The first day of a trip is always the hardest, right? You know, what with all the shuttling between airports and hotels and trains and buses. It´s just such a relief to get to your destination and not be subjected to the stressful occupation of managing timetables.
This is why breakfast on Saturday morning was so perfect. We were at the Hotel Continental in Tangiers, seated in an ornately decorated dining room with a view of the bustling port below. The walls were covered in painstakingly arranged geometric patterns, and the sheer variety of different shaped tiles spiraling across the expanse of the room was humbling in its beauty. The food was hardly material to the proceedings, as I spent more time just staring at my surroundings than I did focusing on the nuances of the croissant sitting in front of me. For any of you who don't know me, just remember that more than half of the posts in this blog are dedicated to descriptions of food in its many delicious forms, so for me to ignore it requires a rather sizable distraction, like, say, the dazzling piece of artwork that I was sitting inside. We finished at a leisurely pace, then headed downstairs for another day under the Tangerine sun.On the concierge´s recommendation, we headed out in search of the Kasbah and the legendary Cafe Hafa, which was supposedly Mick and Keith´s favorite hang out back in the day. We made our way through the warren-like allies of the Medina for half an hour, and finally had to ask a 7-year old kid to guide us out of the laberinth, up the hill to the Kasbah. When we arrived at the interior courtyard of the fortress, perched on the cliffs high above the Mediterranean, our little guide turned to us and said, "Give me money man!" By this point, all of us had definitely read the tour books about Morocco that stated that this was a common occurrence, but then again, it was only a kid. I gave him a dirham and he happily scampered away. As the weekend progressed, I would look back fondly on this incident, because all of the similar ones to come would see larger sums of dirhams changing hands under less innocent circumstances.
After a brief exploration of the museum inside the old fortress, we decided that it was high time to find this Cafe Hafa for an afternoon mint tea at the seaside. Not two minutes later, an unassuming man of roughly 40 emerged from an alley flanking the street on which we were walking. "What is it you look for? I take you there." When one of us let slip that our intended final destination was Cafe Hafa, he replied, "Sure, sure. Cafe on the wall? Famous cafe. Very famous, I can take you there, just follow me." Nick, one of the members of our group, flatly declined the man's advances, sensing some sort of trick. Not sensing any danger from the active man in front of me, I convinced Nick and the rest of the group to give him a chance. After following him for several blocks down, around, and through the dwellings near the north seawall, we arrived at the same spot where we had been standing not 5 minutes ago. That was it for Nick. "We're not going to follow you anymore. You don't know where Cafe Hafa is. We only want to go to Cafe Hafa, and not anywhere else." The man's response was as assured as ever, "Cafe Hafa, sure, sure, just follow me." Nick was having none of it. "We're not going to pay you any money, and we don't want to follow you because you're not going to take us to Cafe Hafa." Sensing that the game was up, our ostensible guide's face soured. He turned around in a huff, and faced me, the least "American" looking person in our group: "We are not criminals! Tell your American friends that we are not children! They do not know what they are doing!" I looked over to Nick, uncomfortable that he had singled me out as some sort of cultural ambassador, but more so because I had gotten us into the whole affair in the first place. Nick just shook his head, and we kept on walking.
Every block or so, one of us would ask a passing Tangerine if they knew where this supposedly venerable locale was, but we were met shrugs or people who would just swear that it was right over there. You know. Around the corner from that other place. In my time outside the United States, I have been forced to learn that giving good directions is not as heavily emphasized throughout the whole world. Spaniards, Costa Ricans, and now Moroccans all seem willing to help, but the problem is that they'll "help" even if they have no idea what so ever where your desired destination is located. This inevitably creates frustration for the lost tourist, and under that blinding mid-day sun, such feelings were considerably amplified. Just as we were about to call it a day and head home, we came upon a bespectacled man of about 30, wearing a sweater despite the raw heat radiating down from above. Nick asked him if he knew where Cafe Hafa was, and he nodded. Another person in the group then made it very clear that we would not be paying him anything for directions or guidance, but he shook his head slowly, stating in a mixture of Spanish and English that he was not a guide of anytime. Cautiously, we followed him down a sloping stone road, which then rose anew and turned the corner into a seemingly blind alley. "Oh great," I thought, "we just got played again...". But it was not to be. There, at the end of the alley, was a sign painted in faded light blue paint, denoting the establishment in front of us as none other than Cafe Hafa. Our guide bowed slightly, gracefully, and told us to enjoy. Feeling silly for my doubts, I put my hand on my heart and offered a hearfelt "Shookran", before turning around and entering.
There is a very, very good reason why Cafe Hafa is famous. Sure, there are cafes in Paris and Madrid and Rome with nice views of wide-open plazas, or ornate fountains, or charmingly narrow streets. Cafe Hafa, however, is in another category, location wise. Cafe Hafa's five levels hang like balconies directly over the Mediterranean itself, seamlessly integrated into the wall of the very cliff upon which they are built. Each terrace descends from the last one and holds a small collection of tacky plastic tables and chairs, shaded by crudely pruned trees. From that lofty perch, the panoramic view out onto the calm Mediterranean was impossibly expansive, stretching out to the distant horizon. Gusts of warm air found their way up the cliff face, buffeting the bright red Moroccan flag to the point that it was fully unfurled against the whimsical blue sky. The place was filled with a modest number of Moroccan men, young and old, all nursing glasses of steaming hot mint tea. Mint tea for Moroccans is like coffee for Argentines, or wine for Italians: that is to say, you best not get in the way of a Moroccan man and his tea. Up to that point, I still didn't see what the big deal was with mint tea; the cups that we had had the night before had been like drinking liquid rock candy. I gave the beverage in question the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps we had just been served a terrible example of an otherwise fine refreshment. Our group took a table in a relatively shaded corner, and I walked up to the top level to get our tea. A wizened old man took my order, and set to work preparing our tea with the relaxed perfection of movement that only comes from tens of years of practice. Something told me that this same man had once served a young Mick Jagger tea at this very same spot.When he had finished this ritual, for it can only be called that, he handed me the four piping hot glasses of minty infusion in a metal carrying rack. The loose mint leafs floated idly in the slightly brown liquid, and an ample amount of dissolving sugar crystals could be seen at the bottom of each glass. I arrived at the table and found that someone else at our table had ordered flatbread, olives, and an oily lentil soup. I nibbled at the marinated olives and dipped some of the hearty bread into the soup, waiting for my tea to reach a more drinkable temperature. To speed the process along and enhance the flavors too, I took to muddling the mint inside with my spoon, hoping that my knowledge of mojito-making would be applicable elsewhere. When I finally dared to bring the glass to my lips, I took a sizable sip and allowed the tea to sit in my mouth. There, as there was yesterday, was that hefty sugary presence, but here it was enshrined in a bewitching thrall of mint flavor, subtly accented by the minimal amount of black tea that was also part of the mix. Similar looks of pleasure popped up on the faces of the rest of the people in my group. Now it was quite apparent what all the hullabaloo was about. We stayed there for another two hours, lazily enjoying our tea, our snacks, and the rapturous breeze coming off the gently undulating sea below.
Compared with our walk to Cafe Hafa, the walk back was a relatively unassuming affair. Our only stop was a tiny hole in the wall bakery that enticed us to enter with its ample piles of delicious looking Mediterranean pastries. My eyes took to the usually skimming, quickly attempting to ascertain if the target in question was present in the glass case before me. A glistening pile of honey soaked triangle confirmed my suspicions. There they lay. I asked the man behind the counter how much they cost. His response was better than I ever could have hoped. I asked for 5 pieces, and slid my 10 dirhams (roughly $1) across the counter in return. I hastily unwrapped my recently acquired baklava and went to work. In a matter of minutes, all I had to show for that well-spent dollar were lips covered in pieces of phylo dough and walnuts and fingers saturated with sticky honey. Nothing like some fresh, in-house baked goods to really make an afternoon. As we walked back to the hotel, we passed no less than six bakeries. To my surprise, each bakery had a similar pile of golden triangle, all made in the very same way. It would appear that they all bought their baklava from the same whole seller. "Well," I thought to myself, slightly bitter, "there goes that whole fantasy of finding 'artisan baklava' made from some forgotten recipe. I suppose I should have known better." I would have stayed bitter for a little bit longer, but as I bit my lip in frustration, I tasted some of the recently departed honey that had remained there. A slight smile broke out on my face. "Authentic" or not, I guess it's just impossible to be unhappy when you've just eaten that much good baklava.
After a lengthy afternoon siesta and uneventful dinner, we made it back to the hotel, worn out from the long day. I proposed watching a movie before bed, which pretty much limited it to the one DVD that I had remembered to bring along with me: Wedding Crashers. Now, nothing could have been further away from our current situation than the travails of a duo of mischievous, maladjusted, yet good-natured divorce attorneys scheming to run away with two of the Treasury Secretary's daughters, but it was just what we needed. I have found in my time abroad that a movie from home can carry you back in an instant, and for those two hours of run-time, you can feel the couch in a Stanford lounge under you or forget that outside the window next to you lays some strange and foreign land. Given the decided lack of profundity involved in the movie in question, it was nevertheless amazing that all of the weariness of travel, all the slight tinges of homesickness, all the cultural mishaps of the day melted away as we laughed ourselves silly, enjoying that brief journey back home by way of a most unlikely vehicle.
The following morning we had made plans to grab a bus to town named Chefchaouen roughly 150 km away. Chefchaouen's name was derived from the local language's term for "twin horns", and was so called because of the two mountain peaks that rose up behind the town square. However, when we made it to the hotel's front door, we heard a rather unwelcome sound outside my window. It was raining, and hard at that. Perfect timing. Momentarily stalled by our feelings of disappointment, we didn't notice a stout, round looking man with intense beady eyes approaching us. "Tell me your zip code!", he bellowed in heavily accented English. His jovial demeanor combined with such an odd request left us staring at him, unsure of what to do. "Your zip code. In the United States? What is it?" I mustered up the wherewithal to say 708. "Chicago!" Not bad, I though, but that's a pretty big city, easy enough to memorize. My doubts were vanquished in the next 30 seconds, as he deftly named the home towns of my other three friends, as well as a random additional assortment of American cities, with only the zip code to go by. The man introduced himself as Jimmy, and launched into a non-stop, rapid fire discourse on the relation between Morocco and the US (Morocco was the first country to recognize the US in 1777). He was very physical, grabbing shoulders at various points for emphasis. After several minutes of being caught in a veritable whirlwind of this burly man's excited pronouncements, we managed to make our way outside into the rain. What a character.
We ran out into the rain, which was roaring in off the sea, carried by vast, steel grey clouds. We made our way down a treacherously slippery switchback and down to the taxi cab turnaround. We had to get to the CTM terminal at thus bus station downtown, roughly five minutes away. A similar journey the night before had cost 15 dirhams, so we were surprised when the first driver demanded 30 dirhams. Nick refuted his offer and moved to next car in line. Before we could get there, the spurned first driver yelled something in Arabic to the second driver. I caught the word "Americans", but everything else was lost in the rain. The second driver rolled down his passenger side window and stated that it would cost us 40 dirhams to get to the CTM terminal. The first driver cast us a satisfied, mean-spirited smile from beneath an alcove across the street. It was just then as I was looking at him, thinking of a choice stream of invective to launch in his general direction, when I saw a giant CTM logo plastered on the building against which the first driver was leaning. Here, right on this corner, not 20 feet from the taxi cabs, was a secondary terminal for our bus company. Not only had these ruffians attempted to price gouge us, but they would have taken us on a wild goose chase around the Medina before dropping us off where we started. I guess 40 dirhams isn't that much in the grand scheme of things, but it was more the idea that these "men" were attempting to prey on a portion of a population that they thought vulnerable: tourists. Having excoriated them adequately in my mind, I joined the group as we ran inside and bought our tickets for the ride to Chefchaouen. The cost per ticket? 40 dirhams. As we moved back outside to board the bus, I saw the two taxi drivers talking on the corner. I flashed them a particularly impish smile and climbed up the stairs onto the bus.
My momentary happiness was not to last. At the last stop before leaving Tangiers, a group of eight teenagers boarded our bus and sat in the two rows of seats in front of ours. Normally, there would be nothing at all wrong with this scenario, were it not for a seemingly marked peculiarity among Moroccan teenagers - they don't use headphones when they listen to their music. As a result, we were treated to several hours worth of terrible, dissonant Moroccan and French "rap" that sounded like somebody like a drunk a Peppy le Peu being rolled down a hill in a port o' potty. Just to add to the fun, a couple of them decided it would be great to (a) throw on some porn, (b) throw up all over the seat in front of them, and (c) have farting contests. I was very much ready to call them out on it, but then the rational side of my brain told me that I was not in America, I didn't speak their language, and the bus driver would inevitably side with them. I gave up on that idea, and decided instead to look out at the fast changing terrain of the Rif Mountains and accompanying valleys. It was almost pretty enough to make me forget that I was sitting in on a live show from dumbass and the seven dwarves. Almost.
Just before we arrive in Chefchaouen, a short, mustachioed main approached us in the back of the bus to ask us where we were from. When we stated that we were American, he paid his compliments to the Eagles for giving the world "Hotel California". As our conversation continued, he stated outright that he wasn't a guide, he had no interest in our money, and that he only wanted to make sure that we enjoyed his hometown that he was so proud of. We got off the bus and followed him to the Medina, figuring that nothing bad would become of it. His opening schpiel had been convincing, especially because he addressed all the normal points of contention. As we wound our way behind him, trying to keep up with his quick, determined steps, he explained that the famous blue coloration
of the buildings in Chefchaouen was due to a dried compound that was mixed in with the paint to fend of mosquitos (a week later I found that this is a fabrication - the buildings there are painted that color because of a Jewish exodus from Spain to that part of Morocco following the expulsion of the Jews from Spain in 1492). We continued walking up a hill towards the center of the Medina as he explained why he liked to show tourists around town: "I know that lots of Americans get ripped off by guides, taxi drivers, store owners, you know." Yes. Yes I do. "I want to show them that not all Moroccans are like that. Not all of us are trying to take your money. Then you can go tell your friends how we really are." His words were inspiring, given our recent experiences, and only emboldened our confidence in our new found guide.About 15 minutes later, our conversation turned to the many rugs and scarves that we saw hanging in the various stalls lining the narrow streets of the Medina. Mohammed (our guide), leaned in and told us in a conspiratorial tone that all of these were hugely overpriced, and that the only way to get a good price was to go to a carpet factory elsewhere in town. Yeah, yeah, laugh if you know where this one is going, but the way he slipped it in to the conversation made it seem much more mundane at the time. We rounded the corner and found ourselves in front of a small store front, where a merchant was waiting, welcoming us into the room. Mohammed encouraged us to enter, telling us how to greet the merchant properly in Arabic. The man, out of nothing but generosity, decided to allow us to tour the blanket weaving looms on the top floor of the shop. That feeling that you get when things aren't quite right amplified slightly in my head. I turned back and scrutinized Mohammed. He seemed to sense what I was thinking, and replied: "There's no pressure to buy anything. It's just a tour. If you want to leave, you can." His open demeanor was just reassuring enough that it caused me to ignore my gut. We climbed the stairs and entered the room where a jolly old man in a cleanly pressed shirt was busy at work hand weaving a carpet on an ancient looking loom. The dexterity with which he threw the shuttle across the bed of threads was really impressive. Mohammed gestured for one of us to stand next to the craftsman, inside the loom.
I was first in line, so I did so. As soon as I stepped in, I fell into a spell of amazement at the incredible skill of the man to my right. He smiled good naturedly and even helped me thread a small section of a blanket. Everyone was laughing and smiling, enjoying the chance to have found such a random, unique experience not a half hour after getting off of the bus. When the demonstration was over we headed back downstairs. That's when all the little (OK, fine, blatantly obvious in hindsight) hints clicked: I saw a tray of mint tea, the beverage of hospitality and business negotiations, sitting on the small table in the middle of the room. As we were ushered to our seats, the shop owner opened with his well-rehearsed sales pitch, being sure to include those golden buzzwords for American tourists: "heritage", "cooperative", "artisan", "hand-crafted". At presentations end, I told Mohammed that I was not interested in buying anything, as did Steph, the one girl in our group. Mohammed played his role as the good cop perfectly, stating that that was not a problem at all. Every time the carpet seller's offer grew to persistent or expensive, Mohammed would do us the "favor" of having him reduce the price for "the students". The shop-owners air was always graceful and accomodating, but there was an unmistakeable undercurrent of less generous sentiments that I couldn't quite put my finger on. This was a well-orchestrated game that had clearly been well practiced for many years. I took solitude in knowing that Mick Jagger probably did the same song and dance at least once in his time in Morocco. The last two members of our group finally bargained two scarves down to an only slightly inflated price, and we finally escaped from the shop.
After a fine meal of delicious apricot almond beef tagine (a cooking method for meat involving a special type of clay pot), and a short walk around the town square, we headed down to the bus station in order to buy our return tickets to Tangiers. When we got there, we found to our dismay that the CTM office was closed, and all that remained in terms of transportation companies was the one housed in a tiny closet, presided over by a greasy, skinny man sitting behind a desk crowded with stacks of papers. I walked up to him, opening my questioning in Spanish. In Morocco, that's a preservation mechanism; if you open in English, you're usually asking to be taken advantage of. I asked him how much the tickets would be for the 7PM bus back to Tangiers. He told me that it would be 55 dirhams, but I had anticipated his bald faced lie. Before I started talking with him, I had studied the sheet on the wall to my left that detailed the exact prices to be charged for each route. Our tickets should have been 36 dirhams. When I confronted him with this information, he barely flinched: "It's a supplement. You have to have a supplement." I asked him why in a patient tone that belied my anger. His only response was "It's a supplement. You have to have a supplement." He was running the only show in town, and he knew that he had us at his mercy. We would have to get a far more expensive taxi back to Tangiers if we weren't going to play his game. Just wanting to be home at this point, we decided to ante up with the extra dirhams and buy our tickets.During our time waiting for the bus, the question came up as to if this sort of small scale price scamming was OK on the part of third world inhabitants at the expense of first world travelers. On one hand, it was stealing, plain and simple. On the other, what was being taken was a pittance. I wouldn't want for food should I find myself with 20 less dirhams. Maybe some of these people, or their families, would. But could an unethical act like this be defensible merely on the grounds that it wasn't too much of a bother to those being robbed? It had certainly felt like a bother, all the calculating gazes and clear grafts that we had run into today, all the times we'd been played. Maybe it wasn't just the money involved, it was the sense that one was being used, lied to, tricked, like some object of amusement and financial gain. One person in our group opined that it was just something to be accepted: you were going to pay the unspoken "tourist tax" no matter what, so why not just factor it into your budget, and go on enjoying your trip? It was a reasonable suggestion, but the string of recent scams made it a bitter pill to swallow.
Two hours later, when the bus finally arrived at the bus lot, we quickly moved to the doors to board. We grabbed chairs near several groups of older, quieter looking people, having learned our lesson earlier that day. Just as the bus was about to leave, a group of twenty year old men boarded the bus. They were carrying drums. I turned to Steph and our eyes opened wide, bracing for part two of the Tangiers-Chefchaouen traveling circus. Our friends did no disappoint. They banged their drums vigorously and without any sense of rhythm, and slurred drunken chants in Arabic, interspersed with awkwardly out of place lines from famous American rap songs. If you've read T.S. Eliot's "The Wasteland", then perhaps I can accurately communicate to you the unfortunate nature of the situation. Think of the fifth section, "What the Thunder Said", and you'll get a pretty good grasp of what it was like being on that bus: noise without music, no respite, no release.
In an attempt to drown out the waves of sound emanating from the backseat denizens behind me, I began talking with Steph about a concept that I had recently thought of: the home meter. It was actually a unit of measurement. Distance wasn't the qualifier, but instead a decreasing sense of feeling at home in each successive place farther away from home. For example, at that point in time, we were in Chefchaouen, which was a trip away from Tangiers, our base for the weekend, which was a trip away from Madrid, our home for the quarter, which was a transatlantic flight away from Stanford or Chicago. That would mean that I was three home-meters away at that point in time. As our discussion continued, the bus barreled along towards Tangiers, doing its best to decrease our home meter counts to 2.
We got back to the hotel, exhausted, half-deaf, and tired beyond measure. After a long day of financial hooliganism, we could finally just sit in peace in our hotel room, and find sanctuary enjoying the good-natured banter in "Wedding Crashers" between Rachel McAdams and Owen Wilson as they talked together on the sea shore. The sound of the waves behind them was tranquil and rhythmic, their voices low, but assured. Pretty soon one of the guys in our group was asleep, snoring peacefully. I sat there on the bed in room 315, and savored the quiet. On my bedside table were a pair of five dirham coins. I picked one of them up and examined it silently. Was it worth getting riled up over this? This was a vacation, after all. Money gets spent, but that's just part of the deal. The important things to focus on are, and always have been, the hours on the terraces at Cafe Hafa and all the other hours and minutes and moments like them.
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