father walked apart from the crowd, ran his foot along the slick surface; he opened his hands to the falling rain and his thick fingers tested its wetness against calloused palms. The Virgen de los Dolores was a precious weight to bear; the rain changed everything. Alone now, he would decide between the danger of a fall, the shame of discomfiting the Virgen and staisfying the yearning of the crowd to see Her borne through the town. The rain changed everything. Paco watched his father turn to the people; saw the shrug and the lowered eyes.
The image would not leave the church this Holy Friday. Instead, the people would crowd inside to see her. They would wonder why She had decided to disappoint them.

Paco slipped away from his mother. Quietly he joined his father, who still stood in the plaza. Boy looked at man; man at boy. They became one, together sharing the burden of the Virgen de los Dolores in the rain that was still falling.


Enormous apologies to Ernest Hemingway, but the rain had just this effect! At some point in the proceedings, after the Desfile had entered the church of Santa Maria de Jesus, somebody made decision that the streets were too wet to risk the processions. Immediately everyone crammed into the church to see the images in situ, the drums and cornets played melancholy music, some people were crying and many took single carnations from the Tronos to give to the disappointed children who would have been Penitentes (wearing robes and conical hoods) taking part in the procession.

Faith and I walked through the slippery cobbled streets - they were emptying fast as people went home instead - and found a place where we could dry off and eat. We had a 'menu del dia'. I ate an interesting asparagus soup and fish; Faith had a salad of cod with orange followed by Huevos Flamenca! These were eggs, baked under a mixture of tomatoes, ham, peppers and chorizo sausage in a stoneware dish. It think it must have been called Flamenca because of its vivid rosy colour, because the rotund, dishevelled and slightly tipsy waiter certainly didn't look the dancing type. We had a bottle of wine and coffee and the whole lot came to only 12 Euros. Actually, I think the waiters just make up the amount on the bill according to what they think you'll pay, because almost every time we've eaten out, whether in restaurants or bars, eating full menus or single courses, we've paid around 12 Euros with drinks. We obviously don't look too well-heeled.
We drove back home just after midnight through a dramatic thunderstorm that lit up the mountains in brief flashes as we peered through the rain, looking for the
little sign that points to La Hoya, 7km!

Meandering in Andalucia

Thank you Ali and Tricia for the comments. We tried waiting later before starting to eat, but still no-one came. I think that many people eat a big lunch (we've certainly seen this). As far as our car is concerned, when it comes to mountain roads we're considering hiring a donkey to add additional horsepower!
Now that it's April 14th, I've got to try to cram our first five days in Andalucia into one post if I can. Otherwise I'll never be able be able to catch up. We arrived at La Joya over a mountain road and drove right through the village before we'd realised what we'd done. At that point I had to confess to Faith that I hadn't printed out the map or address of the place we are staying, and we had to start up the laptop by the side of the road so that we could find our way in. La Joya village is small - a village centre with a fountain, a bakery and a smattering of little shops and bars. The shops are the typical Spanish ones, hidden behind door curtains and not looking like shops at all until you go inside. Down a pretty side-road, Calle de Almeda, behind whitewashed walls and a green gate, we found Cortijo la Joya. If you visit the website Apartamentos Andalucia, you'll get a good idea of what the place is like. It's a cortijo - a farmstead - over 300 years old, converted into apartments of different sizes, but all opening onto the courtyard in various ways, by doors or stairs or passageways. It still has the intimate "feel" of a building designed for an extended family. As in any place, the people are interesting to talk with, and our first evening included a lovely long session talking together with the some of the other residents and travellers heres. First among these, I guess, has to be Heino, the owner. He's German, though living in Eire, and running the ICT suite in Wexford College; he spends his time between there and La Joya. Heino's made us very welcome very quickly - he's avuncular, engaging and a good really good conversationalist. Other people who are permanent, or semi-permanent fixtures are: Dave, the quiet and helpful 'oiler of wheels'; Linn, the manageress, who lives in a nearby village, but works here part-time doing the business side of things very efficiently; and a bevy of local women who come in to clean and generally bustle about. And then there's us, the visitors: Faith and me, of course, in our little apartment, El Chaparral, with its cosy sitting room








and romantic balcony overlooking the mountains in the distance.










The bedroom opens onto the balcony, so we can leave the door open and hear the nightingales singing in the copse just across the road.







Across the courtyard is an English couple, oder than us, with a couple of friends sharing their apartment with them; and another couple with a grown-up daughter (who is in the apartment below ours). Finally, in the apartments upstairs, on the east side of the courtyard is a Romanian family (or families?) who may be semi-permanent rather than visiting. They're here for the seasonal work in the fields, picking beans and. later, peas. They're friendly and gregarious, and go out together as it's just getting light. That's our little community, and we mix and mingle among one another in a quite interesting way. Faith, for example, has just discovered that the woman across the way went to Durham and did botany, so they're now sitting together with a pile of books, identifying plants and talking about Faith's ex-boyfriend, who they both seem to know! Since arriving, we've shared our time between Antequera and the mountains. You can read about Antequera in guide books, but what's fascinated us has been its Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations. These involve the whole town cramming the streets over 5 days to watch enormous holy statues being paraded through the town from church to church. It sounds quite simple, but there layers of meaning and activity! For example, the day before yesterday, we stood in the square outside the looming church of San Sebastian as a crowd of excited children ran through the road ahead of a squad of very 'Mediterraneo' soldiers, who came past at a fast trot, flourishing rifles and cornets. The squad stood to rigid attention in the square as the graphic statue of the horribly flogged, crawling, Christ was carried from the church on the shoulders of six of their strongest and paraded in font of us to the sound of the soldiers singing a hymn, accompanied by cornets and muffled drums. Add to this the huge image of Mary, standing on a crescent moon and dressed in a glittering robe, that we saw in the parade on Palm Sunday, and you get an idea of the melange of cultures at work during Semana Santa.

The mountains around us are rocky and wild. There are plenty of farm roads to cortijos in the hills, but very few paths other than goat tracks once you wander off them. Any paths shown on maps are an indication of a possible route rather than a strict representation of a right of way. So, on Monday, when we decided to climb Camorro Alto, the local mountain, we spent a lot of our time picking our way amongst limestone pavement and outcrops, with lots of 'oohing' and 'aahing' over the plants as we went. The blue one here is a hedgehog plant, Erinacea anthyllis that we saw on the way down. The summit is up above to the left, and the flat area below is where we saw the scary shepherd .. read on. We hardly saw a soul; a farmer was burning his olive thinnings in one farm, and, further up the mountain a shaggy looking shepherd with a sun browned face and wild hair kept his distance from us as he watched the flocks (we wondered if he was some kind of Old Gregg of the mountain, but didn't get close enough to make an assessment). Yesterday we explored el Chorro where there is a mighty ravine, soaring Griffon Vultures and vertiginous mountain raods, but also evidence that if they don't get substantial rain soon, there are going to be some very dry reservoirs by the end of the Summer. Today we're staying close to home so that we can do things like this, getting the blog up to date and identifying plants.

Handgrenades are not the only fruit

There comes a time in every young man's life when he knows that he will never play "the Dane"; Uncle Monty would like Almagro, and might even find his jaded
thespian ambitions revived by the place. We arrived there after driving across the relentless plain of la Mancha - no wonder Don Quixote was driven to wandering
about in search of uplifting experiences; oi gevaer, it's flat already (sorry, haven't quite recovered from the Hospederia la Sinagoga). The Hotel Almagro is just
outside the main town, so no searching this time, and it's a Neo-rustic Holiday Inn kind of place; all rush-woven chairs and hacienda-style rooms with hand-painted door numbers. The town itself is definitely authentic, though.We walked into the main square and gasped at what appeared to be a theatre-set. On each side of the broad open space is row of 19th century wood-and -glass-fronted arcades with small shops, bars and cafes incorporated. What's more, the square was teeming with people - schoolchildren, families, old people, visitors, but all chattering and milling about contendedly; and so, we joined them. Almagro's greatest claim to fame is its 17th century theatre, rediscovered in 1955 when the town council bought out an inn and began to demolish the courtyard. We signed up for the guided tour and were ushered off the square and through a big old door. Imagine walking through a completely nondescript street-door and finding yourself inside Shakespear's Globe or the Swan Theatre, and you'll have some idea of what we found. Three storeys from floor to "gods" and a small apron stage, all inside an area of about 20 metres square! The tour turned out to be quite exceptional. We were greeted by a glamorous Dona, in 17th century costume, who explained to the group where we could sit. She happened to come and talk to Faith and me, and we soon discovered that a) we were the only non Spanish people in the theatre, b) she was delighted to talk to us, c) she couldn't speak English any better than we can speak Spanish, c) she understood French, d) her French was slightly better than our Spanish! Nevertheless, I enjoyed the conversation, well it's not every day that a Dona chats you up (particularly at my age)! It turns out that we were going to have a taste of the theatre's history, through the gift of drama. Our friend told us that she was the daughter of one of the local noble families, and quite an afficionada of the theatre; though, it must be said, mainly because a lot of dashing caballeros gathered there too. We then met her maid, a typical Despina character, who helped her in her plans and demonstrated the way the theatre worked at the same time. Great fun - though we hardly understood a word, we did get a wave from the Dona as she came on stage!What could follow that?How about a meal in one of those arcade restaurants? Once again, we were the only two dining! The table was at the open window, looking over the busy square below. After the meal, we went to the bar to have coffee and an aguardiente, and one of the locals began a conversation with us. He was trying to improve his English, he said, and so we had a good time helping each other with vocabulary and trying to navigate our way around all sorts of topics, including how glad (though guarded) we were that ETA has declared a perpetual cease-fire. Our Collins Spanish Language Survival Guide coped surprisingly well.
The session ended with our new friend encouraging the bar-man (an old friend of his!) to have us correct his English version of the menu. He handed it over with a flourish; he'd prepared it himself, he said proudly, with the help of a dictionary and the internet. It all went swimmingly until we got to "Ice-cream with hand-grenade"; we both smirked, and the poor bar-man looked crestfallen, even after we'd agreed that a "granada" , the fruit (pomegranate), does look very like a "granada", the hand-grenade - actually, we only found out about the pomegranate later; we guessed pineapple from his explanations - but, come to think about it, that looks like a grenade, too.We ended the night happily, though, and still friends.
Tomorrow, Andalucia!

More about Avila and the lowdown on St Teresa

When we'd had our fill of all this history and wildlife, we went in search of sustenance of a more
culinary kind.
By now, it was evening, and we know that the Spanish eat late, so we walked a bit more, aiming to get to somewhere suitable by around 10:00 p.m. On the way we encountered, in the darkness of the streets below the walls, a marching band. They were playing a wild tune in a minor key on cornets and drums, practising for the Semana Santa Easter Week processions that will happen from Palm Sunday to Good Friday. they may also have been thinking about St Teresa, Avila's most famous holy person. Well then, at last we found a likely looking place to eat, el Portalon ; there was a big family group already tucking into their meal and drinks at the back of the old fashioned wood-panelled bar/dining room.
We went in, we sat down, we asked if we could we could eat ...... we were led downstairs to the very formal and empty restaurant!
It took a good ten minutes, with the help of our phrase book and hand signals, to explain that we wanted to eat where there was more company and that we didn't mind if all that we could get
upstairs was tapas, rationes or combinationes; no 3 course meals up there. Once he understood, the waiter was fantastically helpful. He served us as he cooed over the toddler who was with the family party. Now that he had us weighed up. he avoided speaking English, but led us through the Spanish menu, making us repeat after him what it was we wanted after, and checking our pronunciation as we went. We had an excellent meal and a memorable evening. We returned to
our hotel where, to our amusement, the bedrooms turned out to be hardly soundproof at all!
April 7th. We checked out, smiling sweetly at the demure couple who passed us in the lobby, and went to the little cafe across the road for a breakfast of hot chocolate and churros. On the way back to the car, the waiter from last night passed us in the street; he stopped and asked us if we'd slept well, and Faith got a kiss on each cheek, while I got a manly handshake. Next stop, Almagro, home of Spanish theatre!
(By the way, thanks for adding comments, and no Glain and Mark - we weren't sick on the crossing!)

Lost in Spain!

It's Tuesday, April 11th and this is the first time that there's been an opportunity to get to the blog because we've been travelling for 5 of the last 7 days, and finding our way about for the last 2. I don't know yet if it's going to be possible to upload pictures from here; it's a very slow connection. So for now, it's text only!
The doughty Pride of Bilbao took us safely across the Bay of Biscay but, oh best beloved, not a whale or dolphin did we see! The wind blew at a steady force 5 to 7 and there was heavy weather in the deep waters of the continental trough, so Captain Macfadian decided to keep us "close in the lee of France" as we steamed ever southward. Your intrepid travellers spent the whole of a day up on the open top observation deck. We saw many excellent gannets and a most
awesome sunset. No whales, though.
And so we arrived in Bilbao early on the morning of April 6th and began our drive south. The first night was to be the mediaeval city of Avila, where we would
stay in a hotel that's a converted Synagogue. With its 1.4 litre engine, this new car that we have is a mite underpowered for hurtling down Spanish motorways, so we smiled at the faster vehicles as they zipped by as we bowled along, and we got there just the same. Eventually ...., not because of our speed, but because the map that we'd downloaded showed our hotel on the opposite side of the town from its actual location! We learned a lot of basic Spanish asking passersby in the maze of mediaeval one way streets where we'd find, "Reyes Catolicos y el Hospederia la Sinagoga, por favor". All were helpful, some volubly so and we got engaged in some very long and, let's be honest, one way conversations before we finally found the hotel.
What an amazing city Avila is. It's surrounded by almost complete, and very hefty, mediaeval walls punctuated by narrow posterns. Inside the cathedral is home to pigeons, sparrows, lesser ketrels and storks. In fact, every church tower is topped by at least one great bundle of sticks, and storks fly around among the roof tops or stand on their nests clattering their beaks.

Meditation and water

The nice young man from P and O Ferries just rang to check that we've remembered we're sailing this evening!

He assures me that winds are favourable (NE) and, anyway, the good ship Pride of Bilbao is a stabilised vessel.
This is a very good thing.
What's this, I hear you ask, surely that old salty dog isn't beginning to feel queasy? What happenned to the staunch piratical resolve, the grit, the sea-legs?


Nothing, nothing, I assure you, but I've just been re-reading the Voyage of the Beagle and it reminds me that when Charles Darwin wasn't chasing finches and fossicking on dry land, he was only able mumble raisins and dry biscuits between bouts of spewing over the side.

Just to be prepared, I'll go out now and buy some Kwells, ginger and those clever little acupuncture wristbands. England expects .....